The Bride of Willow Creek

by Maggie Osborne

  He slammed the beer bottle on the table hard enough that the reverberation must have hurt his injured hands, then headed for the back door. When he didn’t see his favorite hat on the hooks, he swore, then pushed one of the donated hats on his head.

  “I’m going to the Gold Slipper. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Angie sat at the table until very late, remembering everything that had happened since she had arrived in Willow Creek. The tears and the laughter. The disappointments and the joys. Eventually she dropped her head into her bandaged hands.

  She loved him. Loved him as deeply as she had known she could way back when she had first met him. She loved the look of him and the sound of his voice. Loved the gentleness in his gaze when he smiled at his daughters. She loved him for meeting life head on, for his thoughtfulness and dependability. She loved it that he could make her laugh. She even loved his stubborn, hard-to-understand sense of personal honor.

  And she loved Lucy and Daisy. Laura had given her daughters to Sam, but Laura must have known that someday another woman would step into Sam’s life and into the lives of her daughters. There had been moments while Angie lived in Laura’s house that she had fancied she felt Laura’s gentle approval.

  And now Sam and Lucy and Daisy were her family, too. Oh Lord. How could she live without them?

  The two weeks until Daisy’s operation passed in the blink of an eye. Although neither Sam nor Angie trusted banks, Angie had seen what could happen to money in jars. She put the two thousand dollars in the Willow Creek bank. Mr. Kravitz, bless his heart, set aside previous orders to make Daisy a new pair of shoes, and he threw in a new pair for Lucy because “the poor little burned-up girl needs a treat.”

  After ten days of healing, the dressings came off the girls and off her hands and Sam’s. The new skin was raw pink and tender to the touch, but at least Angie could do most of her housework and cooking, and she could write thank-you notes to the many people who had given them the things they needed to make a fresh start.

  The high point of the period was a visit from Molly and Can. Molly brought new fashionable hats from Denver for Angie and the girls, and an ivory-handled razor and new strop for Sam. Angie spent a wonderful afternoon hearing about Denver and big-city wonders, and she cried at the depot when Molly and Can left.

  The hardest part of the two weeks was when Sam’s back healed enough that he could sleep in a borrowed cot. Angie tossed and turned in the darkness listening to him breathing on the other side of the small parlor, and she longed for him. Hoped he would cross the chasm that separated them.

  But Sam didn’t touch her, didn’t accidentally brush against her, spent as much time in town as he had when he was working. At mealtimes he teased the girls and maintained a running line of chatter, but he seldom addressed a comment or question to Angie, seldom looked at her directly. In the evenings he went to the Gold Slipper and didn’t return until he thought Angie was asleep. If he knew that she was awake and watching him undress in the moonlight, he didn’t say so.

  It did nothing to halt Sam’s withdrawal when a boy arrived from the Sylvan Saloon just as they were sitting down to noon dinner. When Sam answered the knock at the door, the boy asked for Angelina Bertoli, then informed her that she had a telephone call down at the saloon. Someone was calling her all the way from Chicago.

  Silently Sam fetched her hat, cape, and gloves, then went back to his dinner. When Angie returned from town, Sam was gone and Abby was sitting with Daisy and Lucy.

  Finally the big day arrived. Bags were packed, the house closed. The Muellers, Morgans, and Churches came to the depot to see them off and wish Daisy good luck. After the last-minute flurry of boarding, the girls hung out of the windows, waving as the train hissed and puffed and rolled away from the depot.

  “Is it going to hurt?” Daisy asked after they were under way and everyone had settled into the wooden seats. She gripped Angie’s hand and gazed up with large gray eyes.

  “You’ll be asleep during the operation. But yes, honey, I imagine it will hurt afterward. Nothing a brave girl like you can’t handle though.”

  “You and Papa will be there every minute? You won’t leave?”

  “We’ll be there during your surgery. I promise.”

  “They’re going to cut Daisy’s leg with a big knife, aren’t they?” Lucy asked from Angie’s other side.

