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Amazon
Category:
Romance
Publisher: Oblique Angles Press
ISBN-10: 0998060453
Type: Fiction
Pages: 324
Copyright: October 15, 2019
ISBN-13: 9780998060453
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
A small town doctor, veteran of the Civil War and emotionally scarred by his experiences, has no intention of seeking a wife until his helpful new neighbor starts matchmaking. But the plain-speaking yet enigmatic armer's daughter who catches his interest is not the matchmaker's idea of the right bride.
Can they help each other heal?
Joshua Gibbs survived the Civil War, building on his wartime experiences to become a small town doctor. And if he wakes from nightmares more often than he would like, only his dog Major is there to know it.
Then two newcomers arrive in Cowbird Creek: Clara Brook, a plain-speaking and yet enigmatic farmer’s daughter, and Freida Blum, an elderly Jewish widow from New York. Freida knows just what Joshua needs: a bride. But it shouldn’t be Clara Brook!
Joshua tries everything he can think of to discourage Freida’s efforts, including a wager: if he can find Freida a husband, she’ll stop trying to find him a wife. Will either matchmaker succeed? And is it Clara, despite her own scars, who can heal the doctor’s troubled heart?
Excerpt
Joshua Gibbs felt sun on his face and thought about opening his eyes. He decided to wait. He had some blessings to savor that wouldn’t need sight.
He was in a bed, a four-poster with a well-stuffed husk mattress, instead of in a tent on rough ground. He was in Nebraska, far from any of the towns he had passed through — or seen devastated — during the war. The sound nearest his right ear wasn’t the whistle of a shell or the wails and screams of dying men, but the soft grumbly snore of his Irish Setter. And the dog’s name might be Major (or, to give the full grandiloquent version, Reginald Phineas Major), but that was the closest to an officer he’d find for miles around.
And what Joshua smelled, when he took a slow, lazy sniff, was a mix of Major and almost-clean bed linen, and not . . . well, no need to sully a brand new morning with the memory of what he’d have smelled this time nine years ago.
But thoughts like these were not worth staying abed for. He opened his eyes and sat up, stretching out his arm and laying a hand lightly on Major’s side for the warm breathing comfort of it. Major’s eye twitched, and his tail, but that was all. A dog knew, without having to think about it, what safety meant.
Joshua levered himself out of bed. He’d shave, get dressed, and take a walk with Major before frying himself some breakfast.
As a boy, if he could have even imagined himself so old as thirty-three, he’d have assumed he’d be leaving a wife behind staying warm in bed or making breakfast, or better yet, accompanying him on his morning amble. But things change. War changes them. And solitude suited him, these days.
Most of the latest — perhaps the last? — snow had melted. It wouldn’t take him too long to clean off his boots after his walk. Joshua liked having clean boots when he saw patients, even if some folk in town might think it affected of him.
He headed away from the square to start, toward the creek that had given Cowbird Creek its name. If he’d been taking this road out of town to see a patient, he’d have been riding his trotter Nellie-girl or using one of the livery stable buggies. He wouldn’t have had time or attention to spare for the serviceberry bushes just starting to put forth their lacy white flowers, or the sparrows with their thin high chirps, stirring about on whatever business sparrows had.
He got as far as the buttonwood tree by the creek before his hollow stomach reminded him to turn round. He took a turn around the square and saw a light in the laundry. Li Chang looked to be hard at work already. It wasn’t easy to get the Chinese fellow talking, as busy as he kept himself, but his tales of the gold fields could cure anyone of hankering after mining. Though he’d managed to make enough of a stake to set up his business and even pay for help — except the help had given up on America and gone home a year since.
Turning the corner brought Joshua past the church. Passing the church meant passing the churchyard. A few of his patients were at rest there, though others were buried on their farms. One or two of them wouldn’t be there yet, if he’d known then what he knew now. He paused, bowed his head, and sent them a silent apology, and a promise to stick to his books until he knew as much medicine as anyone could learn that way.
At least there were other folk, asleep in bed or about their chores, in town and outside it, who might have been sleeping colder in the ground if not for him.
