The Doctor Takes a Wife (14 page)

F
or a moment she forgot to breathe. It couldn't be. It was what she had prayed for for so long. She took a step forward, another, then stopped, expecting the figure in front of her to dissolve into nothingness as he had done in her dream last night. She'd been ill, and she'd dreamed about Jesse. Perhaps that was why she was now transferring Jesse's features, Jesse's
voice
, onto the figure on the bench. If she just waited for a moment and blinked a few times, surely he would fade away again.

Her mind had played tricks on her like this before, when the war was newly over and she had begun to realize that the continued lack of letters and his failure to return meant Jesse was really dead. She'd seen his face in every dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger, and thought for a few precious heartbeats it was Jesse, until a closer look disappointed her each time.

But this hallucination had risen to his feet, his heavy canvas duster flapping in the breeze. He moved slowly forward, pulling off his hat, as if he too were in a dream.

“Sarah Matthews, is that you?” the man repeated again, using Jesse's beloved slow drawl. “Don't you know me, Sarah-girl?”

“Jesse? Jesse Holt?”

A smile spread across the lean, beard-stubbled cheeks. Jesse's smile. “The very same.”

She tried nonetheless to hold on to the reality she had known for almost a year now. “You can't be Jesse, mister. Jesse Holt is dead. Jesse never came back from the war.”

The stranger masquerading as Jesse had the grace to look ashamed. Taking his eyes off her face, he stared at the line he was toeing in the mud in the street.

“Yes, well, I'm sorry about that. I never meant to make you wait that long. I can tell you're surprised to see me. How are you, Goldilocks?”

She had never liked this nickname Jesse had given her, but his use of it established beyond all doubt that the man walking toward her, so near now that she could almost reach out and touch him, was really her long-lost fiancé Jesse Holt.

“Where have you been?”

She was surprised at the surge of anger she felt within her, and she could tell by the way his eyes widened, then narrowed, that he was, too, for he lost his confident grin for a moment. But then he found it again.

“Well, now, I'll tell you all about that, Goldilocks, I promise I will. What are you doing in town? I thought I'd find you out on your pa's ranch. As a matter of fact I was just waitin' for my horse to have a shoe replaced down at livery yonder, and then I was goin' to
ride out and surprise you.” He must have remembered his unshaven face, for he added, “Though I 'spose I should've made a stop at the barbershop first.”

She remained speechless, and he tried another tack, maybe thinking she needed more reassurance that he was no imposter. “How's your pa? And that sweet sister of yours—Milly, isn't that her name? Is she bossy as ever?”

“Our father's passed on. Milly's married and she and her husband live on the ranch,” she said stiffly.

“I'm sorry about your father,” he said. “So Milly's got the ranch. What about you? You—you're not married, are you?” He lost that perfect assurance for just a moment.

“No, I'm not married,” she said. “I'm living with Prissy Gilmore in a cottage on the grounds of the mayor's house.” She didn't jerk her head backward to indicate it; Jesse had grown up in Simpson Creek just as she had and he would remember where the mayor's grand house stood.

He blinked, and looked as if he'd like to ask why. “Don't that beat all?” he said at last. The wind ruffled his hair at that moment. “Hey, you must be gettin' cold, aren't you?” He looked around him as if deciding something. “Why don't you invite me in for a cup of coffee and I'll tell you what I've been doing since the war's been over?”

She stiffened. “I don't think that's a good idea.

Prissy's not there right now.” She assumed Prissy had not returned from checking on her father, but she wouldn't have invited him even if she had been certain Prissy was there. Too many months had gone by, and
now he had appeared without a word of warning, out of the blue. Later, she promised herself, she'd examine why the thought of Jesse in her house no longer appealed to her. Once, she knew, she would have invited him in and been glad that Prissy's absence gave them the privacy to exchange a kiss or two.

