“You have any fresh flowers?” Seth asked, handing what he could to Frank and lifting up a bottle of perfume to take a whiff.
“You doing some courting, Doc?” Frank asked, pulling a bunch of half-dead tulips out of a tall tin can and rolling them in paper.
“Think I’m too old for that sort of thing?” Seth asked. Frank probably thought anyone over thirty had one foot in the grave. Still wet behind the ears, he’d probably lose his breakfast if he knew that his mother had come to see Seth yesterday afraid she was carrying again. No doubt he thought his mother and father had ceased to carry on as soon as his younger sister was conceived.
“Not at all,” Frank said politely. “I’m sure the widow Draper will appreciate—”
“Helen Draper? What’s Helen—” and then he realized what Frank meant. “I’m not seeing Mrs. Draper,” he said softly. It had been months since he’d seen Helen. At least in that way. She’d come to see him with a cough in February and he’d prescribed a tonic for her. In March she’d had a splinter in her foot he’d had to remove. She’d offered to make him a home-cooked meal and he’d put her off.
“Really? She must be disappointed about that. Who’s the lucky lady?” Frank asked, as if it were any of his business.
“These things look like they’re for an old lady?” he asked, pointing at the array of things he’d collected as they lay on the counter. Helen Draper would like all of them. “Maybe you’ve a point there. You happen to have a prospector’s pick?” he asked. “And a small shovel?”
Frank’s eyes widened.
“And that two-seater you’ve got in the window—that tandem bicycle? I’ll take that, too.”
Frank’s jaw dropped.
“Problem?” he asked the shopkeeper.
“Oh, no, sir!” Frank responded. “I’ve got the shovel out front and the pick down in the storage cellar,” he said, his voice trailing behind him as he raced hither and yon collecting everything that Seth wanted.
And then Seth spotted it. He grabbed the flowers in one hand and the little bauble in the other and hurried past Frank on his way out.
“Charge this, too,” he said, showing him the trinket as he nearly raced down the steps. “And send everything over to my office when you’ve got it all together. Put the food in the kitchen, would you? If you don’t mind?”
Seth was out of breath when he barged into the Herald’s office shouting Abby’s name as if he’d just discovered a cure for some rare and awful disease.
She was resting in the back room when she heard him call.
“She here, Ansel?” she heard him ask. “Abby? You here?”
Ansel must have gestured toward the back room because suddenly he was there, crouching beside her, holding out to her a glass ball with the world afloat in it. He shook it in front of her face. Inside the sphere, the globe spun slowly and little flakes of snow danced around it.
“The world upside down,” he said, handing the globe to her. “Just the way you see it.”
“Do you never get tired of making fun of me?” she asked.
“I’m not making fun of you,” he said, putting a bouquet on the desk in front of her. “I’m showing you that I see what you see—the world the way you want me to see it.”
She fingered the dying tulips.
“And I wanted to say I’m sorry about yesterday. I had a medical emergency.”
She looked up at him, wanting to believe that was what had kept him away.
“My patient spent the day heaving,” he said. “By the time the idiot could sit and hold his head up it was after three. By the time he ran to the grange hall everyone was gone.”
“Why did he run to the grange hall?”
“There was someone very important he wanted to meet. Someone he didn’t want to disappoint, ever again.”
“I see,” she said, a flicker of hope licking at her heart. “And he didn’t know where this person lived?”
“Worse! The fool was too chicken to go there! You see, he’d have to apologize for missing their appointment, and for missing church, as well, and the reverend—did I mention the reverend was her father? Well, the reverend isn’t too partial to this patient, and the patient didn’t think he’d get the chance to apologize correctly, the way she—did I mention this was the woman of his dreams? Well, he thought she deserved better than the possibility of having her boots decorated with the remnants of his stomach.”
“The woman of his dreams?” she asked, her toes curling, her insides jumping. “Has this fool of a patient ever told her that?”
“Didn’t I tell you he was a fool?”
“Hey, Doc,” Ansel said, coming to stand in the doorway. There’s someone leaving a note on your office door.”
“Let ‘im,” Seth said, but Abby shook her head.
“Better go see who needs you,” she said softly.
“Will you come at lunchtime?” he asked, taking her hand in his, his blue eyes pleading with her to say yes. “So I can tell you all about how this fool patient expects to make it up to this girl? And maybe you can advise me about what to tell him. What it would take for a girl like, say you, for example, to forgive the idiot?”
“I think it’s Mr. Denton,” Ansel came back to the doorway to announce.
“Go,” she told him.
“Will you come at lunchtime?” he asked again, rising to his full height. “And dinner, too? He has a lot to apologize for.”
She smiled and he hurried past Ansel. She heard the bell over the door jingle as he left.
So it was true what they said about love … you did hear bells!
Life was beautiful, Seth thought as he got ready for Abby to show up. In the kitchen, where he and Abby and Sarrie had often shared meals when Sarrie was up to it, he set a fancy table, complete with a freshly laundered cloth he borrowed from his examining room.
