Ginny Aiken

by Light of My Heart

  Letty took the step that separated them, placing her hand on his jaw, feeling him shake. “Yet you’re very much alive, aren’t you?”

  Had her hand not held his face, she wouldn’t have known he nodded. “I envy your wife,” she said. “I would rather have the love you gave her than all the medical training in the world. Life is terribly empty when one is alone.”

  She waited, wondering what Eric thought of her confession. The moment stretched on.

  Then he said, “I know loneliness.”

  “Don’t condemn yourself to that, then. I doubt Martina would have wanted loneliness for you.”

  Eric fastened his gaze on hers. “How did you know that?”

  Because I love you, too, and I want only your happiness. She wished she had the right to speak the words out loud, but Eric wasn’t ready to receive them. Perhaps he never would be.

  Forcing a light tone, she answered instead, “Because I’m a woman. I know how a woman thinks.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you are a woman, a lovely one at that, and you deserve the attentions of a whole man, not one plagued by ghosts. I apologize for my behavior. Please forgive me. I can only blame a . . . certain weakness where you’re concerned.”

  The pain he dealt her lodged deep.

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” she said, her voice reedy. “Your kisses mean a great deal to me.”

  Eric studied the hayloft. He shoved a fist into the pocket of his trousers and ran a hand through his golden blond hair. “Don’t let them, Letty. Find a man of your own, one who’ll give you the love and the children you ought to have. You have so much love to give.”

  Let me give it to you, her heart cried, but she said nothing. She squared her shoulders. “It’s best if I go home now.”

  “It’s long past time.”

  While Eric hitched her two horses to the buggy, Letty studied his every move. He was a good, strong man. So noble, yet troubled and, from what he’d said, estranged from God.

  It occurred to her that Eric was perhaps too noble. The sorrow of widowhood could not be denied, and neither could his love for his wife. But Martina was dead. The man who’d kissed Letty was very much alive and filled with desire—desire for her.

  The thought encouraged her. If she could attract a man like Eric Wagner, why should he keep them from the gift God might be giving them? Who was to say God didn’t intend for them to someday join in holy matrimony?

  Wounds, no matter how deep, eventually healed. As a doctor, Letty specialized in encouraging the healing process. Could she, as a woman, encourage Eric’s emotional wounds to heal?

  Praying for the strength she lacked, she turned away. She did need a whole man; she needed Eric healed, heart-whole, and reconciled with God. She had to believe that with time and a healthy dose of love, he would indeed become that man. Letty wasn’t ready to consign them to a flavorless existence. She knew that with God all things are possible, and she would keep her hope in Him.

  Perhaps Eric thought their attraction was only “a certain weakness” on his part, but Letty remembered knuckles smoothing her cheek and a confession in a rich, male voice. “I like you, Letty Morgan. I like you too much.”

  Heartened by that memory, she took the hand Eric offered and clambered into her new, small buggy. She was glad his manners led him to escort her home. The drive to town gave her yet more time in his presence, something that could only work in favor of and enhance his growing “liking.”

  As he brought the horses to an easy trot, Letty glanced his way and smiled. With all her love and God’s abundant mercy, Eric might soon like her far more than that lukewarm “too much.”

  Eric stopped the horses in front of Letty’s home. Irritated by the awkwardness between them, he addressed the most pressing matter.

  “I’ll take your rig to Amos Jimson’s livery,” he said. “It’s only minutes west of here down Main Street. He’ll board your animals for a reasonable sum.”

  Letty’s face lost all color. Clearly, the purchase of Albert’s nag had used up what money she had left, and the citizens of Hartville, although long on generosity, usually ran short of cash. The keep of one horse would be difficult for her; two could prove impossible.

  “Is Mr. Jimson a fair man?” she finally asked.

  “As honest as the day is long. Don’t you trust me? I’d never leave you at the mercy of some unscrupulous scoundrel.”

  Outraged by her mistrust, Eric was torn between leaving and lecturing until she saw reason. Tempting though both options were, he knew neither would do.

  “Yes, well, I trust you,” she said, “but who’s to say you haven’t been swindled a time or two?”

