The Kitchen Marriage

by Gina Welborn

  He followed and assisted her into the wagon. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she repeated with a smile—although it didn’t reach her eyes.

  And yet David still couldn’t breathe. She was far lovelier than a widow ought to be in a town of reprobates and heathens. For her safety, she needed to return to Minnesota. Or find a husband here.

  She gathered the reins and released the brake. “Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Pawlikowski. I’ll check back with you on the wheel next . . . um, soon.” She snapped the reins and the buckboard started forward.

  David pressed his lips together and rubbed the seam with his fingers, unsure if he should go after her or not. Mrs. Svenson was the most capable woman he’d ever met. And the most honest. If she said there was nothing wrong, she meant it. Besides, she was heading home. Being alone with her was the last temptation he needed.

  He picked up the wagon wheel and headed back inside his shop.

  * * *

  Marilyn held Archimedes to the slowest possible pace to lessen the wagon’s jostling while heading straight to Dr. Tolbert’s medical tent.

  Facts didn’t lie. Her cycle, while never regular, hadn’t visited since Gunder’s death. Between the shock of losing him so unexpectedly and the additional work around the homestead, she hadn’t noticed being overdue—hadn’t even thought about it—until the third wave of dizziness hit outside The Repair and Resale Shop. She’d already been in the bright sunshine, so the cause couldn’t be a change in light.

  There was a distinct possibility she was pregnant.

  However, Mr. Pawlikowski’s observations of her eyes were unreliable at best. Nor was there any substantive research in any of the journals she owned to verify Dr. Jacques Guillemeau’s theories about how a woman’s eyes changed when she was with child. The one other time dizziness had overtaken her was during her first pregnancy, which had lasted a mere seven weeks. Drawing a correlation between then and now was, at best, inconclusive.

  If she’d noticed her missed monthly, she would have conducted a wheat and barley experiment before riding into Helena. She’d thought it odd when she first read about how the Egyptians discovered that, by watering bags of seed with a woman’s urine, they could determine not only whether the woman was pregnant but also the sex of the child. The wheat and barley experiment had accurately predicted all her pregnancies, although she’d never carried a child long enough to know if she’d now be the proud mother of three boys and two girls. Had she done the experiment and one of the bags sprouted, she never would have risked a miscarriage by riding from her ranch to town for an hour over bumpy roads.

  She reined Archimedes to a stop outside the doctor’s tent.

  An inebriated miner stumbled through the canvas door flap and greeted her with a slurred, “How’r ya doin’ there, Mrs. Lady,” before wandering off in the direction of Prostitute Alley.

  Interesting how some men, when intoxicated, turned jovial, and others turned mean. Was it possible to test for the reason why? People were unique. Even those who shared the same circumstances were different because of their individual desires or interests. She had twin uncles, and despite being raised in the same household, they were as dissimilar as apples and pickles.

  Dr. Tolbert stuck his head outside the tent flap. “Well, hello, Mrs. Svenson.” He stepped into the sunshine to help her down from the buckboard. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I think I may be with child.” Her heart lifted saying the words aloud, but hope was a dangerous thing.

  The doctor’s auburn eyebrows lifted. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” she responded as was expected. The doctor didn’t know his felicitations were premature. She couldn’t afford to accept them into her heart. “I’m not certain of it yet. I was hoping you could examine me.”

  “You won’t be the first mother I’ve attended to.” He motioned to the tent flap. “Please.”

  She ducked inside the tent. As she looked around, she waited for the sight of a bloody towel to make her nauseous.

  Nothing.

  She peeled off her gloves and tossed them on a nearby chair, then set her reticule on top of them. As she untied her bonnet, Dr. Tolbert grabbed the red towel and shoved it inside a large barrel.

  He cleared the examination table of some bandaging. “I’ll need you to disrobe to your undergarments and lie down. I’ll wait outside until you’re ready.”

  Once he left the tent, Marilyn unbuttoned her dress, let it drop to her ankles, then worked to loosen the petticoat. Down to her bloomers, she stepped out of the circle of fabric and crossed to the wooden table, positioning herself as instructed. “I’m ready!”

  Dr. Tolbert reappeared. He stepped close to the table and placed his hands on her abdomen. “Yes, quite firm and a little rounded. How far along are you in this pregnancy?”

  “I’ll need to consult my calendar at home to be certain”—assuming she could find it, of course—“but I believe I know when I conceived. If I’m correct, I should be approximately eleven weeks.”

  Frowning, he pressed his fingers against her abdomen again. “Your uterus is almost rounded to your belly button. I’d say that puts you at closer to four months.”

  Four months? That wasn’t possible.

  “I’m certain I had a monthly cycle in April.” She remembered because of how late it had been—thirty-six days—and how, when it arrived, it had dashed her hopes.

  Dr. Tolbert stepped away from the table. “Some women have a bit of bleeding at the beginning of a pregnancy, which they mistake for a monthly. Most often it stops on its own, but sometimes it leads to a miscarriage.”

  Flutters of hope filled her breast. “Are you saying I might have suffered a near miscarriage but didn’t?”

  He nodded. “You seem to have a specific reason for asking.”

  “I’ve experienced five miscarriages, all before my twelfth week.”

  “I see.” In those two simple words she heard sympathy and maybe a bit of understanding.

  He couldn’t understand. He couldn’t truly know what it felt like to lose five children before meeting them. To wonder if they would have looked like Gunder or her, if they would have his persistence or her curiosity, and if they would grow up to go their own way or stay close to home. Few things made her cry, but if she dwelt too long on how much she and Gunder had wanted children, the tears flowed.