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck as he glanced behind him at the saloon. “And I reckon it wouldn't be fittin' to invite a lady into the saloon, either, to tell you my tale. Say, does the hotel still have that restaurant? Let me buy you dinner.”

“No thank you, I'm not hungry,” she said. It was the truth. Her stomach was churning.

“Coffee, then. You can keep me company while I eat. I've been on the trail since mornin', and I'm hungry enough to eat a longhorn steer, hide, horn, hoofs and beller.”

Even as she smiled automatically at his joke, she decided he deserved to be heard out, at the very least. They'd once been engaged to marry, after all. And sitting together in a public place was certainly better than inside the cottage.

“All right,” she said, and led the way back into the hotel.

 

Jesse drank a swallow of coffee to wash down the mouthful of roast beef he had chewed. “Right after we were taken prisoner, we were sent to Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. We figured we could escape from there and then it'd only be 'bout a hundred miles to the Kentucky border, but before we could do that, they transferred us to Johnson's Island in Lake Erie.”

“Was it awful there?” Sarah asked. “We heard horrible things about Libby Prison….”

He shook his head. “Not so bad, except in the winter, when those winds came whistlin' outa Canada. We about froze our Southern hides off. Then in September of '64, a bunch of us tried to seize one of the boats that made stops at the islands, and pretty near got away with it too, but we found out we'd been betrayed and had to hightail it to Canada instead.”

“You've been in Canada since the year
before
the war ended?” Sarah cried, unable to hide her indignation. “Why didn't you make your way back to the South, or at least write me from Canada?”

“Now, don't go soundin' all righteous, Sarah,” he said with a flash of irritation as he speared another hunk of beef. “We had good reason to lay low. There were spies swarmin' all over northern Ohio and southern Canada lookin' for us, and the war was goin' bad. Someone might've intercepted my letter. We figured there was no use bein' cannon fodder in a lost cause and decided t' wait out the war where it was safe.”

While other boys in gray kept dying.
“Well then, where have you been since then? The war was over last April.”

He sat back, studying her, grinning. “You look good, Sarah.”

She recognized a dodge when she heard it. And what nonsense. Her mirror had told her only this morning how pale and thin she looked after her battle with influenza, but then Jesse Holt always had been a silver-tongued rascal.

“Livin' away from that bossy sister must agree with
you,” he said with a wink. “I'm glad I didn't have to ride out there and argue my way past that dragon. She never did like me, you know.”

No, she hadn't known that, but it was just like Milly to have left her sister to make up her own mind. Sarah bit back the impulse to defend her sister and kept waiting, unwilling to be distracted.

The waiter returned to their table. “More coffee, folks?”

Sarah shook her head. Jesse said, “Sure, and we'll have some of that chocolate cake when we're finished. We're celebratin', you see.

“Where have we been, you asked,” Jesse said, after the waiter had gone. “Well, while we were in Canada, we worked here and there, did a little a' this and a little a' that, to keep food in our bellies….”

“‘We'?”

“Me and the boys from Johnson's Island who escaped together. Some of 'em were officers, some enlisted, but once we got outta that prison, we were equals. An' we figured it was time to get even with those Blue Bellies that put us in that blasted cold prison. So we've been makin' our way back t' Texas, stoppin' t' make life miserable for the Yankees whenever we could.” He winked. “We've found it can be mighty profitable, mighty profitable indeed. And quite amusin'.”

Mystified, she stared at him. “Jesse, whatever do you mean?”

He smiled that lazy smile again. “A little raiding, a holdup or two of stages bringin' the payroll to those blasted Federal troops who got no business occu
pyin' our fair state, a bit a' rustlin' of carpetbagger cattle…”

Sarah felt her jaw drop. “You're an
outlaw?
”

He laughed. “Nah, nothin' like that, Sarah. I told you, we're only harrassin' Yankees. We don't bother honest Southerners. High time we made up for all those years those b—those Yankees stole from us.”