He picked up his pace, more than ready for breakfast. He had bacon and eggs he’d got in payment from the farmer whose cough he’d dosed two days ago. Good thing he liked his eggs runny, because he hadn’t left all that much time for cooking and eating before opening his office and seeing who sauntered or stumbled or limped in to be doctored.
By now, everyone knew that Doctor Gibbs saw patients in his office on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, unless someone in urgent need of him called him away somewhere. The town days, when he got them, gave Nellie-girl a good rest, not to mention Joshua himself. Sometimes things were slow, and he’d have time to read or even (out of sight of the street) practice magic tricks or nap a bit. And the stroll to the office — or rather, the long way around, ending up at the office — gave him a chance to watch the town come alive, as much as it ever did, and to greet a neighbor or two.
Joshua had by now lived in Cowbird Creek long enough to take particular notice of any new face. So when he saw a woman heading into the general store and realized he could not remember seeing her before, he stopped and took a second look. Besides her being unfamiliar, Joshua’s first impression was that she was tall for a woman, and next, that she was thin, her plainly cut dress doing nothing to disguise the fact. As she turned into the store, he caught a glimpse of striking green eyes and a long dark braid hanging beneath her simple bonnet — darker than Joshua’s own, almost black.
A farmer, one of Joshua’s patients, was lounging nearby while one of his sons argued with the blacksmith about how long it took to shoe a carthorse. Noting the direction of Joshua’s glance, he spat some tobacco juice and said, “That’d be the daughter on that farm that changed hands last month. Skinnier’n you, ain’t she?”
Given the farmer’s girth, his view of what it meant to be “skinny” was somewhat skewed. Joshua would describe himself as lean. The farmer, meanwhile, added, “Owners gave up fighting the drought and went back east. I heard something about these folks renting land somewhere else and coming here to buy their own place. Got some kind of funny name, Crick or Stream or suchlike.”
With that pronouncement, the farmer straightened up and went in to relieve his son in the dispute with the blacksmith. Joshua pulled out his pocket watch and hurried along.
Two patients were waiting outside his door when he opened it. He steered the blacksmith, who seemed the steadier on his feet of the two, not to mention the one who wouldn’t get ruffled about waiting, to a chair and took the sheriff into the back where he’d set up his exam table and instruments.
The sheriff hoisted his considerable bulk up onto the table. “My belly’s been aching considerable.”
Joshua noted the sheriff’s flushed color and straining suspenders. “And just what have you been putting into that belly of late?”
The sheriff shrugged sheepishly. “You know Ma’s pork chops and creamed corn, and her molasses pie. You had vittles like that waiting at home, you’d eat too much of ‘em, I reckon.”
“Well, roll up your left sleeve.” Joshua picked up the lancet and gave the sheriff the pan to hold. He didn’t hold with bleeding patients for many ailments, but this seemed like one of the times it might help. And most of his patients believed it would, which could make a difference in itself.
When the pan held a sufficient quantity of blood, he took it to throw away later and bandaged the arm. “Take it easy on that pie, now.” He grinned. “You can bring some by my place, to remove temptation.”
The sheriff snorted as he slid off the table and made his way toward the front of the office, swaying a bit as he went. Joshua followed him to make sure he stayed on his feet, then looked around for the blacksmith. But the chair was empty. Just then, his fugitive patient hurried back in. “Sorry, doc. Had to run to the outhouse, like I’ve been doing every few minutes for two days now. Can you fix me up?”
Joshua stroked his chin. “I just might have something that’ll help you.” He fetched a glass jar half full of powder, powder he ground up from the plant that Cherokee medicine man had shown him. The blacksmith watched, his forehead wrinkled and eyebrows lowered.
“What in tarnation is that?”
Joshua laughed. “Darned if I know what it’s called, except in Indian talk. But it works better than anything I can say in English.”
The blacksmith was shaking his big head. Joshua held up a hand, palm out. “Now before you go blustering at me, you should know those folks have some pretty good remedies. Living the way they do, they notice things. Tell me, how many people around here have got milk sickness lately?”