  “I say I haven’t been taken for a fool, and I don’t intend to start at this late date.” Blast, but the woman was infuriating, nosy, and stubborn, and possessed of the most expressive eyes he’d ever seen.

  “Your horses will be well cared for,” he enunciated precisely, “and your account honestly kept. Is my word enough?”

  Letty tipped up her chin, caught his gaze, and then looked down again. “Yes,” she answered, so softly he had to strain to hear.

  She twisted her fingers and, seconds later, dropped her reticule. At the soft plop, she grew more flustered and bent to pick it up. She rose too fast and almost lost her balance in the close quarters of the buggy. Eric ached as he watched her discomfort, well aware that his earlier attentions were its direct cause.

  He said, “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Fine,” she answered, again in that hushed voice. Avoiding his gaze, she waved him to stay seated. “Thank you for the horse. Although I asked you not to buy one, I do appreciate your gesture.”

  Eric cringed at her stilted speech. “It was nothing,” he said in his gentlest voice. “I wanted to help. Good night.”

  Stepping down from the buggy, she said, “Good night.”

  As he went toward the livery, Eric wondered how Amos had put behind the nightmares he’d endured. The former slave had been forced to watch his mother and sister raped, then killed, by enraged whites. Sensing Amos’s agony, Eric had respected the man’s silence and had never brought up the matter. He wondered if Amos had learned some kind of secret to surviving tragedy. Such a secret would perhaps free Eric to pursue the feelings between the pretty lady doctor and him.

  He couldn’t imagine any such secret existed. He couldn’t envision a future with Letty. He could, however, help her.

  “Where’s Amos?” he asked a stable boy.

  “Jus’ inside, sir,” answered the youth.

  “Please take care of the animals, and I’ll find your boss.”

  “Yessir,” the boy answered, a smile splitting his face at the generous tip Eric gave him.

  Satisfied with the care the horses would receive, Eric loped from the stable to the house, then up the front steps. He knocked and waited for Amos.

  “I do declares, Mister Eric Wagner himself. An’ what brings you out tonight, sir?” Amos’s greeting poured out with the cadence of the deep South.

  “A favor, Amos. For a very nice lady.”

  Amos studied Eric. “An’ just who’s your lucky lady?”

  “Nothing of the sort, Amos. It’s for Dr. Morgan.”

  “The one what saved the Richardses’ young’un?”

  “The one and only. I need you to board her two horses and keep her buggy.”

  “Two horses? Cost her a purty penny, two of ’em did.”

  A blush worked up Eric’s neck. “Well . . . uh, you see, she doesn’t have much money . . .”

  A frown pleated Amos’s brow. He pursed his generous lips, and Eric had no trouble reading the man’s suspicion. Not to mention his reluctance.

  “I’m not asking you to keep two animals for nothing,” Eric said. “You’re in business to feed your family. What I’d like you to do is give me her account. I’ll pay for the horses’ keep.”

  Amos’s eyes twinkled. “An’ what’ll I tell the lady when she come to pay?”
<
br />   Heat reached Eric’s cheeks. “You can tell her whatever you want. Maybe that you’re donating the animals’ keep to help the women and children of Hartville. Many of us help cover her expenses in exchange for her expertise.”

  Amos chortled with glee. “An’ . . . you’re . . . gonna . . . pay?”

  “Blast it, Amos! Don’t make it so difficult.”

  “Nothin’s difficult about it. Just plain good to see you livin’ again.”

  Amos’s slap on Eric’s back spoke volumes about his opinion. Too bad he had the wrong impression altogether. Despite his best efforts to disabuse Amos of his notion, Eric couldn’t convince the man he hadn’t fallen in love with Letty.

  Later, Eric wondered if it could possibly be true.

  At five minutes to seven two days after she became the owner of two horses, Letty entered the Hartville Library, a large, book-filled hall in the back of the schoolhouse. Randy had insisted on Letty’s presence at this evening’s program of the literary society.

  “After all,” she’d said, “it isn’t every day Miss Susan B. Anthony stops in Hartville and speaks to our society.”