  Sam sat directly in front of them, and the way he held his head told Angie he was listening.

  “I think the knife is very small and very precise.”

  Daisy swallowed hard, her small pale face framed by the straw brim of her new hat. “Am I going to die?”

  “No, darling, of course not. The doctor has performed this operation many, many times.” She hoped that was true. “You’ll sail through this just fine. And after you heal, you’ll have a new straight leg and foot.”

  Trembling, Daisy pressed her face against Angie’s side. “I’m scared.”

  “I know you are. I would be, too. But when it’s all over, you’ll be so happy.”

  “But she could die, couldn’t she?” Lucy leaned across Angie to stare at Daisy. “Missy Hamlin’s brother died during an operation to remove his spendix.” She looked up at Angie. “A spendix is right here.” She poked her stomach.

  “Daisy is not going to die,” Angie said sharply, giving Lucy a be-quiet look. Which Lucy ignored.

  She stretched an arm to shake Daisy. “If you die, can I have the red petticoat the church ladies gave you?”

  “Lucy!”

  “Daisy wouldn’t need it anymore.”

  “Sam?” Frantically, she looked at the head in front of her and saw his shoulders shaking. At first she thought he was weeping, and that shocked her. Then she realized he was laughing. “Sam Holland, I could use some help here.”

  “You’re doing fine,” he said in a strangled voice.

  Daisy leaned across Angie to speak to Lucy. “If I die, you can have my red petticoat, but that’s all. Anything else that’s mine should go to the poor children.”

  “I’m your sister! You should give everything to me. Isn’t that right, Angie?”

  Narrowing her eyes, she watched Sam lean over his knees and raise a hand to his mouth.

  She’d begun their reunion by hitting him. At this moment she itched to end it the same way.

  But she couldn’t bear to think about ending it.

  Chapter 21

  Sam hired a carriage to take them from the train depot to the Colorado Springs hospital. Willow Creek gold had built Colorado Springs. This was where most of the Willow Creek millionaires came to build their fine mansions and insist on paved streets, electric streetlamps, good schools, and theaters and dining establishments to rival any in the world. In Sam’s mind, if the Colorado Springs hospital was good enough for a millionaire’s child, it was good enough for his Daisy.

  But he disliked the hospital immediately—the powerful odors, the crisp air of impersonal efficiency. He particularly disliked the children’s ward. Rows of small forms lay beneath impossibly white sheets that looked too stiff and perfectly folded to be comfortable for a child.

  Pacing in a small waiting room, he thought about the operating theater he’d been shown, and the ward filled with pale, silent children. He had focused on this day for nearly three years, but now that the day had arrived, he wanted to scoop Daisy into his arms and carry her away from what lay ahead.

  Angie placed herself in front of him. “It’s the right thing, Sam,” she said gently, as if she’d read his mind. “She’ll be fine. And when it’s over, she’ll be able to walk and run and play like other children.”

  “I’d give twenty years of my life to spare her the pain,” he said in a low voice. “Damn it!”

  “I know.” Her fingers tightened on his arm as a nurse approached them. “But your pacing is frightening Lucy. It might help if you’d pretend to be cheerful.”

  He couldn’t think of one thing to be cheerful about. He was out of work, his ho
me had burned to the ground, his daughter was about to undergo a difficult and painful operation, and his wife would leave him in a matter of days.

  Every time he looked at Angie, a sharp pain invaded his heart. She was so much a part of him that he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

  But he couldn’t imagine a life for her with him, and that was the problem. It might as well have been ten years ago. If her father had been alive, Bertoli would have pointed out that Sam was no more successful now than he had been then. He had nothing to offer a wife but a hardscrabble life, and what woman wanted that? Not a woman with Peter De Groot eager and waiting.

  She’d asked if he wanted to know what she had said to De Groot when De Groot telephoned her. Sam had said no and walked away. Now a dark need to torture himself made him wish he’d listened.

  “You may go inside,” the nurse informed them.

  Daisy looked tiny and frightened, swallowed by the long white bed. Whenever one of the other children moaned in the large, unnaturally silent room, she looked around with wide eyes and the color bled from her cheeks.