The blacksmith just looked confused. Joshua suppressed a sigh. “I haven’t had a patient with milk sickness since I came to town. And you know why? It’s because a doctor who listened to Indians did some listening when a Shawnee woman told him —” It had actually been a lady doctor, Doctor Anna, but Joshua didn’t think the blacksmith could swallow that idea when just the idea of Indian medicine was sticking in his craw. “This woman told him that milk sickness came from drinking milk or eating meat from an animal that fed on white snakeroot. And that doctor told people, who told people, and now most farmers know to keep their stock away from white snakeroot. Now do you want me to give you something that’ll help you, or would you rather move into the outhouse and try to shoe horses there?”
Joshua made the blacksmith drink down the first glass of water and powder before he left with a pouch holding six more doses. Whether he’d keep taking it, well, that was the blacksmith’s problem, for now anyway.
There was no one waiting, but before Joshua had time to do more than take a book down from the shelf, the door opened and a woman walked in. No, more like sailed in, a proud vessel, a four-master. She took off her coat to reveal a well-tailored dress, fitting snugly on her large, well-upholstered frame. Her graying, wavy hair peeked out from under a truly astonishing hat.
He hadn’t met this woman, but he believed he’d heard about her. Another newcomer to town, from somewhere back east; a widow; and apparently Jewish. That’d make her the first Jew he’d met.
She held out her hand. “Doctor! I’m so pleased to be meeting you. I’m Freida Blum.”
He shook her hand, studying her. He’d never heard her accent before, or not quite. It wasn’t as thick as the accent of that German he’d tended the last year of the war, when he’d turned medic; he could understand her without straining. But “Doctor” ended in a rough, husky sound, and “meeting” sounded more like “meetink.” There was something different about her vowels that he couldn’t put a word to. And her speech had a rhythm and a melody to it, almost like singing, or chanting anyway.
But here he was standing and gawking when he needed to be doctoring. “Please come through to the back and sit up on that table. Then you can tell me what brings you in today.”
She strode after him, passed him, and got on the table with a little jump, the wood creaking as she landed. “Oh, I’ve just had some aches and pains, here and there. And I get tired by afternoon. My age, you don’t expect to feel like a spring chicken. But I thought I’d stop in.”
She was studying him quite as much as he’d studied her. Whatever she’d heard about him, he guessed it was her curiosity more than any medical need that had sent her his way. But he’d check her over. He picked up his stethoscope.
“So young, for a doctor! But that’s just an old woman talking, I suppose.” (He wouldn’t call her old, exactly. Not quite. She might be in her middle fifties or a little older.)
Speaking of talking, she would need to stop. “If you could just take a deep breath, and then another, while I listen to your lungs.”
“Of course, of course. How can you do your job —” (“yure chob”) — “when I’m rattling on like a freight train? Samuel always said to me, Freida, the way you talk, when do you manage to breathe?”
“Mrs. Blum. Please.”
Praise be, she stopped talking and took deep breaths as he commanded. Her lungs sounded good. But she winced as she took the third breath. And she put a hand to her back as if it was paining her. She might have her reasons for being there, at that.
Or she could be lonely. Lonely people without enough to do sometimes felt sicker than they really were. “What do you do during the day, generally?”
The woman beamed at him as if rewarding the question. “I sew for so many people! This dress, I made it. All I have to do is walk around town, it’s as good as putting an ad in the paper. And I’m setting up the social library in the schoolhouse, me and the teacher, such a bright young woman. And my little neighbor, she’s like a daughter to me, I take care of her babies sometimes so she can get her rest.”
Not idle, then.
He pressed the stethoscope to her ample chest, giving thanks once again to the inventor who had spared him the even more awkward necessity of putting his ear there instead. Her heart sounded good — or did it? There might be a faint suggestion of a galloping rhythm.
Laudanum would help her with those aches and pains. He reached for a bottle, but Mrs. Blum stopped him, exclaiming, “Oh, I have that at home! May I come to you for more when I run out?”
Joshua pointed next door. “I get mine from the pharmacist. You can do the same.”
A shade of what might have been disappointment crossed her face. For whatever reason, she apparently found doctors more interesting than druggists. Her next questions suggested as much. “How did you learn so much about medicine? Did you go to one of those new schools?”
He shook his head. “I picked it up during the war, to start with.” And that was all he was going to say about those years of floundering and failing, the lives lost all around him, the suffering he could do little to ease.