  No, indeed. Letty wondered what topic Miss Anthony would choose to speak about tonight. The lady was interesting, her ideas frightfully provocative. Letty wasn’t sure she agreed with, much less supported, the lady’s radical views.

  Inside the reading room, Letty took note of the women present. She was surprised; she’d never have thought the husbands in Hartville quite this progressive. Then again, she wondered how many of them knew the identity of tonight’s speaker.

  “Letty!”

  Randy caught Letty’s attention, and she saw her friend’s colorful curls above more sedate blondes and brunettes. What was life like for a woman blessed with such height?

  Letty chuckled. There was no use wishing, was there? “I promised to come, and here I am.”

  “Not a moment too soon,” Randy said, green eyes sparkling. “Come sit next to me.”

  Randy led Letty to the second row. A narrow aisle divided the chairs into two sections that numbered about fifty overall. There weren’t thirty women in the room, but that was a good attendance, considering Miss Anthony was speaking.

  Randy sat next to a young lady and invited Letty to take her other side. Introductions were made, and snippets of polite chatter followed.

  A hush descended on the room when Emmaline Whitehall, the schoolmarm and librarian, strode in, followed by a formidable-looking woman dressed in black. The redoubtable Miss Anthony, of course.

  After Emmaline’s brief introduction, the evening’s guest spoke. Just then, Adele Stone whispered from Letty’s right. “There’s an empty chair.”

  When Letty turned to greet the late arrival, she froze. What was Eric doing here, listening to a suffragist?

  The pastor’s wife was matchmaking again, to Letty’s unending mortification. Yes, she was in love with the man, but she didn’t need such public encounters.

  Seeking discretion, she scooted her chair closer to Randy’s, but the chair’s piercing screech momentarily drowned out Miss Anthony’s voice. Eric turned to Letty.

  “. . . free love . . .” Miss Anthony said.

  Letty blushed, and Eric’s gaze snagged hers. Oh, the indignity of enduring the speaker’s immoral topic while in the presence of the man with whom she’d exchanged kisses.

  Sitting straighter, Letty turned back to the podium.

  As Miss Anthony expounded on her topic, Letty’s discomfort multiplied. The speaker based her lecture on the premise that women submitted to bondage when they married and had children. Why that subject? Why couldn’t the noted suffragette speak about women’s right to vote, or about the need to educate women, or . . . or about any other worthy topic Miss Anthony espoused? Why this? Why tonight? Why here, with Eric not four inches away from her?

  Miss Anthony continued. “A woman who takes upon herself baby cares finds these quite too absorbing for careful, close, and continued intellectual effort, in addition to the entire work of her house . . .”

  Letty grew angrier by the moment, her temper overcoming her former embarrassment. Yes, she agreed with the National Woman’s Suffrage Association that women should vote, but she could no more accept Miss Anthony’s insults on marriage than she could accept . . . well, than she could have accepted the free use of Eric’s house. It was a matter of principle.

  Listening to this woman speak against all Letty had given up to study medicine went against every fiber of her being. She wondered what Eric thought of Miss Anthony’s diatribe against men.

  Sliding to the far-left edge of her chair, she perched alarmingly close to Randy. Peeking at Eric, she saw reddened ears and the aggressive thrust of his jaw. He then extricated a small book from his breast pocket and began to take notes. He shoved the pencil over the hapless page, revealing his feelings.

  Tomorrow’s editorial in the Hartville Day would prove enlightening.

  The man at her side was far more interesting than Miss Anthony’s single-minded attack on Letty’s fondest dreams. A surprising rush of tenderness overwhelmed her. Surprising, since Eric was so obviously angry.

  She understood his anger; she even shared it. Miss Anthony’s dismissal of a woman’s importance to the family made Letty want to rise and challenge her, but she didn’t.

  A wispy veil seemed to shelter Letty’s memories of the kiss in the barn, rendering them almost unreal. The episode had lasted only moments, but those moments meant so much to her that they seemed more a dream come true than true life. The passion, however, had been quite real.