While she was still staring at him, her mind reeling at what he was so proudly telling her, he reached out and seized her hand, which had been clutching her coffee cup, and leaned across the table, his eyes intense.

“Sarah, they stole those years from
us,
from you an' me. If they hadn't tried t' bully the South, you an' me'd be married for three or four years with a passel a' kids. With your pa dead, I could've taken over the ranch and we'd have been sittin' pretty, yes siree. You know that's what would've happened.”

Yes, they'd have married, she thought, but she was no longer sure she would have been happy. She pulled her hand away from his slowly, trying not to seem as if she was repelled by his touch.

“Jesse, the war is
over
,” she said. “The other men from Simpson Creek who survived came home and took up their lives again.”

“Aw, Sarah, we were cooped up for so long, we were just havin' some fun before we settled down,” he protested. “You always used to like havin' fun, so I figured you'd understand.”

She felt her temper spark. “Jesse, I wore
mourning
for you. Your poor mother died thinking she'd see you
in Heaven. You couldn't have written to say you were
alive?
”

Finally, he had the grace to look ashamed. “You know I never was much for book learnin',” he said. “I think I gave that schoolmarm we had—what was her name? Miss Russell?—most of her gray hairs. But I never meant to make you sad, Sarah, honey.”

He looked at her with puppy-dog eyes, a look that used to melt her heart. “I'm here to make it up to you, Sarah. Run away with me, and we'll get married, and I'll introduce you to th' boys. We'll have a fine life—you'll see. A couple of 'em are married, too, or they have lady friends here 'n' there that ride along with us from time to time.”

She couldn't believe her ears. “You think I'd even
consider
leaving with you to live an outlaw's life, always on the run?”

“Aw, Sarah, we have a grand time, livin' high off the hog. We're free to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We eat the best food, drink the best wine—our ladies are drippin' in jewelry and fancy clothes. But I'm willin' to leave it all if you insist.”

“‘Leave it all'?”

“Sure. That's how much I love you, sweetheart. If you don't want to live free as a bird, I'll come back and have that ranch with you. We'll let Milly stay there, too, of course, but it ain't fittin' for no lady to be runnin' a ranch anyway.”

“I told you, Milly's married now,” she managed to say, in the midst of the temper that was threatening to boil over into angry words. “I think her husband might take exception to that idea.”

“We'll buy him out, then,” he said grandly. “They can go find some other ranch. I know you always set great store by that old place.”

She was conscious of the handful of other diners in the restaurant, and remembered again that her mother said ladies did not make a scene in public.

She folded her hands in her lap and looked away. “I'm sorry, Jesse. I loved you, and I prayed every night during the war for your return, but now—”

He straightened. “
Loved
me? You don't love me any more? There's someone else, isn't there?” he demanded, his narrowed eyes twin smoldering fires.

She looked away from his glare. She didn't want to tell him about Nolan, didn't want to hear his reaction to the news that his former fiancée was in love with one of the very Yankees he hated so much, especially since she and Nolan hadn't even had the chance to explore their new feelings for one another yet. But she wouldn't lie, not about the relationship that had come to mean so much to her. She just wouldn't say any more than she had to.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I'm sorry, there is. I wish you well, Jesse. And now I'd best be getting home.” She rose. The encounter—preceded by her busy morning of baking—had exhausted her, and she just wanted to reach the sanctuary of the cottage and lie down for a while.

N
olan whistled as he walked across the muddy street toward the hotel. It had been a busy morning, but a good one. All of his influenza patients seemed to be on the mend, and there continued to be no more new cases. And just as the sun rose, he had helped usher a new baby into the world. He couldn't wait to tell Sarah about it.

He glanced over his shoulder at the cottage, which sat diagonally across from the hotel, wishing he could drop in and see her right now, then decided against it, hoping Sarah was following his instructions and resting.

No, instead of knocking on Sarah's door, he'd have his dinner and then return to his office, where he'd restock his bag and “redd up” the office, as Prissy would say. Perhaps he'd even get a chance to catch up on his professional reading.