The bell on the front door jingled a welcome chance to escape more questioning. Maybe he’d be summoned to some nicely far-off homestead to attend a stolid farmer, someone who had less to say for himself. “Excuse me, Mrs. Blum.” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped back into the front room to see a familiar face, a farmer’s youngest son, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his hands clutched together in front. The boy’s hair was wet — it must have started to rain since Joshua’s sunny morning walk. Good news for the farmers.
“Please, doc, we need you to come see to Paw. He was sharpening the coulter for the plow, and it fell over on his leg. It’s cut something awful.”
Joshua’s lips tightened, and he barely avoided a frown. That’s what wishing brought you. You’d think he’d learn. “I’ll get my bag.”
Chapter 2
The boy had brought a wagon. That meant Nellie-girl could stay dry in her stall at the livery stable. Joshua could have huddled under a tarpaulin, but it wouldn’t cover the boy, and it would have been rude to leave him unprotected. Joshua could cope with rain blowing sideways and sneaking under his poncho and running down his back. It would distract him from what might be waiting.
Arms and legs. He hated hearing that someone had an arm or leg injury. Just the words brought back the heaps of sawn-off limbs piled behind the medical tent. Sometimes he’d be seeing them through rain like this, as they slowly settled deeper into the mud.
He’d had to assist, handing over the bone saw, administering chloroform, holding the men down when the drug caused them to thrash about or on those horrible occasions when the surgeon ran out of it. He’d never had to do the cutting. Not then, and not after, not yet. But sooner or later the time would come. He knew fate wasn’t kind enough to keep him from it.
Would it be today?
He had brought his bone saw in its leather case. And his white linen smock, the one he used to save his clothes when he had dirty work in store, and would have Li Chang wash and bleach after. An amputation would be the dirtiest work there was. He remembered the smocks the surgeons wore, layer on layer of red, dried blood darker under fresh red splashes, with the occasional white splinter of bone.
Joshua prayed as he rode, prayed hard and desperately, prayed that the smock in his bag would be clean and white when he turned homeward.
The leg wasn’t as bad as the boy had made it sound. Joshua should have reckoned on that, on a boy’s fear seeing his pa laid low. He’d be able to stitch up the wound and bandage it.
Joshua took the syringe of morphine from his bag, but before he could offer it, the farmer snorted and waved it aside. “I’ll just take the usual, if you have it.”
That was no surprise. Stoicism seemed to come with farming, from what Joshua had seen. He offered his whiskey flask instead. The farmer took only a couple of swallows before pushing it away. “Let’s get this done, then. I have work to do.”
Joshua gave the farmer as stern a look as he could muster. “No you don’t, not today. That’s what your good lads are for. You’ll rest up and let that leg start healing.”
He poured a little whiskey into the cap of the flask and dunked his needle in it, the way one of the camp doctors had always done. His patients didn’t seem to get such bad infections, so whatever made it work, Joshua would follow suit. Then he got to stitching, the farmer grunting a little with each stitch.
Twenty-five grunts later, Joshua offered his patient the flask again. This time, the man took a longer drink. Then, his mouth twitching into a smile, he offered the flask to his son, standing pale at his side. “Here, boy. It’ll help you look more like yourself before your ma gets home. Good thing she was at her sister’s.”
The boy stood up straighter and manfully gulped down the whiskey, while Joshua contemplated how things would have gone if the farmer’s wife had been home. Most likely she’d have kept her countenance better than the boy, and as well as her man. Wives had to be strong, out west.
Would the boy be sober enough to get Joshua home again? Well, Joshua could always take the reins if need be. And the boy could sleep it off in Joshua’s bed, if he had to, before heading home.
* * * * *
Joshua closed the door behind the farmer’s boy, holding the empty coffee cup, and leaned against the door. He’d made enough coffee for both of them, but hadn’t ended up drinking any. Bone-tired as he was, he didn’t have the strength to deal with coffee jitters.
He stumbled over to the dresser where he kept his nightshirt, pulled off his soaked frock coat and shirt and trousers, let them fall in a sodden heap on the floor, and pulled the nightshirt on. He’d take the wet, wrinkled clothes to Li Chang in the morning. Times like this, he was sorely grateful to his sisters back in Pennsylvania, who’d pooled their resources to send him a second set of clothes suitable for a doctor. He used almost his last strength to dig the bone saw in its case out of his bag and shove it out of sight on the shelf where he kept it.
