Firefly (15 page)

Sometime between dark and dawn, when it was possible to move through the house without a lamp and not stumble, Julie arrived.  She brought a skillet of fluffy scrambled eggs flavored with ham and peppers, a platter of crisp bacon, warm, buttered toast, and fresh coffee.

The aroma brought a weak but sincere smile to Morgan's face.

"A true angel of mercy," he said, taking a plate from the basket over her arm.

He looked awful.  In a way, he looked worse than when she'd first seen him.  Blood, sweat, and the ever-present dust stained his once clean white shirt.  Dark hollows shadowed his cheeks, with weary circles of almost the same color under his eyes.

"I think you had better eat this and then get yourself some sleep, Dr. Morgan."

A yawn prevented any protest.

"Aren't you going to have some of this?  There's enough here for the both of us and then some." He dished up some eggs and took a couple slices of bacon.

"I've already eaten.  How is Louie?  Any better?"

Morgan shook his head.

"I told his friends a coupla hours ago that I didn't think he was going to make it."

"Oh, no.  I'm so sorry.  You tried so hard."

He shrugged.

"It happens.  He was an old man who didn't take very good care of himself, and he had lost a lot of blood."

He took a clean cup from the basket and handed it to Julie.  She filled it with steaming coffee, never once thinking of all the times she had performed the task before.

"Thanks," he breathed after the first scalding gulp.

"If you don't need me for anything else, I have to go home and get ready for church."  She took a step toward the door, then stopped.  What she was about to do required a great deal of thought, more than she had time for right now, so she took a deep breath and let it out slowly with words she could hardly believe she was saying.  "Would you like to come for dinner later?  We eat about one o'clock, and I'm fixing roast beef."

Chapter Ten 

The Reverend Mr. Wintergarden was not usually given to short sermons, and he remained true to form that morning. There were those in the congregation who dozed quietly while he indulged his enthusiasm for a particularly obscure passage in Revelation, and there were others who paid rapt if confused attention.  Julie did neither.  She prayed.

She prayed for the life of the injured miner, then prayed for forgiveness because she had asked for the man's life out of selfishness: she wanted the glory of saving his life for Morgan.  The man needed the victory.

At her left, Willy fidgeted impatiently.  She asked for strength in dealing with him, which she knew would be more and more difficult the less time she had to spend with him.

She glanced down the pew to Wilhelm.  Stern as always, he stared intently at the preacher.  Wilhelm paid no attention to his son or daughter, but then that was hardly unusual.

Julie did not pray for him.

She prayed for Del Morgan until tears came to her eyes at the memory of the grave just outside the church.  She had not had time in the past few days to talk to Winnie Upshaw about Amalia Morgan's death, and she could not talk to Morgan himself about it, not yet.  He was still too much a stranger to her.

When the last hymn had been sung and Reverend Wintergarden gave his benediction, Julie slid as unobtrusively past Katharine as possible and headed for the side door, to hurry home ahead of the rest of her family.

She couldn't avoid walking past the grave, nor could she keep from looking at the rose bush.

The damaged canes had been pruned carefully to conceal the worst wounds, and a single fresh blossom had just barely opened its fragrant petals, vibrant red in the summer sunshine.  Julie had no idea when Morgan found time to tend the flower, but obviously he had not neglected this special duty.

She turned her gaze and footsteps toward home and encountered a familiar figure square in the path, waiting for her.

"Good morning, Hans," she greeted stiffly.

"Good morning, Julie."

"I missed you in church," she lied, feeling horribly guilty.  She hadn't once thought of him, much less missed him.

"I was busy at the farm."

He looked as he always looked, his hair a week longer, his shirt as clean and wrinkled as ever.

As they walked through the open gate of the churchyard and crossed the empty street, Julie tried not to think about the confrontation to come.  She struggled to keep her mind on Hans, who had dared to take her elbow when they reached the private precincts of the Hollstroms' yard.  He was saying something about a calf being turned the wrong way.

"Like a breech birth in a woman?" she suddenly asked, taking an interest that obviously surprised Hans.

"I...I don't know about women.  I only know cows and horses and sheep," he stammered.

"I watched a baby being born the other night," she told him, forgetting his grip on her arm.  "It, I mean he, was turned the wrong way, too.  Dr. Morgan had to pull him out, and he said the baby would have died if I hadn't been there to help.  I helped deliver him, and Mrs. Baxter named him after me."

She had been excited, telling him even so briefly about her experience, but the excitement died quickly.  There was no matching joy in Hans' blue eyes, only cold disapproval.

"Women do not speak of such things," he told her through tightly clenched teeth.  He let go her elbow with a gesture of distaste.  "Go in the house and fix dinner.  I will wait here for your papa and mama."