  Even his irrepressible Lucy was reduced to whispering. “How do you feel?” she asked Daisy, staring at the hospital gown.

  “Nothing’s happened yet,” Daisy whispered back.

  For the next several hours they sat around Daisy’s bed, talking in low voices, watching Daisy eat a sparse liquid supper, struggling to keep the conversation light and cheerful. When a nurse appeared to douse the lights in the children’s ward, it was almost a relief to be chased outside.

  “That’s the most depressing place I’ve ever been.” Even the smell of manure at the cabstand was more pleasant than the odors inside the hospital. Sam handed Angie and Lucy into a cab and sat across from them, glad to be relieved of the chore of acting cheerful.

  Lucy sat on the edge of the seat, hands clasped tightly in her lap. “I’m afraid for Daisy,” she said in a teary voice.

  Sam watched Angie place an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and hold her close. He wouldn’t be the only one to miss this woman. Anticipating the girls’ devastation was almost as painful as his own sense of impending loss.

  “We’ll take our mind off worrying by having a lovely dinner at the hotel,” she said. “And then, we’ll sleep on a bed as soft as a cloud. The hotel has beds stuffed with goose feathers.”

  “What is our bed at home stuffed with?” Lucy asked, interested.

  “I don’t know, something stiff and crackly. But you’ll sleep like an angel tonight.”

  Raising her head, she met Sam’s eyes, and he knew the night ahead would be as long and sleepless for her as it would be for him. With all his heart, he wished they could hold each other and find comfort in each other’s arms.

  But he had vowed not to touch her again.

  Pride stopped him from acting on his longing. He didn’t want her in his bed because she understood his worry and pitied him. Worse, he suspected her heart had turned toward Chicago. It made him wild inside when he remembered that she was destined to be another man’s wife.

  Turning a brooding stare to the window, he chewed a fingernail and promised himself not to forget his vow no matter how deep his need for her.

  He reminded himself again while he was having a drink in their sitting room, listening to Angie and Lucy laughing and splashing in the hotel room’s bathroom. When they emerged, wearing wrappers, their hair swathed in white towels, he inhaled the scent of roses, a fragrance he would always associate with Angie.

  “Papa?” Lucy halted on her way to the bedroom she and Angie would share. “Are you mad about something?”

  He caught her under the arms and swung her in the air, then brought her close to his chest in a hug. “Just tired. Come on, I’ll towel your hair and comb it, then tuck you into bed.”

  When he returned to the sitting room, Angie was seated beside an open window, letting the cool night air dry her long hair. If Sam had been a painter, he would have painted her as he saw her now: eyes closed, head turned to one side, drawing her fingers through long strands of damp hair. A hint of cleavage showed at the opening of her wrapper and made him swallow hard. The intimacy of seeing her with her hair down, wearing a wrapper, her feet bare, created an ache behind his ribs.

  “Autumn is in the air,” she said, opening her eyes. “The trees are starting to change color.”

  She had come to him in the spring like a bright leaf that would fly away in the fall.

  “Would you like a drink? It might help you sleep.” If he stared at her another minute, he would embarrass them both by trying to kiss her.

  “Thank you.” She smiled and shook back her hair. “It’s funny. I didn’t used to like beer; now I prefer it and wish we had some.” When he lifted an eyebrow, she shook her head. “No, don’t ring for any. Whatever is on the cart will be fine.”

  “I thought I’d tell you my plans,” he said after giving her a splash of whiskey. “When I arranged for Daisy’s surgery, I also contacted an agent here in the Springs and asked him to find a house I can rent for the duration of Daisy’s recovery. The doctor says he’ll need to change her cast twice a week. When the doctor says Daisy is ready, I’ll buy a small place in Denver. I spoke to Can and my first job will be the Johnson mansion. My prospecting days are over. Whatever my future holds, I’ll find it in the building trade.”

  Angie looked down at her folded hands. “And now you want to know my plans.”