Scratching at the door heralded Major’s return from wherever he’d been wandering. Joshua grabbed a towel from the hook near the door and let the dog in. Rubbing the dog down warmed him up a little, but the sooner he was in bed with every quilt and comforter he owned on top of him, the happier he’d be. He moved to blow out the oil lamp.
Were those steps on the stairs up to his rooms?
And then, the door again, but this time a knock, or maybe a kick, a dull thud, once and then repeated.
If he’d had the energy, he would have cussed a blue streak. Not now. Oh, God, not now. A knock this late meant an emergency. He would have to somehow find the wit and the strength to save someone, and he had none of either left.
“Doctor Gibbs!” (“Doh-ktor Kibbs.”) A woman. He knew he should, but didn't, recognize the voice.
She didn’t sound sick. Could it be one of her neighbors, or worse, a neighbor’s child? But if it were childhood disease, he might be able to treat the fever, at least, or do something for vomiting. He could handle that. He opened the door.
There stood Mrs. Blum, her fur coat making her look like a friendly mama bear, holding a covered pot in her hands.
“I saw you come in, looking so wet and tired. I brought enough for the boy who was with you, but I see he’s gone. May I come in? You won’t leave an old woman standing outside on a staircase, will you?”
He stumbled back dumbly and let her pass, shoving the door shut with a weak thrust as she barreled toward the kitchen table. She put the pot down, dropped her coat in a corner, and pulled out his chair. “Sit, sit!”
He collapsed into the chair while she rummaged around, seemingly quite at home, finding a bowl and a spoon. She opened her coat and produced a ladle, then whisked the cover off the pot. Fragrant steam rose up out of it. He leaned forward, sniffing, and smiled weakly to see Major coming toward them to do the same. “What is it?”
“What is it? Chicken soup is what it is! What else, for warming you up and keeping you from catching your death?” She paused, almost coy. “Oh, here I am telling you your business. But if you don’t already know about chicken soup, it’s time you did, no?” (Though the “no” sounded more like “nu.”)
She dipped the ladle in once, twice, three times, and then stopped and frowned at the bowl in frustration, looking ready to scold it for not having more room before pushing it toward him. “You start with that. I’ll put the rest on the stove to keep warm.”
The soup had hunks of carrot and big chunks of chicken, and some sort of strange, light dumplings. Joshua barely made himself use the spoon instead of picking up the bowl and pouring it into his mouth. As it was, his hand shook so that he spilled some of the soup on the table. Without missing a beat, Mrs. Blum tossed a dish towel his way before dragging a stool over to the table and perching on it, overflowing it on every side. When he managed to look up from his miraculous meal, he saw her beaming at him, clearly delighted at the way he was slurping the soup down with no sign of table manners. The moment the spoon clinked the bottom of the bowl, she grabbed the bowl and filled it back up to the brim. “Eat, eat!”
He was feeling full to the brim himself, but he thought it likely that if he dared to stop before the bowl was empty again, she would seize the spoon and feed him like an infant. He made his way manfully through.
Finally he was able to push the bowl away and sit back. She gave the pot one longing look before shrugging and abandoning any hope of stuffing him further.
He would have liked to let Major lick the bowl, but was not sure whether Mrs. Blum would be offended. Major weighed in by nudging Joshua’s knee with his muzzle and whining. Joshua looked up at his benefactor. “I am sure my dog would appreciate the remaining traces of your excellent soup.”
He was relieved at Mrs. Blum’s low chuckle. “Why not? My chicken soup should be good for dogs, even.”
Joshua put the bowl on the floor; Major looked up at Joshua for permission and then set to licking it out. Once Major finished, he inspected the bowl in case he had missed a drop and then trotted away.
Joshua picked up the bowl and contemplated the effort of cleaning it. Mrs. Blum, apparently reading his mind, grabbed the bowl and looked around for a water tap. Seeing none, she wrinkled her nose, opened the door, and let the rain rinse the bowl before setting it on the drainboard. She leaned against the wall and looked down at him, shaking her head. “Out in all hours and all weather, and he comes home to nothing!”