Meticulously he arranged the plates so that every stain was hidden, a slight tear was under his water glass. He would have to remember to drink in only Abby’s beauty so she wouldn’t know he hadn’t had a tablecloth cleaned since Sarrie had passed away.
He almost set the table for three, he felt so strongly as if Sarrie was a part of his relationship with Abby. Memories flooded back of two giggling girls, of furtive glances, of whispers as he’d pass Sarrie’s room in just his pajama bottoms. He remembered once just before Sarrie had taken to her bed for the last time, putting his arms around both of them, and the strange feeling that coursed through him at the feel of Abby’s body pressed against his side.
“Seth?” he heard her voice out in the office, heard the fear in it that he had let her down again.
“Out in the kitchen,” he called quickly. He looked around. Things looked nice, welcoming. It was a good place to say he was sorry. A good place to start anew.
She stood in the doorway as if she were afraid to step over the threshold.
“Remember when you and Sarrie used to bake me cookies and you’d drag me back here between patients to eat them?” he asked.
“You were very good about that,” Abby admitted. “Even if you hated it, you never let Sarrie and me know.”
“I never hated it. Tea with you two was the highlight of my week,” he admitted. “I never told you two that, did I?”
“The highlight of your week! Oh, yes, I’m sure! We knew you had better things to do than sit sipping tea with us and—”
“I wish we’d done it every day,” he said, meaning every word.
Abby looked sad and he wanted to kick himself in the ass. One more thing to add to his list of resolutions—never make Abby sad again.
“Do you still bake cookies? Or are you too busy at the paper?” he asked.
“Often I bake them on Sundays with Pru’s children, and sometimes with Suellen, too,” she said. “Lately we’ve been experimenting with baking crosses to give out on Easter. Well, not exactly give out. Jed is planning on throwing them down from his flying machine when he clears the church.”
“Abby,�
� he said, trying to warn her that the likelihood of Jed’s flying over the church was as great as his ever attempting brain surgery in Eden’s Grove.
“I know, but crosses are as good to eat as any other shaped cookies,” she said. “And when they throw them out the window at me to see if they’ll do damage when dropped from a distance, at least they won’t hurt!”
“Well, next week do you think you might bake an extra batch for me and bring them on Monday for tea? I mean if you can take the time from the Herald?” he asked. He wanted her to know that he took her work seriously. He didn’t expect her to just drop everything to be with him, no matter how much he’d like to hear her say that.
“I baked several extra batches yesterday,” she said pointedly.
“I am really sorry about yesterday, Abby girl. But it was all your fault.”
“Mine?” He loved it when she lifted her eyebrow as if she were asking whether he really expected her to believe what he was saying.
“You were the reason I got drunk in the first place, running around the county with Frank Walker until all hours of the night….”
She said nothing, just stood there looking so lovely he could hardly breathe.
“And about that night,” he said, dancing his way around an apology, “I think I said some things that were highly inappropriate.”
Hard as it was to believe, she was even lovelier when she blushed.
“I did then, huh? I was hoping it had all been some sort of hallucination. Not the kiss, mind you, but …”
She fiddled nervously with the button at her neck.
“I really had no right,” he said, “being drunk and all. And the truth of it is, watching your hand playing with that button of yours, stone cold sober, I’m having trouble not doing it again.”
“Maybe we should eat lunch,” she said, a bit of a titter in her voice.
He smiled, watching its effect on her and loving every moment of it. “What did you bring?”
She looked at him blankly.
“For lunch?” he reminded her.
“Me? You invited me to lunch, remember?”
Talk about a lovesick fool. He’d set the table, he’d put the out-to-lunch sign on his door. What had he supposed they’d feast on—other than each other? He thought about what he had in his ice box—a pitcher of milk, a half dozen eggs, and a little leftover ham that Mrs. Youtt had brought by. She was still trying to thank him for taking care of Johnny. And he thought she was feeling a little guilty about the vote.
“Wait!” he said. He picked through the carton that Frank had left in the corner. “Aha! Oranges, ma chérie. And chocolates for dessert. And a leek for the main course?” he asked jokingly, holding one up.
Abby took off her coat and rolled up her sleeves. “Fine luncheon you’ve invited me to, Dr. Hendon,” she said as she found an apron in the bottom drawer and tied it about her tiny waist. “Inviting me to make my own meal.”
He leaned against the counter and watched her rifle through his cabinets, his ice box, his larder. She murmured about omelettes and soufflés and quiche Lorraine. Pans and bowls and wire things he had no idea what to do with materialized on his counter. And a slow, self-satisfied smile crossed his lips. This was a glimpse of the future, and it was his.
She had the oven heating and was examining the knives in his block when he came up behind her. Reaching around her, he slid the meat knife from its holder and handed it to her. “You know you really have to be careful with knives,” he said, her hair tickling his nose. “Maybe I better show you how it’s done.”
He reached around her, an arm on either side, his chin nearly resting on the top of her head. He put his hand over hers on the knife handle. “Like this,” he said, drawing the knife blade down the length of the ham.
