Waiting for Morning (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series) (22 page)

“She would lose her rights to the ranch. It’s all legal, even though it goes against God’s will. I hear Miss Walker doesn’t do anything without her lawyer.”

Caleb sat perfectly still. Why would anyone—especially someone like Molly—agree to such a thing?

Donny! Practically everything she did was for her brother, including forfeiting any sort of happiness for herself.

Aunt Bessie leaned toward him as if sensing she’d lost his attention. “It’s probably for the best. I don’t know that she would make any man a good wife. I heard that she was a dance hall girl back in Dobson Creek.”

He knew she was a singer but a dance hall girl? It would certainly explain a lot about her, including her choice of attire and the graceful way she moved. He still warmed to the memory of her singing and dancing in the barn.

“I take it you don’t think a dance hall girl would make a good wife?”

“Mercy! Don’t get me wrong. I believe in keeping an open mind, but you don’t want to open it so far as to come unhinged.”

“I should say not,” he said lightly.

“Why, even Luke’s fiancée had a questionable background, but I never held that against her. It seems to go with the times, doesn’t it? Backgrounds just aren’t what they used to be.”

“I have a hard time believing Miss Tenney led a less than spotless life.” The few times he’d run into the blacksmith’s fiancée, she’d looked like a lady. Spoke like one too.

“Looks can be deceiving. You’d never know by looking at her that she writes dime novels, and one was even banned in Boston. Still, I told myself open mind, open mind. But a dance hall girl . . .” She shook her head.

“Just exactly what kind of wife does your . . . open mind think I need?” he asked, curious.

“A fine doctor like you needs a good, upright Christian woman,” she said.

“Absolutely,” he agreed, preferably one with green eyes. Startled by the unbidden thought, he dropped his fork and reached for his coffee cup.

Aunt Bessie continued, “She has to be kind and considerate and willing to let you put your patients’ needs before her own.”

He took a sip of the hot brew. “Nothing less would do,” he murmured. And she must have the voice of an angel. Yet another memory of Molly singing flashed in his head.

“Fortunately, I happen to know a couple of young women who fit the bill. If you like, I’d be happy to invite one or even both to Sunday dinner.”

Caleb stood and cleared his plate, setting it in the sink. “That’s very kind of you, but a bit premature. I’m not ready to take a wife.” That much was true, but since Aunt Bessie looked about to argue the point, he quickly grabbed a Meat Fibrine Dog Cake and walked outside to feed Magic.

Molly was nothing more than a distraction. Pretty as a picture, she was, with the voice of an angel, but a distraction nonetheless. If he told himself that enough times, he might even come to believe it.

Chapter 20

M
olly let herself into the doctor’s office, setting off a jangle of merry bells.

“I’ll be right with you,” Caleb called from behind a
half-open door.

She swallowed hard and sat on one of the chairs lining one wall. Just being in his office made her feel . . . what? Nervous? Anxious? Confused?

She’d thought long and hard about making this trip but didn’t know what else to do. Caleb was the only doctor in town.

Still shaken by Donny’s accident, she blamed Caleb for filling his head with all those crazy notions. Thank God he hadn’t been seriously injured when his wheelchair flew down the steps, but there had been other incidents just as worrisome. Only that morning she found him on the bedroom floor. She was a nervous wreck worrying about what her brother would do next.

The door sprang all the way open and Caleb filled the doorway. He seemed to sap the very air out of the room with his presence and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

His hair was mussed and he looked tired, as if he’d been up all
night. Faint lines lightly etched his normally smooth face and his shirt and trousers were wrinkled as if he’d slept in them.

He looked surprised to see her. “Molly. Is everything all right?”

She stood with a casualness she didn’t feel. Somehow he always made her feel like a confused schoolgirl who didn’t know her own mind. She dug her fingers into the velvet fringe handbag and fought for control. The handbag didn’t go with her divided skirt, checkered shirt, and wide-brimmed hat, but it was the only one she owned.

“No, it’s not all right.”

He frowned. “Come inside.” He stepped aside to let her into the examination room and then led her into his office. Magic greeted her with wagging tail and she stooped to pet him.

“Have a seat.”

She straightened and decided to remain standing. “I won’t take up much of your time.” Perhaps if she remained standing she could keep her wits about her.

“How is your cough?”

“Much improved, thank you.” She cleared her throat. “I . . . I apologize for my . . . behavior the other day . . . about Donny. You did what you thought best.”

Caleb sat on the edge of his desk, arms folded across his broad chest. “So did you.”

“At least we’re in accord about something,” she said.

“We both want what’s best for your brother. We just have different ideas on how to achieve it.” He studied her and her cheeks grew warm under his scrutiny. “Since you’re here, may I assume that you’re having second thoughts about dismissing me?”

“You assume incorrectly.” She sounded unbearably prim even to her own ears.

“What a pity. So why
are
you here?”

“I’m here because I ran out of Donny’s asthma medicine.”

He dropped his relaxed easy manner and assumed an air of professionalism. “What do you usually give him?”

“Nitrate of Amyl.”

He grimaced. “That’s a dangerous drug.” He rose to reach into a high cabinet. “Try this,” he said, closing the cabinet door. “It’s safer and just as effective.” He handed her a small bottle labeled Vial of Lobelia. “How is Donny otherwise?”

