A Bride in Store (3 page)

Chapter 2

“William!”

Will stopped and turned in the middle of the road, barely avoiding being hit by a mule cart.

Carl waved at him from the front of his store. The man’s color was looking better.

Will sighed and jogged back. “Did I forget something?” He mentally checked his medical supplies. He’d repacked them while trying to ignore Eliza chattering to Kathleen. The less he knew about their newest business competitor the less depressed he’d get.

Competing with the Hampdens’ hadn’t hurt their friendship . . . but he had no time for sparking, and for some reason, he wanted to sit and stare at the woman who’d proven herself tougher than his mother—and few ladies in this world could hold a candle to Rachel Stanton.

“Do you want lunch?” Carl rubbed a hand across his flat stomach. “We’ve got nothing prepared, and I’m starving.”

Will glanced over his shoulder, though he couldn’t see his store past the bustle on the street. “I don’t know.” If Miss Cantrell was about to open another store, could he afford to be closed for lunch? “Do you know anything about the name Woolworth?”

“Might’ve heard the name.” Carl rubbed his chin. “But it’s not coming to me. Why?”

“Doesn’t matter.” No need to alarm him. Nothing was likely to come of a single woman trying to start a store with no money anyway.

“Let me get the women so we can head to the hotel.”

Both women? “I’m not so sure—”

The door slammed behind Carl, and Will huffed. Too rude to just walk away. He liked Carl—he really did—but the man wasn’t the greatest conversationalist. And from the way Miss Cantrell ceased divulging her business plans the moment Kathleen returned, she surely wouldn’t speak of them in front of the Hampdens. So the next hour would be him listening to what? Talk of knitting and fashion?

Miss Cantrell walked out of the store, her hat repositioned to hide the bandage knot crowning her head. Handfuls of eastern women had arrived over the years, and none of their outfits had been so . . . so . . . dull.

So they most likely wouldn’t be talking fashion during lunch, since his mother’s mourning dress had more ornamentation than the flat black cloth Miss Cantrell sported. Not that her plain dress didn’t accentuate her curvy—

Miss Cantrell’s hands latched above her hips, and she cleared her throat.

He looked up and blinked, trying to find an excuse for his wandering gaze as she walked closer and asked, “Is something wrong?”

She had no way of knowing what he’d been thinking, but that didn’t stop the heat from rising to his face.

“I got lost in thought.” He hoped his skin hadn’t turned as red as it felt. Doctors shouldn’t blush. He’d studied enough medical diagrams to know what a woman looked like under—

He rubbed his hand across his eyes as if he could wipe away the image he’d pulled up. What was wrong with him? Miss
Cantrell wasn’t pretty enough to tempt a man into immoral mind wanderings.

“William!” Mrs. Graves called out a few yards away.

Oh, how he wished his cheeks weren’t burning at the moment. He took a step away from Miss Cantrell and turned to face the woman hustling toward him.

“Glad I caught you.” She took a deep breath and smiled. “I’ve run out of whatever concoction you gave me last month. It has worked wonders on my—” she glanced between him and Miss Cantrell—“complaints. Better than the elixir Dr. Forsythe gives me. Might I bother you for more?”

“I’ll have to make some, but yes.”

She put a stout hand to her ample bosom. “Thank you.” After sighing, she took a good long look at him and then peered down her nose at Miss Cantrell. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.” She turned back to him, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you two together?”

He took another step back and tipped his head toward the woman in question. “Miss Cantrell just arrived on the train, and since the first Kansans she met robbed her of her purse, Carl and Kathleen are taking her to lunch.”

He really shouldn’t join them. If he did, the glint in Mrs. Graves’ eye did not bode well for him and Miss Cantrell in the rumor mills.

Mrs. Graves’ eyebrows rose. “Oh, I heard about the robbery.” She snatched Eliza’s hand and petted her knuckles as if she were a frightened puppy backed into a corner. “I’m sure that was just dreadful. Did they accost you? Is that what happened to your face?”