Joshua shrugged. He had a good idea where this was going.
“So where’s Mrs. Doctor? You need to get married!”
Just as he’d thought. He’d fended off similar comments from a few ladies at church when he first arrived in town. He’d ignored them with as much dignity as he could muster, and after a while, they’d given up. But looking at the massive and motherly figure looming in his kitchen, Joshua felt suddenly uneasy. Something in her tone and expression showed considerable determination. Even zeal.
* * * * *
“Boot blacking, coffee, cornmeal, flour, soap. Put it on your tab?”
“Thank you kindly.” The suggestion would, in fact, save him some embarrassment. His patients had lately been paying in roast chickens, bacon, cream, potatoes, even horseshoes — all welcome and useful items, but it left him short of coin.
“And you’ve got a letter.”
This would take some juggling. Joshua picked up the envelope first, opening it and extracting the letter, tucking the envelope into his vest and laying the letter on the counter. Next, he grabbed the sack full of supplies in his left hand and picked up the letter in his right. That left him without a way to tip his hat, so he nodded his goodbye and walked out, glancing at the letter as he went. Major, idling in the street, jumped up to follow.
Joshua knew he had not been a satisfactory correspondent. The last letter to his mother in which he had mentioned anything of actual importance had been the letter he sent on his way west, trying to explain why he had felt compelled to leave his family and his home so far behind. Even as he sent that letter on its way, he had known it would fail in its mission. What he had been unable to say to her face, he had been equally unable to put into words on paper. Either would have required that he call to mind, and then stain her memory forever by recounting, the life he had lived as a soldier and a medic. Without that understanding, how could she understand how unreal and hollow the civilized life of Philadelphia had become for him?
His mother still wrote every two weeks, however, and he’d been awaiting her latest for several days. Now he saw what had kept her busy. His middle sister’s baby had come — except it was twins! A boy and a girl. He could imagine his younger and oldest sisters knitting madly to deal with the surprise.
As for his father — what? He was writing a book?
Joshua had been paying just enough attention to where he was going that he didn’t trip on the planks in the street or walk in front of any horses. But not enough, it turned out, to avoid walking smack into someone. He started backward, dropping his sack, and stammered apologies, while Major added to the confusion by circling the scene and barking loudly.
His victim, Joshua realized, was the tall green-eyed woman he had seen in the street the day he first met Mrs. Blum. She had managed to stay on her feet and now stooped to help him retrieve his groceries, whisking them away from Major’s investigative sniffing. Her hands looked strong, with long fingers; it took her almost no time to fill his sack again. She stood up, neither smiling nor frowning, and handed him the sack. “I hope that isn’t bad news in your hand.”
He tried to pull himself together enough to answer her. “Uh, no, not bad news. Just news. Babies. Two of them. That is, my sister just had twins.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Congratulations to your sister! I’m sure she’ll cope splendidly.”
An interesting way to put it. Was she speaking from experience, and if so, her own or someone else’s?
Manners! What would his mother — or for that matter, Freida Blum — say? “I beg your pardon. I’m Joshua Gibbs.”
The woman tilted her head slightly and nodded in what might, unlikely as it seemed, be approval. “The doctor. I’ve heard of you. People speak well of you.”
Did they? He supposed they might. The comment left him feeling absurdly pleased. With some difficulty, he suppressed a foolish grin.
He was becoming curious about the woman’s identity, but accidental assault was hardly the basis for him to ask about it. She took pity on him and volunteered the information. “My name is Clara Brook. We’re recent arrivals. Our farm is a little over four miles to the southwest.” He was not that good at accents, but thought she might have grown up in or near Kentucky.
Joshua had about an hour before he needed to be back for his afternoon office hours. How much money did he have on him? He’d grabbed a few coins in case he needed them at the general store. It should be enough, at least if he held himself to a single scoop without toppings. “May I buy you an ice cream? As an apology for my inexcusable carelessness?”
Miss Brook looked at him gravely. “Hardly inexcusable. I’ve seen —” She cut off the comment and said instead, “Thank you. That would be very nice.” Not a fan of hyperbole, it seemed, in others or in her own speech. Joshua led the way, in case Miss Brook had not yet learned the ice cream parlor’s location. Major had apparently decided to adopt her, trotting by her side rather than his master’s. When they reached their destination, Miss Brook paused and gestured toward the dog. “Does he accompany us or no?”