She slipped the medication into her handbag. “He’s fine now, no thanks to you.”

“What did I do?”

“You put all those fancy ideas into his head. Now he thinks he can fly.”

Caleb’s eyebrows rose. “Fly?”

“Just the other day he took a tumble from the verandah. He could have been seriously injured. Fortunately, he didn’t suffer more than a few bumps and bruises. And this morning”—she shuddered at the memory—”this morning I found him on the floor of his room.”

“And you think I had something to do with all this?”

She took a deep breath. “He’s not been the same since you worked with him. He’s more moody and difficult to handle. You put all those ideas into his head.”

Caleb shook his head. “I didn’t put them there. Becoming more independent is part of growing up.”

“If he injures himself he won’t have a chance to grow up.”

He reached for both her hands, and warm shivers shot up her arms.

“Molly, I want to help.”

Her breath caught in her chest and she couldn’t think, let alone speak.

He stared down at her calloused palms before meeting her gaze. Feeling self-conscious, she pulled her hands away.

“Let me work with him,” he said. “I can teach him safe ways to move.”

Something in his eyes made her hesitate. He looked at her more like a friend than a doctor, and this only added to her turmoil. “He’s the only family I have,” she whispered at last. “If anything happens to him . . .”

“I’ll do my best to make sure nothing does.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“I’m not promising miracles, but I can help him. From what you say, I’ve already helped. Admit it.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I used to trust Donny to stay where I put him, but no more.”

He folded his arms. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Wanting to believe what he said was true, her resistance crumbled. “I can’t pay much.”

He shrugged. “Seeing Donny improve will be payment enough.”

“And you won’t treat him like an animal.”

“Never did, never will.”

“I don’t want him on the floor,” she said.

His jaw tightened. “If I’m to help your brother, I have to do it my way. If you question my methods or limit the way I do things, then nothing will get accomplished. I’ll work your brother hard, and I expect him to give me everything he’s got in return. If my expectations seem harsh, it’s only for Donny’s own good.”

Oddly enough Brodie expressed a similar opinion about training horses. Brodie’s methods seemed harsh at times, but he got
results. Still, she wasn’t sure she had the stomach for what Caleb proposed.

“If I agree to your . . . conditions, will you agree to mine?”

Caleb slid off the desk, standing tall in front of her, but she did not back down. “Probably not,” he said, “but go on.”

“You will work with Donny only in my presence.” Tough training methods might work on horses, but her brother required a gentler approach.

“Absolutely not.”

“He’s my brother.”

“I’m his doctor.”

“Only if I say so!”

They stood practically toe to toe. If she wasn’t so much shorter, their noses would have touched.

“Sorry. I can’t work under your conditions,” he said.

Surprised at his unwillingness to meet her demands, she refused to back down. “Then we have no further business.”

His expression changed, like the closing of a door. “The medicine I gave you should help with the asthma. Have him drink tea. Don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something in tea that seems to help asthmatics.”

“Thank you,” she said, slipping the strings of her handbag over her wrist. The room was small, but the two of them seemed miles apart and she regretted it more than she could say.

She looked away from his steady gaze and turned.

She let herself out but stood for several moments on the boardwalk in front of his office. She was shaking, but whether from disappointment or something else, she didn’t know. Loud voices wafted from the saloon across the way, followed by a gunshot. The
marshal practically sprang out of his office and raced across the street.

Shuddering, Molly walked around a drunken man sprawled facedown in the dirt. She’d grown accustomed to such sights in Dobson Creek and never given it much thought. Today the man’s self-imposed helplessness filled her with disgust.

Chapter 21

B
essie hunkered beneath a corner table at the Desert Rose Saloon and put a finger to her mouth. “Shh.” She motioned her sister closer.

Lula-Belle rolled her eyes but crawled to Bessie’s side, bumping her head on the table’s underside.

Bessie had chosen this particular spot to hide because the table was occupied by Hank Gristle, slumped in the chair passed out cold. Since the man didn’t look to be much company, she figured others would avoid his table. So far she was proved right.

“This is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever come up with,” Lula-Belle whispered, rubbing her head. “And that’s saying a lot.”

“Quit your bellyaching,” Bessie said. “It’s for a good cause.” She’d do anything for her two nephews. “I want Luke’s wedding to be perfect.”

And she meant to see that it was. Bessie knew from the moment she’d set eyes on Kate Tenney that she was the right woman for her nephew. Luke tended to be thickheaded at times, just like her husband, Sam. For that reason it took a great deal of persuasion on Bessie’s part to bring him and Kate together, but it was worth every anxious moment she’d gone through. She’d promised her dying sister
all those years ago to take care of her two boys and that’s what she’d done. Was still doing, although Michael, the youngest of the two brothers, still required work.

Like all the saloons in town, the Desert Rose Saloon was long and narrow. Since taxes were based on lot frontage, not length, some saloons were little more than a door wide and a hundred or more feet long.

The smell of whiskey and cactus wine permeated the air and the blue haze of smoke burned her eyes. She was covered in sawdust and her knees, back, and chair warmer hurt like crazy. What a person had to go through just to put on a decent wedding!