Two Brides Too Many (15 page)

“Exactly. And so many were bruised or burned or cut. I was thinking it would be good if you could prepare a brief talk about wounds and caring for them.”

“That’s a good idea. Afterward, I could check anyone there with wounds that haven’t been seen by a doctor.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!” Darla clapped her hands together. “We’ll see you Thursday evening at 6:00 then.”

“Oh. But—” He shook his head. “I already have plans for Thursday evening.” He had four females looking forward to his mysterious treat. Well, three out of four.

Darla pressed her lips together, pouting.

“But I could do it another time,” he said reluctantly.

“Well, maybe we could do it Wednesday after prayer meeting?” she said, her eyes hopeful.

“All right. Tomorrow then.”

Darla smiled again. “I’ll let father know. Eight o’clock, Wednesday night.”

“I’ll see you there.” He turned to leave but noticed that she hadn’t moved or said good-bye. “Was there something else?”

“I was just wondering if storing your things at the boardinghouse is working out for you. At the time, I didn’t know those sisters were living there. It isn’t too crowded?”

“It’s working out just fine. Thank you again for introducing me to Miss Hattie.”

“My pleasure,” she said, but something in her eyes made him doubt her words. “You know, Doctor, I’ve been thinking…I play the piano, and you play the piano.”

Morgan opened his jacket and glanced at his watch pocket.

“You do play, don’t you? It is your piano, isn’t it?”

“It was my wife’s, but—”

“Oh!” Miss Taggart set her gloved hand on her cheek. “You are married?”

Morgan felt his shoulders sag. He hadn’t meant to mention any of it, but now that he had, he owed Miss Taggart an explanation. “My wife died, and I can’t fathom ever being married again.” It came out in a rush, his candor surprising him. “And yes…I do play the piano.” He glanced down at his bag.

She followed his gaze and then peered up at him. “Here I am keeping you from your work. I hadn’t even seen that you had your doctoring bag with you. My apologies.”

“And mine, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening then.” He angled his derby her direction.

“Indeed you shall.”

Miss Taggart turned to walk back to the corner at Eaton, and Morgan walked up the hill to Golden Avenue and over to Miss Hattie’s. Just before he knocked on the front door, a woman’s singing met his ears. It certainly wasn’t anything like Opal’s sweet and pure vocals, but it was a heartfelt version of “Blessed Assurance” nonetheless. When he knocked a second time, Miss Hattie opened the door, fanning herself with a dirty cloth.

“Happy Tuesday, Doctor.” The woman’s eyes sparkled like polished silver when she smiled.

“And to you, Mrs. Adams.”

“Come right in.”

“Thank you.” He closed the door behind them. She hung his coat and hat on brass hooks and led him into the parlor. Instead of crossing over to the sofa, she stopped beside the piano bench.

“I was just dusting this fine instrument of yours.” She waved the cloth like a conductor might a baton.

Listening for any sound of the Sinclair sisters or Rosita, Morgan glanced over at the hallway and the staircase.

“Miss Kat Sinclair isn’t here, Doctor.”

“I came to check Rosita’s ears,” he said, but felt his cheeks burn.

“Of course you did.” She winked. “Rosita’s not here either. But thanks to your fine doctoring Sunday night, she’s back to her delightful self today.”

“That’s good to know. Thank you.”

“Does that mean you have a few minutes to spare?”

“Did you need something?”

“Well, yes. I could use some accompaniment.” She patted the piano and smiled at him much the way Miss Taggart had. Only it worked for Miss Hattie. He slid across the bench.

“The piano must have special value for you to transport it all the way from the East,” she said, sitting down beside him.

“It does.” He opened the lid, letting out a flood of memories.

“Your childhood?”

“I was married.” Morgan swallowed hard.

Why had he said that?

“She died like my George did, didn’t she?” Hattie said.

He nodded and stared at the piano keys until he could find words.

“I saw it in your eyes the afternoon you rode up in your buggy with Miss Taggart.”