Joshua shook his head, having decided previously that ice cream was unlikely to be a good addition to Major’s diet. Miss Brook then startled Joshua by snapping her fingers toward Major and pointing to a position near the window. Major immediately sat.
The clerk at the ice cream parlor looked at Joshua with some surprise as they entered. Joshua asked Miss Brook’s preference, ordered her single scoop of strawberry along with his own vanilla, paid — narrowly escaping the embarrassment of coming up short — and carried both plates to the little table next to the window.
Now what? Well, she knew he had sisters, one of them with new additions to her family. Surely he could ask after similar details, at least indirectly. “How have you and your . . . your family been finding Cowbird Creek? Is it what you hoped, when you decided to settle here?”
Somehow it failed to surprise him when she avoided a conventional response. “I wouldn’t say we know enough, yet, to answer that question. Or perhaps I should say we didn’t have very specific expectations. My parents wanted to buy land, to leave my brother someday, and there was land for purchase here. It’s a deal of work for the four of us, but we’re used to work.”
A brother, but no sisters — at least none still at home. It was unlikely she’d lost sisters in the War of Rebellion, but she might have had more brothers before that long and bloody nightmare. All through his childhood, he had wished he had brothers instead of, or in addition to, three sisters. That wish, too, had died in the war.
It was Joshua’s turn to say something, but nothing came to mind. Miss Brook did not seem to be one of those women who could set a man to talking. Or maybe she chose not to do so. He could think of only one inane question. “What are you growing, or raising?”
Her left eyebrow twitched upward. “The usual, I suppose. Corn, oats. I have some interest in planting winter wheat, but my father has not yet agreed. I have a vegetable garden, though I’m still getting accustomed to the weather and how it affects what I can grow. We raise hogs — and chickens, of course, but mainly for our own eggs and our own pot.”
He might be carrying home some of those eggs, some day. They would be good eggs, he’d wager — he guessed she took good care of the hens.
Before he could come up with some other conversational gambit, she asked him, “What’s the most surprising thing about Cowbird Creek? Something we wouldn’t have had a chance to learn yet?”
There was a question he hadn’t heard before. “Hmm. Let me think.” Madam Mamie’s establishment was tonier than some, but even if that counted as surprising, he could hardly mention it. And the presence of a Jewish widow was unusual, but he doubted Mrs. Blum would appreciate being held up as a local oddity. “Our Chinese laundryman struck it rich — well, maybe not rich, but close — in the California gold fields.”
Miss Brook smiled, the first smile he’d seen from her, but quickly went grave again. “I don’t think I’ll mention it to my brother. He used to hanker after the gold fields himself, and I’d be sorry to remind him.”
She had finished her ice cream, and he needed to be back for any patients needing him. He took a final spoonful of his own and stood up. “Miss Brook, it’s been a pleasure, despite my regrettable way of introducing myself. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”
That eyebrow twitched again. “I agree. Though I hope it won’t be in your professional capacity.”
Cursing his clumsy tongue, he bowed and escaped back to territory where he was less likely to put a foot wrong.
By the time he finished with his last office patient — the blacksmith again, who had burned his arm — it was close to dinner time. It might be rude to go see Mrs. Blum at such an hour, as if he was angling to have her feed him, but he’d been wanting to check up on her, and had already asked about and learned where she lived. As he approached the snug house two blocks from his office, he made up his mind to refuse any invitation and stick to his purpose.
Of course, she was determined to overwhelm that intention. “How am I? How should I be, an old woman, my feet tired of carrying so much of me? But I’ll let you do your listening and poking if you eat something first, still so skinny, I’d make two of you at least.”
She pushed him toward the kitchen, pointed imperiously to a chair, and brought a platter of beef ribs from the stove, then fetched a bowl of corn already shucked from the cob with big pats of butter melting at the top. He felt his mouth watering and knew she had won this tussle.