The growl of his stomach protested the inevitable minutes about to be lost trying to escape the town’s worst gossip. Why did he have to mention the train robbery?

Miss Cantrell took a step away from the older woman. “I’m afraid we’ve yet to meet, Mrs. . . .”

His face warmed again. How rude of him not to introduce them
formally, but Mrs. Graves wasn’t exactly well-mannered. Being a fancy easterner, Miss Cantrell probably found them both boorish.

“I’m Mrs. Graves, and there was a time I was this close”—she held out two stubby fingers pinched together—“to being this man’s mother-in-law.”

Of course the busybody would bring up his failed engagement to her daughter, Nancy, with a complete stranger. He rubbed the back of his suddenly hot neck. Things were going from bad to worse.

Carl backed out of the mercantile’s door with a child attached to each hand. “Kathleen will be just another minute.”

“I don’t have much time before the ladies meet.” Mrs. Graves patted him on the arm as if he were naught but a youth. “So I’ll come by your place tomorrow for my medicine.”

“Looking forward to it.” Will retained his fake smile as she scurried to cross the road toward the millinery, where several ladies were quilting behind the huge glass windows—no doubt changing topics of gossip as fast as pedestrians passed in and out of view.

The scuttlebutt would surely revolve around him and Miss Cantrell for the next fifteen minutes or so.

Hopefully he could leave the tincture for Nancy’s mother with Axel and lie low when she came to retrieve the medicine.

“So you’re treating Mrs. Graves? That’s mighty considerate of you.” Carl eyed him, both of his children pressed against his legs.

“I just can’t keep from—” He cut off his own excuse with a shake of his head. Of course, he could tell the woman no, but not when Dr. Forsythe’s harsh purgatives, blistering, and other heroic treatments had done nothing for her. If Forsythe would bother to listen to him, the man could’ve learned of the herbal concoction one of the women in town recommended for Mrs. Graves’ female complaints.

But should he be prescribing contrary to a medical-degreed doctor? He hadn’t read even a quarter of the medical volume he’d
purchased from a battlefield surgeon. Still, Nancy’s mother’s health had improved with his tincture.

Will glanced toward Miss Cantrell, who seemed exceptionally interested in their conversation. He looked back to Carl. “Well, it’s just awfully hard to refuse Mrs. Graves anything.”

Carl snorted. “You can’t refuse
anybody
anything.”

Since Will had delivered Gretchen, Kathleen had refused anyone’s counsel but his, and how could he withhold something to ease Junior’s cough or clear up Carl’s hay fever? “Would you like me to start refusing your wife’s requests for medical advice?” Will gave little Gretchen a big smile, which she returned.

“Don’t you dare. Kathleen won’t even look at Dr. Forsythe after his treatment of Junior’s whooping cough.”

“So you don’t charge the Hampdens either?” Eliza’s gaze bored into him.

“If you were to refuse someone services, it should be Mrs. Graves.” Carl let go of Junior’s hand and scooped Gretchen up into his arms. “The woman encouraged Nancy to leave you, so she shouldn’t be able to wring free services out of you.”

And there it was—the topic he was hoping to avoid. Will gritted his teeth. “Must we speak of this now?”

“Why not?”

“My past is not exactly a topic I want to discuss in front of Miss Cantrell.”

“She’ll find out sooner or later.” Carl shrugged. “Nancy Graves jilted Will because he can’t make up his mind whether or not to become a doctor.”

Will wrapped his hands around the top of the hitching post, strangling the wood. “And Carl stole my neighbor’s mail-order bride.”

Carl’s cheeks pinked. “All right, I won’t share anymore.”

The air rushed out of his lungs. “I’m sorry, Carl. I shouldn’t have said that.” Definitely not in front of the children. Thankfully,
Junior looked as if he were daydreaming, and Gretchen was certainly young enough not to understand.

“Though it’s not like Miss Cantrell won’t hear about that either.” Carl glared at him before turning to Eliza. “I didn’t know Kathleen was promised when I fell in love with her, and Everett Cline got himself a pretty wife not too long afterwards. Everybody’s happy.”

