The Heirloom Brides Collection (43 page)

Darla nodded. “I do appreciate your gracious hospitality, ma’am. But a rest would be nice, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” Hattie glanced toward the spiral staircase. “You go on up, and I’ll bring a cup of tea to the room for you.”

“Thank you.” Darla followed Mr. Sinclair and her bag to the second floor, all the while wondering about the odds that anyone else in town might share Hattie’s water-under-the-bridge sentiment. Especially if her penned flights of fancy had been discovered.

She’d soon find out. Her new job started tomorrow.

Nearly two hours later, Darla had settled into her room, hung the dresses from her trunk in the wardrobe, and enjoyed a delicious soak in a copper tub. Oh, how pleasant it felt to shed her travel gown and feel clean again! She still looked forward to the long rest that would follow supper, but she wasn’t opposed to a home-cooked meal first. The memory of Hattie’s culinary skills from dishes sampled at church gatherings drove Darla’s steps down the oak stairs and into the dining room.

Mr. Sinclair smiled, standing behind a chair at one end of a long table. “Good evening, Miss Taggart.”

She looked up from the four chinaware place settings. “And to you, Mr. Sinclair. Thank you.”

A door behind him swung open, and a girl Darla guessed to be age nine or ten sauntered in, carrying a meat-laden platter.

“Cherise, dear, this is our new boarder, Miss Darla Taggart.”

Cherise set the platter on a trivet and looked up. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mademoiselle Taggart.” A curtain of straight dark hair framed eyes the color of an onyx gem.

Seeing a child in the home, especially one with a French accent, piqued Darla’s curiosity. There weren’t place settings for her parents, and she seemed quite at home.

Mr. Sinclair stepped around the table and pulled out a chair for Darla. “Our girl is from Paris. We met while I was working there.”

“Father”—Cherise glanced up at Mr. Sinclair—“knew my mama and papa. Before they died.”

Darla pressed her hand to the chiffon ruffle at her neckline. Mr. Sinclair and Hattie had taken the girl in, leaving Darla with no doubt that she had come to a welcoming home. “I’m pleased to meet you, Cherise.”

“And I am pleased to meet you.” Cherise slid into the chair beside Darla. “I’m ten. Not as big as you, but I’m glad to see another girl here.”

Darla offered Cherise a smile and opened her mouth to say something.

“Coming through.” Hattie whooshed into the room with a bread basket that smelled of honey and butter and set it down in front of Darla, effectively interrupting her train of thought as her mouth began to water.

At the sound of Mr. Sinclair’s
amen,
dishes started to clatter. Hattie handed Darla a dish of glazed carrots. “Dear, I’m anxious to hear your news.”

Darla scooped carrots onto her plate and passed them. “Mother and Father are still living in Syracuse, New York.”

Hattie set a slice of pork roast on her plate and handed her the platter. “Still pastoring?”

“He is.” Darla reached for her water glass. “And Mother still plays the piano and teaches the children.”

“And your brother?”

“Peter is seventeen now. He can tell you all about who the league baseball players are and give you their numbers. And when I last saw him, at Christmas, he was still as ornery as ever.”

Hattie tittered. “And your schooling in Philadelphia? You completed your courses?”

“I did. I’m a trained nurse now.” Darla scooped a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy onto her fork. “Tomorrow I start my new job at the hospital.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. When I completed my courses, I responded to an advertisement for nurses here and sent an application to Dr. Boyd.”

Hattie darted a glance at her husband before replying. “Dr. Boyd obviously sent a favorable response.”

“He did.” A positive reply, in sharp contrast to Mr. and Mrs. Harlan Sinclair’s tentative responses to the news of her employment. Was it because they distrusted her? Or were they concerned with how Kat and her doctor husband would respond to her presence in town and at the hospital?

Or did Hattie know more than she’d let on?

“Have you returned to the parsonage yet?” Hattie asked.

“Not yet. But depending upon my work schedule, I hope to see it in the next few days.”

“You’ll see it Sunday, I expect, if not before.”

Of course she’d be expected to attend services at her father’s former parish. Part of her wanted to, despite the bittersweet memories, but experience told her the parson’s family would be in the sanctuary for the duration of the service. Sunday morning might be the perfect opportunity to retrieve her diary and Gram’s cameo pendant from beneath the kitchen floorboards in the parsonage.

A
fter her best night of sleep in weeks, Darla tucked her folded nurse’s cap into her handbag, then pulled her woolen mantle over her white, ankle-length uniform. She carefully set the hood atop her upswept hair, slid her hands into white leather gloves, and opened the front door.

She stepped onto the porch and down the front steps under gray skies. Mr. Sinclair had shoveled snow from the walkway, but a layer still blanketed the flower bed and the street in front of her. Fortunately the overnight snowfall had abated, and she didn’t have far to walk.

Taking careful steps west on Golden Avenue, Darla allowed herself to daydream about making a difference in the surgery and recovery wards at the hospital. A mine whistle blew, nearly causing her to lose her footing. She’d been gone from the Cripple Creek Mining District for three and a half years. Long enough to forget the city’s morning call to its mine workers.

At the corner, Darla turned left onto Third Street and gazed up at the new three-story brick building that sat atop the hill. The Sisters of Mercy Hospital was conveniently close to the boardinghouse, which was especially handy in stormy weather.

Inside, a stoic woman seated behind a library table directed Darla to the second floor, where she waited across the desk from an empty chair in Dr. Boyd’s office. He apparently favored clutter. Books sat two-deep on sagging shelves. Framed photographs lined the top of his desk, and a marble bust of a woman hid the top of a file cabinet.