  “What forms of treatment have you tried?”

  The doctor’s question drew Marilyn out of her reflection. She ticked off the various—and useless—remedies on her fingers. “Lying supine with my hips elevated, an abdominal support belt, and bloodletting.”

  “I see.” This time those two words held no sympathy, no understanding. They conveyed that he knew something and dreaded telling her.

  “Doctor—” At his look, she bit back her question.

  He held out his hand and assisted her to a sitting position. “I’ll give you a moment to get dressed and then we’ll talk.”

  Marilyn waited for him to exit the tent before easing herself off the table and getting dressed. She replayed what the doctor had said about mistaking a bit of bleeding for a monthly. Other than being later than normal, was her last monthly unusual in any other way? She closed her eyes to concentrate. No. At least not enough for her to recall now.

  Tears prickled under her eyelids. A baby! And perhaps one she’d carried beyond the first three months. She opened her eyes and blinked until the sensation eased. “I’m ready,” she called loud enough for Dr. Tolbert to hear.

  He ducked back inside the tent, a frown just visible underneath his mustache. “Have you made any decisions about what to do with your homestead now that your husband has passed?”

  “As soon as head-of-household status is legally changed into my name, I intend on selling it and returning to Minnesota. That’s where Gunder and I have family.”

  Dr. Tolbert nodded. “I see. Although going back to Minnesota now is—�
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  “Out of the question,” Marilyn finished his statement.

  “Exactly. Too risky in a normal pregnancy, let alone for someone who has had five miscarriages. In fact”—he rubbed his hands together like he was washing them—“I don’t think it’s wise for you to ride back to your ranch.”

  Marilyn nodded. “I know.” She knew what he was saying and what he’d left unsaid. She knew the dangers of traveling while pregnant. She knew the dangers of being alone on her ranch, an hour away from civilization. She knew she needed a doctor to deliver her child.

  Most of all, she knew she couldn’t manage this pregnancy alone.

  If she managed not to miscarry again.

  Dr. Tolbert picked up a journal with a pencil acting as a place mark and jotted something down. “I’ll need to see you once a month and at any point if you sense anything unusual.”

  “Such as?”

  He paused. His brow slowly furrowed. “I have something that may interest you. Stay here for a moment.”

  As he left the tent to retrieve his mysterious item, Marilyn ran through her options as well as their various merits and difficulties. Her goal had been to change head-of-household status, sell the homestead by October 1, and return to Minnesota with the aid of the first available trail master. Now, leaving Helena was impossible until March of next year at the earliest. She had to think of her baby’s safety. And even then, she was limited to when someone could escort her across Dakota Territory.

  Unless she had a miscarriage—or the Union Pacific built a railroad from St. Paul to Helena practically overnight—she faced nine months minimum of living in Helena.

  Quite ironic, given the circumstances.

  What was she supposed to do before she was able to sell the homestead? Without her there, squatters could take over in the two months before Mr. Forsythe could secure her head-of-household status, and once squatters were entrenched, it would be difficult to establish what improvements were hers and which were theirs. The legal hassle and expense to dislodge squatters made some people walk away from their claims without a penny in recompense.

  She needed Mr. Forsythe to work a miracle.

  Unwittingly, she touched her belly where, it seemed, God was working another miracle. A fragile one she needed to protect lest it end as all the others had.

  The option of hiring men to continue working the land, even just for two months, was foolish. It would have been risky even with her on hand to supervise. To leave them to their own devices was akin to throwing away gold.

  Another option was remarriage. Then she could keep the homestead she and Gunder had built. She’d wed a stranger before—although her parents had met Gunder a few times before agreeing to the marriage—so she knew it was possible for affection to grow over time. Since Gunder’s death, she’d received at least a hundred proposals.

  In her estimation, only two men in Helena were husband material. One was her lawyer, the other a self-avowed “not a marrying man.”

  Neither were homesteaders.

  Thus, neither were realistic options if—now that returning to Minnesota was impossible for almost another year—she wanted to keep the land. Both men were possibilities if she wanted to sell the homestead and settle down in Helena. Marilyn pondered that for a moment. Life in town? Not that Helena was much of a town yet. She could build a home here. Raise her child here. The thought didn’t seem so unappealing . . . if she found a suitable man to marry.

  Until she knew if Mr. Forsythe was truly the nice man he seemed—and he didn’t have a wife or fiancée back east—she’d need to sell whatever she could and pray no squatters took over her land. She also needed to find someone trustworthy enough to tend to her livestock and retrieve her gold-filled canning jars. She knew only one person for the last job.

  Too bad he wasn’t a marrying man.

  About the Author

  GINA WELBORN is the bestselling, award-winning author of nineteen inspirational romances. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America and American Christian Fiction Writers, and serves on the ACFW Foundation Board. Sharing her husband’s passion for the premier American sports car, she joins him in attending car shows across the country and in visiting the National Corvette Museum, of which they are lifetime members. Gina lives with her husband, three of their five children, several rabbits and guinea pigs, and a dog that doesn’t realize rabbits and pigs are edible. Visit her online at GinaWelborn.com.

  BECCA WHITHAM (WIT-um) Award-winning author, paper crafter, and Army wife, Becca currently resides in Virginia with her husband of over thirty years and a twelve-foot-long craft cabinet she thinks should count as a dependent. So far, neither the Army nor the IRS is convinced. In between moves from one part of the country to another, she writes stories combining faith and fiction that touch the heart. You can find her online at BeccaWhitham.com.