Over dinner, she asked him about his day, his patients, any amusements he had found time for. He admitted his clumsiness outside the general store, and the new acquaintance resulting from it. Her response was an emphatic sniff. “The brother, he’s a nice young man, so polite. But the sister, I don’t know, she walks around like she’s too good to talk to anyone, not much in the way of social graces.”
Joshua frowned. “I didn’t see her that way. She’s tall, so she’s bound to carry herself differently from smaller ladies. And she may be shy, new to town as she is.”
Mrs. Blum sniffed again and changed the subject. “I have pie, cherry, you’ll like it.” She sighed dramatically. “And then you can be the doctor and tell me everything that’s wrong with me.”
When he finally examined her, he was far from sure whether her lungs were as clear as before, and more certain than before that her heartbeat sounded irregular. Did she show signs of fluid retention? Her skirt covered her feet and ankles. Slyly, he ordered her, “Kindly kick your left foot in the air.”
She tilted her head and regarded him with profound skepticism. He resisted the urge to retreat, saying, “If you would, Mrs. Blum. And then we’ll be finished.”
Mrs. Blum rolled her eyes and obeyed. As he had suspected, her ankle, as far as he could glimpse it, appeared slightly swollen. He would need to keep an eye on her.
Which did not have to mean sharing her opinions of any particular townspeople.
Two days later, when he spotted Miss Brook carrying a large sack of groceries toward a wagon, he saw his chance to repay a favor. He darted across the street, just behind the mayor’s wife’s fashionable buggy, and held out his arms. “May I assist?”
She stopped short, her expression suggesting an indignant retort on the way until she recognized him and laughed. “If you like, Doctor.”
He carefully transferred the sack from her arms to his and trotted along next to her, noting the length of her stride. The dust on her boots made him suddenly conscious of the perhaps unnecessarily polished condition of his own, but she showed no sign of noticing the disparity. When they reached the wagon, he followed her directions about where to stow the contents of the sack and then stretched his arms. It had been a pretty heavy sack for a lady to carry.
A thought appeared to strike her as he prepared to bid her adieu. She leaned into the wagon and extracted two long sticks of hard candy. Offering him one, she said simply, “You’ve had your chance to even one score. Might I offer you some refreshment?”
Courtesy and desire went hand in hand for once. “That’s very kind of you.”
Miss Brook gestured toward a wrought-iron seat in the corner of the town square, saying, “Shall we sit while we indulge ourselves?”
Joshua would not have presumed to suggest it; and he could not help reflecting that Mrs. Blum might come to hear about them once again spending time together. But then, that might be just as well. She should realize his social life was his own affair, her views and intentions notwithstanding. And if the weather was chilly for sitting, they both had coats on, and he would not be the one to complain so long as Miss Brook found it comfortable. “My tired feet and I thank you, ma’am.”
They settled on the bench with their candy. Miss Brook made no attempt to hide her enjoyment of the sweet. But from time to time she turned to him as if studying him. He let her scrutinize him. Maybe she would discover something about him that he needed to know.
When she finally asked him a question, it concerned nothing at all profound. “What is the oddest thing you’ve ever eaten?”
A peculiar thing to ask, but it made a kind of sense. You could learn a lot about someone’s life from the answer: how far they had traveled, how poor they had been or how wealthy. Or whether they had been to war. Feeling like a cheat, he evaded the question. “I’ll tell you what seemed strangest to me when first I ate it, as a boy. Steamed clams. Or oysters, when I was older. Raw, slimy — I thought I’d choke on it. But it slithered right down. And yourself?”
“Rattlesnake. I was — in difficulties, at the time, and ready to try anything. I thought it might poison me. But here I am, so obviously it didn’t.”
She returned her attention to the candy. Joshua did the same, though the memory of that oyster haunted his tongue, combining poorly with the candy and making him queasy.
Maybe the rattlesnake was sabotaging Miss Brook in the same manner. She stood up rather abruptly and dropped the remains of her candy on the grass. “I’d best be getting home.”
Joshua pulled out his pocket watch and gulped. He had barely enough time to go see the last of his day’s patients before they would be having supper. “Thank you for the candy.”
He could think of nothing more to say, so he gave her an awkward bow and hurried off to saddle Nellie-girl. A glance backward showed that Miss Brook had made it to her wagon and was heading out of town. And he had better stop looking after her, and be about his business.
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