He rested his fingers gently on the ivory keys. “Her name was Opal.”

“You poor dear.”

A comfortable silence gave him time to breathe again. “It was Opal’s piano. A year after I married her, she was carrying our first child. At seven months, she hemorrhaged. She and my son both died.”

Hattie patted his hand like a mother would. “I’m so sorry.”

“I—”

“You’ll love again.” She smiled at him. “I’m sure of it.”

“I…can’t.”

He appreciated that she didn’t try to argue with him. Instead she sang. “‘This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the daylong.’”

Morgan let the words sink in. Maybe they were right. His story was more than his loss. More than his struggle for independence. It was the story of God wanting to do something new in him.

Morgan positioned his hands and looked up into Hattie’s kind eyes. Accompaniment might help Hattie at least remain in the same key. As he struck the first chord and she began to sing, a seed of hope began to sprout deep inside him. Perhaps he would find his way through the wilderness of loss and loneliness.

T
WENTY

T
uesday had started especially early for Kat.

Sometime in the still hours before dawn her mind began to churn, awakening her to a quiet house and a host of noisy thoughts. She’d grabbed her wrap and slipped downstairs with her journal. While the moon and stars still filled the sky, she sat in the Queen Anne chair in front of the window in the parlor and wrote. The clock on the mantel ticked away the hours, and she penned paragraphs about a father moving to Paris and sisters still living in Maine. She wrote a story about a puzzling doctor and a motherless little girl with fever.

As the sky started to brighten, she’d stretched out on the sofa, and somewhere between brooding over a grandmother with no name and a mysterious home in the foothills, she’d drifted off to sleep. A couple of hours later, she awoke to the sweet sound of Hattie’s humming and the rich aroma of fresh coffee.

After her preparations for the day and a hearty breakfast, she, Nell, and Rosita met Boney Hughes at the livery. Now the little girl sat atop Sal and bounced HopHop on her skirted knee. Hattie’s earmuffs
dwarfed her head, and Boney’s mining equipment formed her saddle as they trudged up the road that rose above town. Kat and Nell followed on foot. They’d walked up First Street across Carr and Eaton, then turned right onto Golden Avenue. After a short jog, they turned left up Florissant Street.

The miner that led them spit onto the dirt, and Nell wrinkled her freckled nose. She cleared her throat, a frown shadowing her eyes.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Kat.”

“Of course I do. I’m going to see Patrick’s house…my house.”

“I meant”—Nell crossed her arms and lowered her chin as if that would help her whisper not be overheard by their escort—“I hope you know what you’re doing trusting that man.” She bobbed her head toward Boney. “You barely know him, and he is a bit, well, uncouth.”

“Looks, and manners, for that matter, can be deceiving.” Kat sighed. She had enough to think about without having to defend the few decisions afforded her.

“So can letters,” Nell said pointedly. “How do you know you can trust this man?”

“Rosita is not a trusting little girl. Yet she trusts
Mr. Boney
. You saw how much they adore each other.” Her breathing labored from the higher elevation, Kat slowed her pace. “You can’t force a child’s trust. It’s something you earn, and you either have it or you don’t.” The wind seemed to work harder up here too, and Kat tugged her hood up over her head.

“He showed me nothing but respect on Myers Avenue. He’s trying to find Rositas grandmother, and he knows where Patrick’s place is. At this point, I don’t have much choice but to trust him.”

Kat’s boot slid on the slushy roadbed, and Nell grabbed her arm,
steadying her. “But I may need snowshoes to get to town in any kind of a hurry next winter.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Getting down the hill from my new house.”

Her eyes wide, Nell stopped and clenched her hands on her waist. “You can’t mean you plan to live up here on your own.”

“What would you have me do? Wait around for some man?”

Nell’s eyelid took to jumping, and she pressed a finger to it. “Don’t you go and spread your doom and gloom over me. Judson is coming back. This week, you’ll see.”