He was still whistling as he walked through the hotel lobby and into the restaurant, nodding a greeting at the waiter as he headed for his usual table by the window, but then he stopped stock-still.

Sarah was just rising from a table against the wall, and as he watched, the rangy-looking saddle tramp who'd been sitting opposite her jumped up, too, and grabbed her hand with a familiarity only a man who knew a woman well would dare.

Had he been completely wrong about Sarah Matthews? He'd thought she loved him, too. Was it possible she had other suitors, just as in love with her as he was?

“Sarah, you can't leave like this,” the man said in a disbelieving voice, his rough features stricken. “I left the boys and came all this way to see you—I even offered t' leave 'em for good, and you're going to just walk out?”

“Jesse,
please,
” Sarah said in a low, distressed voice, pulling her hand away. Her back was to Nolan so she hadn't seen him, so he remained where he was. “Don't make this harder than it is. Please just accept what I've told you, and go on your way. But I beg you, if I ever meant anything to you, leave those bad men and start your life back on an honest path. I don't want you to die like outlaws do, from a bullet or at the end of a rope.”

The man gave a harsh bark of laughter and his features hardened into something ugly. “Leave them? You make it sound like I'm some homeless cur, Sarah, going along with anyone who'll spare me a crumb. Sarah, I'm the
leader
of the Gray Boys gang. Me, Jesse Holt—the leader!”

Jesse Holt.
Wasn't that the name of Sarah's fiancé, who'd died in the war? Apparently he hadn't died. Had Sarah known that all along? Had they met in secret
before, and now were becoming bold enough to meet in a public place?

“And I was willing to give all that up for you,” the man went on, his face hardening into an angry mask, “but you're throwin' it back in my face and tellin' me you've fallen in love with someone else. Who is it, Sarah? That's what I want to know, and I think I have a right.” He
hadn't
been wrong about Sarah. He didn't know where this Holt fellow had popped up from, or if Sarah had known he was still alive, but obviously Holt didn't mean anything to her anymore, because she loved
him
.

By now, everyone in the restaurant was staring, townspeople and travelers alike. While Sarah had spoken quietly, Holt hadn't bothered to keep his voice down, so everyone in the room was now absorbed in the dramatic scene.

Sarah's voice shook, but her stance was no-nonsense as she said, “It's none of your concern anymore, Jesse. Goodbye.”

The saddle tramp thrust his hand out as if he meant to stop her by force. It was time to step in.

“Is this man bothering you, sweetheart?” Nolan said, coming forward and placing a proprietary hand on her shoulder.

Sarah half turned and jumped, clearly startled. “
Nolan!
I'm glad you're here. Please, just take me home.” Her face was flushed dully red with misery as she reached for his arm and took hold of it.

He looked down into her eyes, hoping she read the love in them. “Of course.” Then he looked back at
Holt, making sure the man wasn't going for a gun. He wasn't, but if looks could kill, Nolan knew he would have been sprawled on the floor.

Clearly conscious of his enthralled audience, Holt's face screwed itself into a mask of scorn as he looked him up and down. “
This
is the fellow you left me for? This Yankee swell in a frock coat? How could you, Sarah? Your ma an' pa must be rollin' in their graves, knowin' their daughter's cozy with a Yankee.”

“That's enough,” Nolan snapped. “The lady's leaving, and you're not to bother her further.”

Holt cocked his head and drawled, “I declare, he talks funny.”

A few of the onlookers chuckled.

Nolan clenched his fists, but Sarah's hand tightened on his wrist. “Please, let's just
go.
”

They turned and started for the door, but Holt wasn't done.

“You'll be sorry, Sarah! This whole town's gonna be sorry you threw me over!”

Nolan felt her shaking as they hurried across the road. Fortunately, Prissy still hadn't returned to the cottage, for Sarah managed to hold it in only until they crossed the threshold before she threw herself into his arms in a torrent of tears.