There was a good chance Dr. Cutshaw would see
her
as clutter. A nuisance from his past. But she would convince Dr. Boyd to assign her to a job that wouldn’t require her to cross paths with the doctor from Boston any more than was absolutely necessary. She was here for something else. Maybe even for someone else.

“Miss Taggart.”

The accent was unmistakable. So much for avoiding him.

Darla stood to face Dr. Cutshaw. “I was supposed to meet with Dr.—”

“Dr. Boyd broke his leg two days ago and is at home, recuperating.”

That could explain the look Hattie and her husband had shared when she’d told them Dr. Boyd had hired her. They likely knew about the accident and that Dr. Cutshaw would be working in his stead.

He walked toward the chair on the other side of the cluttered desk but didn’t sit down.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Darla said, “but Dr. Boyd offered me a job. And I made a very long journey by train from Philadelphia with the promise of—”

Dr. Cutshaw raised his hand, stopping the flow of her words. “I know about the job offer, Miss Taggart, and I have the work assignment for you.”

“Oh.” Darla thought to seat herself but decided against it. If she had her way, she’d be out of there and in her assigned ward within moments.

Clearing his throat, Dr. Cutshaw pressed his fingertips to the edge of the desk. “First things first, if you don’t mind, Miss Taggart.”

What could be more important than telling her about the ward where she’d be spending her days? Or nights.

“You need to know that I’m married. To Kat Sinclair, now Mrs. Morgan Cutshaw.”

There was her answer—no, she wouldn’t be able to live down her past. With or without the diary’s content exposed. But she did have a job, and she wished to keep it.

“Yes. You and Kat Sinclair married before I left town.”

“And now we have two children.”

“Congratulations.” Darla swallowed a sigh. She was twenty-one years of age and never married. But that could change if Zachary had waited for her like he said he would.

“Thank you.” He lifted a folder from the top of a pile on the desk. “But I wasn’t soliciting your congratulations.”

She met his pointed gaze. “You have no need for concern, Dr. Cutshaw.” She wanted it to be true for both their sakes. That was why she had to get the diary back. Soon.

“Very well, then, let’s talk about your assignment.” He opened the folder.

“Yes.” She removed her gloves. “I told Dr. Boyd I did my specialty training in the operating room. But I’m also good with recovering patients. I’m not very good with children.”

“We have several patients who have been discharged from hospital care but still need some looking after. I have assigned you to home-care visits.”

She stiffened, and a glove slipped from her hands. “Home visits?”

“Yes. I have three patients who require a visit from you today.”

“I won’t be working at the hospital?”

“Occasionally, perhaps.” Dr. Cutshaw handed her a stack of papers. “When there’s no call for home visits. And, of course, you’ll come in for your assignments and to turn in your reports. You’ll work with Dr. Boyd’s clerk, Mrs. Kingston.”

“When Dr. Boyd offered me the job, he didn’t say anything about having to traipse around town to care for patients.”

“I am the one in charge, Miss Taggart.”

Indeed. And he’d immediately banished her to the streets of Cripple Creek.

Nicolas listened to the patter of feet and the chatter of his three daughters cleaning up after breakfast. Maria would’ve been so proud of them. Not one of their girls older than his favorite pair of boots and each had pitched in and done their part since the accident.

“Papa! It’s snowing again!” Jaya’s voice rose with each syllable.

He lifted his head from the cot, careful not to anger the scabs on his back. He glanced past his daughters and out the window over the dish sink. Big snowflakes tumbled from a gray sky.

“I can’t see good. It’s too high.” Julia, barely seven, darted toward the window by the front door.

“The flakes are so big and fluffy.” Jaya faced him, her smile outshining the bare bulb lighting above. “Can we all go outside and make a snowman, Papa?”

He’d like nothing more right now, but—

“Don’t be silly.” Jocelyn clicked her tongue, ever the big sister. “If Papa can’t work or add coal to the stove, he certainly can’t play in the snow.”

Nicolas swallowed hard against the sadness threatening to settle on him. With the exception of a kindly neighbor or two, he was all Jocelyn, Jaya, and Julia had. Then nearly two weeks ago, in the bowels of the mine, he’d been rendered helpless, and no one could say for how long.

“We can make a snowman as a surprise, and Papa can see it when he feels better and can get up again.” His dear Jaya, ever the idealist.

“Perhaps the snowman can wait until Mrs. Nell stops by to check on us.” Nicolas laid his head on the cot, facing the countertop where Jocelyn washed a pan and Jaya dried a bowl, his nerves tingling from his bandaged shoulders to his trousers.

“Look! It’s an angel.” Julia was his dreamer, seeing dancing animals and such in the clouds.

“An angel in the clouds?” Nicolas felt a smile tug at his mouth. “Or an angel in the snowflakes?” After the steam hose broke down in the mine, he’d half expected to see an angel waiting to take him for his reunion with Maria.

“It’s a real angel, Papa.” Excitement trumped the frustration in Julia’s shrill voice. “And she’s coming to our door.”

“Let me see.” The pan made a splash, and Jocelyn marched toward the window. “See her hat? That’s a nurse.”

“But she’s all dressed in white, even the bag she’s carrying.” Leave it to Jaya to try to smooth any hurt feelings. “She does look like an angel.”

Nicolas raised his head but couldn’t twist far enough to see through the window on the other side of the door. He hadn’t forgotten Dr. Cutshaw’s ultimatum. If he wanted to go home, he had to agree to home visits. But he wasn’t expecting someone so soon. “Let her in, Jocelyn. Dr. Cutshaw said he’d send a nurse over to change my bandages.” With all the speed of a tortoise, he inched his left leg to the edge of the cot.