Miss Cantrell smoothed her hands along her plain bodice. “I feel like I need to air something uncomfortable about myself to set things to rights.”

“Oh no. We’re—”

“My former fiancé pretended to be interested in me long enough to steal my father’s business contacts.” She smiled, though she winced with the effort. “Now we’re all equally embarrassed.”

Will ran a hand through his hair. At least his soon-to-be competition seemed honest and forthright. “You could have kept that a secret. We didn’t need to know.”

She shrugged. “Might as well tell you before the town speculates.”

The door to the mercantile opened, and Kathleen stepped outside. “Are we ready?”

Will cleared his throat. “I think I’m going to bow out. This is the day my family comes into town.” He sneaked a glance toward Miss Cantrell, but she didn’t seem disappointed. Not that she had a reason to be. “I’ll eat with you another day.”

Will had no sooner picked up the pistol he’d been trying to repair all morning than the store’s bell kicked into a tinny chime up front.

He’d returned from stitching up Miss Cantrell to find two men waiting impatiently at his door and had just finished helping them load their wagons and then downed some crackers and dried fruit. When would he be able to finish this pistol? Watching the store by himself proved impossible for getting gun work done. Gunsmithing
was more profitable than the store, but repair work alone wouldn’t keep them afloat.

“William?”

“Back here, Nettie Bug!” Reaching under the desk, he snagged some lollipops and stuffed them into his pants pocket. He walked out from behind the counter to wait for his littlest sister, an awkward flurry of ruffles, lace, and brown ringlets. Her tiptoe gait nearly sent her into a shelf before he swept her up.

His taller-than-average pa, Dex Stanton, and another little sister, Becca, strolled up the middle aisle while Nettie patted his chest pocket.

He grinned. “Not even a hello for big brother, eh? Candy’s more important?”

“Pwease.” She batted her long eyelashes.

Sighing, he pulled out the lollipops. “I give in.”

The bell clanged again. Hopefully his brothers were coming in with his mother and Emma. They’d be handy for a quick unloading job.

Instead Miss Cantrell stepped through the doorway and walked straight to the display of wilting wild flowers. Though he never would have considered fresh flowers to sell well in a store meant to carry anything and everything manly, they sold enough to be worth the trouble.

Pa squatted beside Becca to help unwrap her candy. “Guess we ought to wait until after you help your customer.”

Will lowered his voice. “She’s not here to buy anything.” Snooping on her competition most likely. Why else would she have come in?

“Oh?” Pa smiled as he scanned Miss Cantrell. “Should I know this girl?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just . . . I met her today. You heard the train was robbed?”

His father nodded.

“Unfortunately, she no longer has any money.” Will craned his
neck. Miss Cantrell was absorbed in picking through the flowers, apparently safely out of earshot.

“So she’s here to see you?”

Will shook his head vehemently. “No, she—” Had the Hampdens told her he co-owned the place?

Miss Cantrell moved to a pile of unopened boxes and frowned.

“I’ll introduce you, but don’t volunteer any information about me.” If she didn’t know he was the proprietor, maybe she’d discuss her business plans now that the Hampdens weren’t around. Then he could determine whether or not she was a real threat to their business.

“This sounds promising.”

Did Pa actually rub his hands together?

As if Mrs. Graves seeing him blushing over Eliza weren’t bad enough, Pa was likely to tease him to death.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Will jiggled Nettie. “Come and meet a friend.”

Pa glared at Nettie settled in his arms, but Will ignored the look. He insisted his parents make her walk on her own, but he could break his own rule. It was, after all, his fault she had Little’s disease and walked so poorly, often tripping and falling over nothing.

Becca grabbed his free hand and checked on the ring she’d made him a year ago. Thankfully, he’d spun the grinning bead back up after successfully stitching Miss Cantrell’s cheek, otherwise Becca would have scolded him for not wearing the ring right.

“Miss Cantrell?” He turned the corner. “I’m surprised to see you in the Men’s Emporium.”