The Prairie Doctor's Bride Read online

  “What can I do for you, Doc?” Henry asked from behind the counter.

  Doc? Sylvia turned back and stared as the tall man walked over to the counter. So, this was the doctor that Mayor Melbourne had talked into staying in Oak Grove. She’d heard tell of him a year or so ago but never had a reason to meet the man face-to-face.

  She took in the way he was dressed—his white shirt was a bit rumpled, but clean. He wore one of those shoestring neckties she’d heard tell of and it wasn’t even Sunday! His dark burgundy vest had fancy stitching along the edges, like something she’d seen when she lived back East. He had dark brown scruff along his jaw and chin and upper lip. Seemed he wasn’t sure whether he was growing a beard and a mustache or not. His wavy hair was so thick it sprung like a soft cushion from his head. That, she could tell because he didn’t wear a hat or overcoat.

  Didn’t he have the sense to know he’d catch his death of a cold in this wayward weather? Spring in Kansas was nothing to sneeze at, half the time cold, wet and windy and the other time sunny, hot and still windy. But today was a sunny one, so guess he had a right to enjoy the feel of it on his head after the fright of a winter they’d had.

  “I passed the supply wagon late yesterday on my way back from Putnam’s ranch. Thought I’d check to see if my order of medicine and books came in.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look through the packages,” Henry said. “If you’ll wait, I’ll open them up.”

  Funny how accommodating Mr. Gallagher was with other people. Guess some folks just counted more than others. Tommy inched up beside her and slipped his hand into hers. A peace stole over her as she felt the warmth of his skin against hers. Maybe she didn’t count to these townsfolk, but she sure as shootin’ counted to Tommy. And for her, that meant everything.

  She walked up to the counter and set her basket down. “I have your eggs here. Let’s settle up. I gotta start back.” She caught a whiff of some fancy lotion or soap the doc had used on himself. Mmm, but he smelled good.

  “Soon as I take care of the doctor,” Mr. Gallagher said.

  She frowned. She’d been in town long enough and would have been long gone by now had it not been for Carl. “I got me a young ’un to watch out for. ’Sides that, Miss Petunia is in a family way and shouldn’t be left on her own too long.”

  The doctor cocked his head. “Miss Petunia? I haven’t come across her in my outlying visits.”

  He’d mistaken the name of her sheep for a woman! A chuckle nearly escaped before she clamped her lips tightly shut. She didn’t intend to correct him, seeing as how she probably wouldn’t run into him again.

  Slowly, he took in the length of her down to her worn boots, before coming back to her face. With his chin, he pointed at her wrist—the one that Carl had gripped so hard. Only now that Carl was gone did she feel the sting. She hunched her shoulders to coax the end of her sleeve down over the reddened and scratched skin.

  “Might want to put salve on that. I’ve got some back at my office.”

  She moved away from him, covering her wrist with her other hand. Whether he did or not, she wasn’t going anywhere with him—no matter that he’d saved her basket of eggs. “I can take care of it myself.”

  “I’m sure you can, Mrs....?” He let the word hang there. When she didn’t supply a name, he continued. “I’m Nelson Graham, the doctor here in town. The salve I have is made in Kansas City by a reputable apothecary.”

  Maybe he was only trying to be helpful. Carl had put her on edge—made her realize all over again how foolish she’d been in her youth to get involved with the Caulder family. She’d learned her lesson, but there was no turning back, no undoing what had come about. She’d keep to herself and take care of herself and that was the end of it. “I thank you for catchin’ these eggs before that scallywag dropped them all on the floor. I needed them to finish this here piece.”

  His brow furrowed. “Transaction?”

  She frowned right back. Didn’t he know English? “That’s what I said.”

  She waited while Mr. Gallagher transferred the eggs into a pail, all the while knowing the doctor watched her. It made her uncomfortable...more than it would had he been someone else from town. She knew where she stood with them. This Doc Graham looked down at her like she was a puzzle and he wanted to figure her out. Well, she liked her privacy and he’d just have to be satisfied with some disappointment.

  “I find it odd that I’ve been in town for some time and never knew there was a midwife nearby.”

  She stiffened. He just couldn’t keep his nose out of her business! “If you call helping my sheep in her time of confinement midwifing, then I guess that’s what I am.” She didn’t wait to see what his reaction would be but pointed out a twenty-five-pound sack of flour and another of oats that she needed. “That too, Mr. Gallagher.”

  Henry hoisted a sack under each arm and carried them out to the wagon, and she followed with the second case of jars.

  Her conscience pricked her. Maybe she had been a bit testy with the doc. After all, he had been a big help with Carl.