He shifted his body and turned the ham to begin dicing it. He hoped that was what she wanted to do with it, because he wasn’t letting her go until it was in tiny pieces. With every stroke his inner arm brushed against her breast, and he hoped and prayed that the stupid bustle that was pressing against his groin hid from her the extent to which he was enjoying his cooking lesson.
“I need to cut the leeks,” she said, but as she turned to get them, he trapped her in his embrace.
“Isn’t cooking together fun?” he asked her.
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Her breathing was rapid, her chest rising and falling against his own.
“I always knew you liked to cook, but now I see why,” he said, taking the knife out of her hand and then lacing his fingers through hers.
“We cooked together once before,” Abby said, and he tried to remember when. It came to him sadly. It was the day before Sarrie died and they’d been frantically trying to make her some pudding, anything she might find easy to swallow.
“You were very good to Sarrie and to me,” he said, pressing against her until he knew he had her trapped against the counter. “I wish I had been better to you. But then I have the rest of my life to try, right?” he asked happily.
He could see she was suspicious.
“I mean it. I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to devote myself to making you happy. I’m going to kiss … those … incredibly … soft …”
And then he was kissing her, and stone cold sober was better than any drunken kiss could ever have been. His senses reeled, his knees buckled. Like a starving man he lifted her and carried her to the table, pushing aside glasses and plates, not caring what fell to the floor or what broke, and set her down right on the table to feast his eyes upon.
His eyes were not enough, so he leaned over her and kissed her lips and fought with her shirtwaist until it gave in to his desires, and he opened it so that he could see the beauty that Abby had become. And once again, looking wasn’t enough so he bent to kiss her breasts, and touch, and taste, and wonder if he could ever get enough of her.
If the button of his cuff hadn’t gotten caught in her hair, he wasn’t sure he’d have ever looked up and seen the fear in her eyes, mixing with the pleasure he knew she felt. Too fast he told himself. You’re rushing her too fast.
He righted himself and carefully closed her shirtwaist, grateful that in his rush he hadn’t ripped it. When he had her covered, he eased her back on her feet and mumbled how sorry he was, how she did things to him, how being around her he got carried away.
“The leek,” he said, producing it and handing it over to her so that her hand came around it. Idiotically, he couldn’t seem to let it go—whether it was the sight of her hand wrapped around its stalk, or the knowledge that she was going to chop its shaft to little pieces, he continued to hold it. And she moved her hand up on it, circling it, completely innocent and unaware of the implications of his standing there in the kitchen with her, moving the leek back and forth, up and down, within the confines of her grasp.
“I better get some more firewood,” he said, hurrying to the door and opening it for a gulp of cool spring air.
“There’s plenty here beside the stove,” she called out to him, but he was halfway across the yard, walking oddly and praying for relief.
Later, when they were finished with lunch and she was washing the dishes, Seth came up behind her again. It was dangerous to turn her back on him, and she was obviously one of those women who enjoyed living dangerously.
“Left hand or right hand?” he asked.
“What?”
“Would you rather have what’s in my left or my right hand?” he asked, obviously hiding something behind his back.
“Which one is better?” she asked.
“Left hand,” he said, but before he could pull it out she demanded what was in his right. “Why the right?” he asked.
“I know you’ll give me both and I want to save the best for last,” she said, trying to peek around his back.
“My article, then,” he said, handing it over to her.
“‘Pains of the Chest Region,’ “she read.
“I was careful to mention that r
acing hearts can be caused by factors other than disease,” he said, pointing to a paragraph near the end. “Like seeing someone half a block away, I think it was….”
“You did not put that in there, did you?” she asked, searching the paragraph he’d pointed to.
In many instances, emotions can affect a body’s physical reaction. Just as embarrassment can cause blood to rush to the head and cause a person to blush, fear, anger, and sadness can all cause tremors within the chest cavity. It has been reported by some that pleasant emotions such as excitement, joy, and affection can also cause the heart to feel as if it is racing, and indeed it does temporarily affect the speed of the heart.
“I left out the part about holding my hand over your bosom to check the effect,” he said with a wink.
“You could have left it in,” she said with a shrug.
“And scandalized all your readers?” he asked, pretending to be shocked.
“Of course,” she said, knowing full well she would be the one to set the type and would have edited it out anyway.
“I’ll remember that next week when I do headaches. I’ll be sure to explain that when you’re sick with love you can give yourself a doozy of a headache with too much scotch and beer.”
At least, that was what she thought he said. It was hard to concentrate past “sick with love.”
“Don’t you want to know what’s in the other hand?” he asked and she tried to care, when the truth was that he had already given her, with just a few words, more than she had even dared to hope for.
He held out a pretty flowered box and lifted the lid for her. Inside was lovely pink stationery.
“For writing to Armand,” he said. Before her heart could sink too far, he added, “to say good-bye.”
“‘Dear Winnie’ says that it’s easy for a man to become too sure of himself, and that the minute he does—”
“I hear that she’s an old spinster who’s never even been kissed,” he said. “You want to take her advice, or mine?” He held the box out to her and waited patiently for her to take it.
Stephanie Mittman Page 14