“Oh, N-Nolan!” she cried, her whole body heaving with her sobs. “He j-just appeared out of n-nowhere!”

“Did he come here to the cottage, looking for you?” Nolan asked, chilled at the thought of that man knowing where his Sarah lived.

“N-no…” she said against his coat as he held her,
her voice thick with tears. “I was coming out of the hotel—I'd delivered some baked goods, you see…”

So she hadn't been resting as instructed, but Nolan hadn't the heart to reprove her about overexerting herself.

“…And he was sitting outside the saloon,” she continued, still shaking. She told him how Holt had escaped to Canada during the latter part of the war and had been running with a gang of outlaws ever since returning across the northern border. “He thinks it's all right because they're ‘only stealing from Yankees,'” she cried. “Oh, Nolan, he's
nothing
like the sweet young man I loved before he went to war!”

“Ssssh, sweetheart,” he soothed, still holding her and resting his face against her hair. “War has a way of changing men, and frequently not for the better. But it's over now. You're safe.”

“But you heard him! He didn't just threaten me, he threatened the whole town!” she wailed. “What are we going to do?”

“We won't have to do anything,” Nolan assured her. “Those were empty threats. Some men don't take rejection very well, that's all.”

“But it's so unfair, Nolan! I mean, I'm glad he's not dead, but he never sent a word to tell me he was still alive! And then to show up out of nowhere, almost a year after the war was over, and get angry because I'd gone on with my life. Can you imagine, Nolan, he tried to talk me into running off with him!”

Nolan wanted to growl in rage at the thought of that saddle tramp inviting Sarah to join him on the run. He
was relieved to see that Sarah was no longer weeping, but angry.

“Or if I wouldn't do that,” she went on, pulling away to pace back and forth, waving her arm in a furious gesture, “he very nobly offered to give all that up and take over the ranch!”

“I reckon Nick Brookfield would have something to say about that, as well as Milly,” he said drily. “Just picture Holt trying to waltz in there and persuade Milly to give up her ranch.”

She gave a watery laugh and swiped a hand at her eyes. “She wouldn't even need Nick to defend it,” she said. “She'd get out the shotgun herself.”

“That's the spirit,” he told her, stroking her cheek. “Now, don't worry about Holt anymore. Likely as not he's already ridden out of Simpson Creek and you'll never see him again.”

“I hope you're right,” she said, twisting a fold of her grenadine cloth skirt.

“You weren't tempted—even for a moment, before he told you what he'd been doing?” he asked her curiously, then wished he could call back the question as soon as he asked it. He had no right to probe her heart like that.

But Sarah apparently didn't mind. She shook her head, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to look within herself. “Not for a moment,” she told him. “There was something about him that had just changed too much. And he wasn't
you,
Nolan.” She went back into his arms and offered her lips for a kiss, and he was more than glad to take her up on it.

“But Nolan,” she began when he let her go at last, “seriously, what if it wasn't an empty threat?”

He sighed. “Perhaps you shouldn't go anywhere alone for a while, even in the daytime,” he said. “If I can't be with you, take Prissy.”

“I meant his threat to harm the town,” she said. “After all, the sheriff is dead, and his old deputy, Pat Donovan, has never been up to anything more than whittling while he guards someone already locked up.”

It was a sobering thought. Nolan sighed. “I'll speak to Prissy's father. Now that the flu epidemic is over, we need to remind the mayor the town needs a new sheriff.”

 

The next morning, Sarah, accompanied by Prissy in accordance with Nolan's request, headed to the mercantile to deliver the pies and cakes she'd baked yesterday.

“I feel silly asking you to come along like some sort of guard, Prissy,” Sarah said as they walked. “It's not as if it's even likely I'd see Jesse between the cottage and the mercantile, even if he did stay in town. And I don't think he'd do anything more than ignore me, anyway.”