  “If you’d like to tell me.” He tried to look as if he didn’t really care. Tried to pretend that a clock wasn’t ticking in his head, counting down the minutes left to them.

  “I’d like to stay a day or two until we know for certain the operation was successful and that Daisy is doing well.”

  “Daisy would like that.” This conversation tore his heart out.

  “I might as well leave from here.” Shifting on her chair, she gazed out the window at the night sky. “Everything I need to travel, I have with me.” After a pause, she drew a breath. “I’d like to stay in touch with the girls, Sam. I’d like to write them occasionally, if you don’t mind.”

  He hesitated, thinking what it would do to him when the letters started arriving from Mrs. Peter De Groot. On the blade of the knife plunged into his heart would be written her father’s words: You’ll never be successful, you’ll never amount to anything.

  “I have no objection,” he lied.

  “Well,” she said after a lengthy silence. Standing, she placed her empty glass on the cart, then looked at him with an expression he couldn’t read. When she finally said goodnight and turned away, he would have sworn tears glittered in her eyes.

  He dug his fingers into the arms of the chair and made himself stay seated until he heard her close the bedroom door, then he bent forward and dropped his head in his hands.

  He wanted her to say that she loved him. Wanted her to say there would be no divorce, that she would not leave him. He wanted her to tell him that she would rather live in a cottage with him than live in a palace with that bastard De Groot. That’s all he wanted. Just the impossible.

  “I’ll release the tight tendons and ligaments in the posterior and medial aspects of Daisy’s foot. We’ll repair them in the lengthened position. Some lateral ligaments may have to be released as well. I’ll make two incisions, a posteromedial incision and a lateral incision for the lateral structures.”

  Herb Govenor cleared his throat. “What happens after the surgery?”

  “It’s a long recovery program,” the doctor said, speaking to the four people anxiously standing before him. “We’ll recast Daisy’s foot twice a week for six weeks. Then she’ll wear a brace for another six weeks. If everything is as we hope it will be, for the next year she’ll wear the brace at night. And then,” he smiled, “she’ll be as good as new.”

  “But if she isn’t as good as new?” Sam asked.

  “Then I’ll go in again. It’s possible I’ll have to trim some bone. Right now I don’t think that will happen. But
it could.” He addressed the next remarks to Sam and Angie. “Clubfoot is a treatable deformity and I’ve performed this operation dozens of times. Your daughter will come out of this with a plantigrade and flexible foot.”

  “What does ‘plantigrade’ mean?” Angie couldn’t force her voice louder than a whisper.

  “It means that Daisy will stand on the sole of her foot, not on her heel or the outside of her foot.” The doctor glanced at his pocket watch. “Are there any other questions?”

  “How long will the operation take?” Winnie asked.

  “Two and a half to three hours.”

  “One more.” Angie tried to speak louder, but couldn’t. “How much pain will she be in? Afterward.”

  “I’ve ordered that she be given morphine. She’ll sleep most of the next few days, and she’ll be groggy when awake.”

  “How long will you keep her in the hospital?”

  “I’d like to keep her for at least ten days. If there’s a problem, we’ll know by then.” He gave his watch another pointed glance. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  On the way to the ward, Angie gripped Sam’s hand. “It’ll be all right. I just know it will.” Stopping in the doorway, she looked down the row of beds to two bright golden heads bent close together, and her throat closed. The doctor had assumed Lucy and Daisy were her daughters, too. She remembered what Sam had said about being a parent, which made Lucy and Daisy her daughters as much as his.

  Before they wheeled Daisy away to the operating theater, the Govenors wished her well and promised a treat when Daisy got out of the hospital. Sam held her close and ruffled her hair and gruffly told her that he loved her. Then it was Angie’s turn.

  “We’ll all be here when you wake up, darling.”

  “They won’t call me Miss Gimp-Along, Limp-Along anymore, will they?”

  “No, sweetheart, never again.” Blinking hard, she smoothed Daisy’s hair back from her small face.

  “Will I be able to dance someday? Like you and Papa when you went to the grand opening?”