  Miss Anthony’s words again pierced Letty’s thoughts. “If I may quote Mary Wollstonecraft,” she said, “one can see where monogamous marriage becomes a real impediment to the equality of women. Passionate love is transitory; it cannot serve as the basis for a lifelong association between two people. As Mary Wollstonecraft suggested, passionate attachments should only last so long as the fire blazes . . .”

  A strangled sound came from Letty’s right. Embarrassed by Miss Anthony’s frankness, she didn’t know if she dared glance at Eric. What was he thinking? Was he remembering their embrace?

  Gathering her courage, Letty stole a glimpse. The taut skin over his cheekbones blazed red as his notebook slid to the floor. It went unheeded while Eric glared at the suffragist. He shifted in his seat and then, in a gesture that caught her by surprise, turned her way.

  That they shared an attraction was a given, as was their opinion of Miss Anthony’s claptrap, but it was the love she felt for Eric that she wanted to see reflected in his gaze. She saw something there, but she wasn’t quite sure what it meant. She smiled, hoping for reassurance, but instead, Eric deliberately turned away, picked up his notebook, and began writing again.

  Letty prayed for a swift end to the soirée. When it came, she slipped away after a quiet farewell to Randy, unwilling to face Eric again.

  As she walked home, the slivered moon pierced the veil of her tears and the earth-scented spring night helped soothe her battered sensibilities. A cottonwood’s bare, gnarled limbs hung over her, and she thought of the promise they harbored. In a short time, those branches would birth myriad leaves. The leaves would grow, give shade, shield passersby from the hot summer sun. In time, God’s time, they would again wither and die.

  She thought of Eric. The promise of love ran deep in him. Given time, love would be born anew. It would grow, bear fruit, be shared. When his life ended, in time, it would be after a rich and full existence.

  In time.

  In God’s perfect time.

  9

  After listening to the drivel the suffragist spouted at the literary society soirée, Eric could scarcely contain his anger. How dare that . . . that spinster encourage women to abandon their families in favor of “passionate attachments” of short duration?

  And to have the audacity to suggest children would prevent a woman from entertaining “careful, close, and continued intellectual effort.” Where, p
ray tell, would that leave the children the women had borne? Would servants raise them?

  Pain joined Eric’s anger. Martina had never considered their marriage bondage. She’d treasured their closeness, and when she’d discovered her pregnancy, she’d overflowed with joy. She would have made a wonderful mother.

  Had he oppressed Martina? Had he kept her from pursuing endeavors for which she might secretly have wished? Was he that sort of man?

  He didn’t think so. After all, he’d been most insistent on finding a woman doctor for the town. Anyone who became a physician had to develop his or her intellect to an advanced level, as Letty surely had done. Eric didn’t agree with keeping women uneducated. He agreed with Miss Anthony on that matter. One need only look at Letitia Morgan to see the good a well-trained woman could do.

  And that well-trained woman was bent on caring for every needy soul in town. She mothered all of Hartville while providing excellent medical care, especially for the town’s women and children. Would she not succeed as wife and mother, too?

  Eric laughed. Just try to tell the talented and capable Dr. Morgan she couldn’t be a physician as well as a woman and all that encompassed. He pitied the poor soul who tried.

  On his way to his bedroom, Eric wondered how Letty would look swollen with child. As small as the good doctor was, she’d most likely resemble a plump partridge. It took no effort to envision her nurturing a child.

  A child . . .

  Eric stopped. There it was. Right before him. The closed door. For the past two years, he’d let his cowardice win, but tonight he’d heard hateful sentiments about motherhood, about families. Now he craved contact with the child he’d never had the honor to know.

  He extended his hand to the door latch. His fingers shook. In spite of the pain, he had to face the past.

  Eric pressed down the latch. The metal grated in testimony to its disuse, and the musty smell of emptiness greeted him. Slowly he entered the room that had stood vacant for two years, two years when it should have brimmed with love and joy.

  The cradle where he’d slept as an infant was still made. The linens, spread there by Martina, bore a tracery of dust. In the light of the hall lamp behind him, the shadows of a small chest of drawers and a wooden rocking horse stretched unnaturally long, mocking Eric with their enormity.