There was plenty of work in the kitchen to keep her mind off the coming debacle, but the harder Julie worked, the more she thought about Morgan and Hans.  Morgan might not accept the invitation, which would solve a great number of difficulties, but she did not wish for that solution.  She was peeling potatoes to lay around the roast when she first admitted how badly she wanted him to come.

But where would she seat him?  In the past, she had put Hans on one side of the table, with herself and Willy on the other.  Wilhelm and Katharine occupied opposite ends.  But should she put Dr. Morgan beside Hans, and if so, which of them would sit directly opposite her?  Or, considering his position as a hopeful future husband, did Hans rate the place beside Julie, with Willy next to Morgan?  She certainly couldn't put Morgan at her side and Hans opposite.

With the roast and potatoes in the oven, she shook her head clear of etiquette problems and began the cake.

Applesauce and cinnamon flavored the entire kitchen.  After pouring the batter--of which she'd had more than enough sample tastes to be sure it was perfect--into the pan, Julie stood back from the oven just to drink in the delicious smell.  A light tapping on the back door brought her out of her reverie.

As soon as she opened the door, the look in his green eyes told her all she needed to know.

"When?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron and sliding her glasses back up.

"Half an hour ago."

She stepped back to admit him to the kitchen.  He sat down at the table, unmindful of the bowls and measuring cups and mixing spoons that littered the checkered cloth.  A long reddish streak of cinnamon lay under his forearm.

"I knew there wasn't much hope when they brought him in, but when he made it through the night, I thought maybe he had a chance."

He spoke calmly, either hiding his disappointment or not yet feeling it.  After a long silence Julie walked up behind him and lay one hand on a weary shoulder.  It shuddered with his sigh.

"You did what you could," she said.  "Sometimes you just can't do anything more.  At least you tried."

"Yeah, at least I tried."

Her lower lip trembled; she bit it to hold it still and tried not to let her hand shake.  But it wasn't sorrow that sent nervous quivers up and down her arm.

She had touched him to give him comfort, but that touch brought something else to her.  A few days ago that hand had lain passive while he caressed it, chasing all coherent thought from her.  Now she touched him, and the effect was as startling as it was different.  For now she was as much aware of her surroundings and circumstances as she was of the hard muscle beneath her fingers.  Only a layer of linen shirt separated her palm from the warm skin of his shoulder, but the spark arced that tiny distance and current hummed along the wires of her nerves.  Her heart beat as unevenly as the dots and dashes of the telegraph code.

He must have had a few hours sleep, though she couldn't guess where, for his hair was mussed and flattened on one side and his cheek, under its black stubble, bore a crease, as though he had lain on a wrinkled pillow.  His rest had not been enough to erase the bluish circles under his eyes.

"Is there anything I can do?"

He shook his head.

"His friends plan to take him back to the mine to bury him.  I sent one of them to the church to get Wintergarden; they wanted somebody to say a few words over Louie first." Morgan fell silent and drew a deep breath.

Oh, God, Julie don't touch me like that
, he groaned inwardly. 
Amy used to do that, and then she'd rub my shoulders and my neck and my back and she'd take all the pain away. She'd tell me I had done my best and I couldn't do more than that.

But Julie's hand remained still, and Morgan did not move away.

"You should get some sleep," she suggested quietly.  "Go home and rest, and I'll bring your dinner to you later this afternoon."

She felt guilty again, taking advantage of his exhaustion to escape an uncomfortable situation.  Yet he obviously needed the rest, and maybe he hadn't intended to come for dinner after all.

"You don't need to go to all that trouble.  I can go over to Daneggar's or the Castle--"

"No!"

Her half-shouted forbiddance startled them both.  Julie felt her cheeks burn, and she quickly drew her hand away from his shoulder.

"It's Sunday, and the restaurant is closed," she said, struggling not to stammer.  "And I don't want you going anywhere near the saloon.  Besides, I invited you to join us, and I'll be highly insulted if you go elsewhere."

"Thanks, but I think not.  You're right.  I'm tired and I need some decent sleep."  He stood up, carefully keeping his back to her.  "I'll stop and ask Winnie to cook something for me.  I'd forgotten Daneggar's is closed today.  I guess I kind of lost track of the time."

"There's no need to bother Winnie.  I've got more than enough here for all of us, even with Hans.  So if you won't come for dinner, at least let me bring some to you."

Yes, that was the best way to do it. She was safely out of the predicament by his own agreement, without resorting to the slightest falsehood.  And she'd kept him away from the saloon, too.

He heard her little sigh of relief only because he had been holding his breath ever since she uttered that name.  So the blond farmer was the reason she reneged on her invitation.  Must be she didn't want her catch to get any wrong ideas about her and the town drunk, even if Morgan did pride himself more than he probably ought to on the fact that he hadn't had a drink since, good heavens, since Monday.  Almost a week.