“I’m sure he will, and I’m happy for you, but I can’t wait for a man. Besides, I’m not doing this on my own. You and Rosita are with me.”

“Until I marry Judson, and Mr. Hughes finds Rosita’s grandmother. Then what?”

“Then you won’t live up here with me.”

Only a few homes dotted the hillside this far up. Homes and the headframes of small mines, which meant she’d have mostly miners for neighbors. And if Patrick was as lax in his housekeeping as he’d been in caring for himself, her new home was bound to be a frightful sight.

Lord, help me. Maybe I don’t know what I’m thinking
.

Sal turned up a narrower street.

“This here’s Pikes Peak Avenue, ladies,” Boney said, gesturing at the snowcapped mountain in front of them. “And that’s Paddy’s place.” Boney pointed at a building just ahead of him on the right.

She should’ve known it wouldn’t amount to much. Patrick’s house was a shanty with a crooked stovepipe and a closed flapboard window beside it. A coiled rope hung from a nail on the porch wall. Antlers jutted from a plank above the rough-hewn door.

Boney slid Rosita off Sal and nodded toward the back. “Even has its own outhouse.”

She hadn’t thought about not having plumbing or electricity. She looked at Nell. Her eyes wide, Nell tilted her head toward the shanty and walked with her to the stoop.

Boney pushed open a thin wooden door, and they followed him and Rosita inside. Glancing around her new home, Kat knew that Nell’s faith would have to sustain them both. Hers had been swallowed up by spider webs that hung like drapes from the warped ceiling. She choked on the thick layers of dust, not to mention the stench of body odor and smoke. The place had obviously been closed up for a while.

Boney latched the door open, and then went to the flapboard window to the right of the potbellied stove. His tongue pinched between his sparse front teeth, he tugged the hook out of the eye. He pushed the wood flap out with the buttress stick, and then set the stick against the window frame, holding the window open. He crossed the room to the opposite wall and repeated the action on a second flapboard window.

He pulled a lantern off a peg and lit it. The glow didn’t brighten the place any. Instead, it only pointed out the dust hanging in the air between the cobwebs.

“Miss Sunny has one like that.” Rosita pointed her little finger at the lintel above the door, where two curved wrought iron nails formed a rack that held up a shotgun.

Kat decided that might come in handy, although she hadn’t a clue how to use it.

“It could do with a woman’s touch, that’s sure enough.” Boney righted one of two straight-back chairs.

“This sure is the sow’s ear, Kat.” Nell clomped across the uneven
wood plank floor to a matching rough-hewn table. “Not sure what kind of purse it could be if we fixed it up. Make curtains. Add rugs.” She stacked a dirty tin cup on a dirtier tin plate, then carried them to a stained wash basin.

“I can help.” Rosita picked up a broom that lay helter-skelter among a pile of stuff—a small pick, a steel gold pan, a miner’s tin helmet with a clip on it for a candle, dirty overalls. Long rubber boots caked with who knew what stood next to the door beneath a coat hook. A cast-iron skillet hung on a nail to one side of a potbellied stove. A ratty quilt lay crumpled on a bed made of rope tied around a wood frame.

Everything was dirty and smelled worse than that. The nine dollars the paymaster had given her wasn’t going to get them very far cleaning this place up. Now it was Kat’s eyelid that twitched.

“You have to see this view you have from your new home,” Nell called.

“My new home?” Kat dug her heels into a warped seam in the boards and stopped short of the window, facing Nell. “I don’t think so. You were right—an unmarried woman has no business living up here.”

“Look.” Nell cupped Kat’s shoulders and pushed her toward the open window.

The snowcapped Sangre de Cristo Mountains glowed in the distance. Her breath caught. “It’s so majestic.”

“Remember the verse Hattie read from Psalms this morning?”

Kat nodded. “It talked about lifting your eyes to the hills.”

“Where my help comes from. It comes from the Lord.”

Kat and Nell both jerked toward the words spilling from the bearded man. What was he doing quoting Scripture? Nothing about Boney Hughes was predictable.