“Oh, just think of me as someone to help carry your wares,” Prissy said cheerfully. “Papa was wanting some peppermint drops at the mercantile anyway. And besides, it couldn't hurt to be careful—why, you could have knocked me over with a feather last night when you told Papa and me about Jesse showing up alive, and then acting the awful way he did.”

“Yes, it was the last thing I ever expected,” Sarah said. “I was never so glad to see Nolan in my life!”

“See, I told you that he was the one for you,” Prissy said smugly as she held open the door of the mercantile to let Sarah in.

As they entered, Sarah spotted Mrs. Detwiler and Mrs. Patterson with their heads together at the counter.

“Good morning, ladies,” she called out. “Good to see you up and about, Mrs. Detwiler, after your illness. Mrs. Patterson, I have some baked goods for you.”

Both ladies jerked upright at the sound of Sarah's voice, looking so guilty Sarah knew they must have been talking about her. She felt a sinking in her stomach as if she'd eaten one of Prissy's early practice biscuits.

“Good, Sarah, I'll be glad to have them,” Mrs. Patterson said quickly, trying to assume a businesslike manner. “It's been so long since anyone dared venture out, even if they were well, and now they're starting to ask where your cakes and pies have been. Of course, I told them you'd been very ill yourself….”

“Sarah, I was about to come see you,” Mrs. Detwiler said, as if perhaps she realized Sarah saw through Mrs. Patterson's chatter. “There's something Mrs. Patterson and I thought you ought to know—”

Sarah raised her chin as Prissy quietly laid her share of the baked goods on the counter. “That Jesse Holt is alive and came to town yesterday? Yes, I'm aware. We ran into one another.”

Both women looked distinctly relieved at not having to break the news to her.

“I imagine that was quite a shock, seeing him alive after all that time,” Mrs. Patterson said, peering curiously at her through her spectacles. “You didn't have any idea? He never wrote to tell you?”

As if the whole town wouldn't know if I'd received a letter from him,
Sarah thought, remembering that Postmaster Wallace loved to gossip as much as the women did. “No,” she said quietly. “But of course I'm glad he isn't dead, even if our lives have gone in different directions.”

“Then you don't mind that he and Ada Spencer were cozyin' up with one another?”

“Jesse? And
Ada Spencer?
” Prissy exclaimed, while Sarah was still trying to find her voice.

“They met in front of the mercantile yesterday—I saw it from that very window,” Mrs. Patterson said. “I thought he looked familiar but then Ada came along and went flyin' into his arms and squealin' in delight, callin' his name.”

“Well, she knew him, too, of course, before the war,” Sarah reminded her. “We all knew Jesse—we'd grown up together.”

“Well, they came in here for a while, seein' as it was a mite chilly outside still, and stood and talked for the longest time. I heard bits and pieces here and there—”

“You don't need to tell me, Mrs. Patterson. I've already wished Jesse well, but explained that I've come to care for another very much—”

Mrs. Detwiler interrupted, “And that ‘another' is Dr. Walker, isn't it? Took you a while, but you always were a smart girl. I'm right happy for you two.”

But Mrs. Patterson was not about to be distracted. “Then you won't mind that Ada practically threw herself at him, and Jesse Holt looked mighty pleased to catch her,” Mrs. Patterson said, as if Sarah hadn't hinted she'd heard enough. “Miz Powell, the cook at the hotel, said those two took supper there last night, and Ada was all gussied up,” Mrs. Patterson said with a cackle that would have put one of Milly's hens to shame. “Not a sign of mourning on that one. Scandalous! And when they were done eating, Miz Powell said, they went off down the street arm in arm.”

Sarah couldn't help but wonder if Ada had told Jesse about her recent “pregnancy.”

“Ada's had a rough time lately,” she said, aware that both ladies were waiting for her reaction and hoping this would satisfy them. “Perhaps she and Jesse would be good for one another.”
And perhaps Ada can persuade Jesse off the outlaw trail.