  “Go on and get in the wagon,” she told Tommy. She waited while Tommy clambered up onto the wagon seat. She always had the impulse to help him, after all, he was only seven years old, but she resisted the urge. Her son liked to climb. Seeing that he was settled, she turned back toward the doctor.

  He stood in the doorway, looking comfortable and relaxed and infuriatingly confident, with a half smile on his face. She’d like to ask him what was so amusing but didn’t figure she’d care for his answer. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Doc Graham.”

  “Same here. Except I still don’t know your name.”

  She had plumb forgot about that. Still, she hesitated, hating to reveal yet again to another person her marital state. He’d learn of it eventually. Carl had made sure of that years ago and the Gallaghers liked to gossip—at least Mable did. “It’s Marks. Miss Sylvia Marks.”

  She hurried outside, deposited the box she held in the back of the wagon and climbed up next to her son. She didn’t care to gauge the doc’s reaction on learning who she was. She unwrapped the reins from the brake lever and called out softly to her mule. “Giddup.”

  She couldn’t leave town fast enough. Nothin’ but trouble in town. Nothin’ but trouble.

  * * *

  After watching the wagon pull away, Nelson Graham turned back to the counter. He considered it his duty as the town doctor to know who lived in the area. Miss Marks was as backwoods as he’d ever seen and an interesting mix of spunk and pride. Not bad-looking either, and despite her small frame, not easily overlooked. He would have remembered her, had he met her before.

  “Interesting woman,” he said when Henry returned from the storage room. He carried the two heavy medical books that Nelson had ordered a month ago.

  Henry snorted. “Always seems to bring trouble with her when she comes into town.”

  “As I saw it, she didn’t have much choice.”

  “I don’t involve myself in the squabbles between folks. If I take sides, my sales go down.”

  Nelson had been told nearly the same thing in medical school. “Don’t involve yourself in the politics or prejudices of your patients. Your job is to heal. You won’t always agree with your patient, but you’ve given an oath as a doctor to care for everyone.” Trouble with that was, in Nelson’s mind, he was a man first before he was a doctor.

  The fact remained that Carl Caulder was twice as big as Miss Marks and a bully. Nelson couldn’t abide bullies. “I thought I met everyone in these parts when I first arrived.”

  “Miss Marks stays to herself. And if you happen by and surprise her, you might get a load of buckshot in you.”

  Nelson stifled a smile at the image of the small-framed woman with a big rifle in her hands. “Doesn’t encourage me to visit her anytime soon. Where’s the boy’s father?”r />
  “I heard he took off a few months before the boy was born and never came back. Carl says he died, but knowing Carl, that’s not necessarily true.”

  Nelson absorbed that bit of information, feeling more and more like he was prying instead of gathering facts that might help him provide better medical care for the pair. He withdrew a few bills from his inside vest pocket. “Well, what do I owe you here?” Once he’d paid, he picked up his books and headed for the door.

  Henry followed him outside to the boardwalk. “This came for you too.” He handed him a letter.

  Nelson glanced at the return address. Boston. His parents. A weight dropped in his stomach. What could they possibly want?

  He tucked the letter inside his vest pocket. “Thanks, Henry.”

  “The train is due in tomorrow from Bridgeport. More women wanting to marry are arriving. Are you going to the station to look them over?”

  “I didn’t fare so well the first time.” By the time he’d made up his mind which bride he wanted from the first train, he was too late. Mary McCary would have been a suitable fit. She knew how to cook and she had displayed a caring attitude toward the injured cook out at Putnam’s ranch. It was too bad that spending all that time with Steve Putnam had turned her head toward the rancher. They seemed satisfied with each other. More than satisfied. He was happy for them. It was just that he was left high and dry.

  He nodded a goodbye to Henry and started for his house.

  Although he had sworn off matrimony after his short-lived engagement, he figured in a small town it was the only course to take. People here tended to trust a married family man more than they would a bachelor and he also needed the help in his medical practice.

  What he really wanted was a nurse—not necessarily a wife. Yet he couldn’t very well advertise for one. Any woman would cringe at the thought of traveling so far from her home for a mere nursing position. And no marriageable woman of good character would agree to spend constant time at his side without a ring on her finger. Tongues would wag in this little town where there were so few women. Even if he did find one to employ as his nurse without making her a missus, it wouldn’t be two months before another man would woo, marry and whisk her away.

  His only other option was to hire a widow twice his age. He’d been on the lookout for just such a woman. Unfortunately, in the two years he’d lived here, even the older women quickly became brides again or left Oak Grove.

  No. His only choice was marriage—preferably to a woman who could look after herself and not throw a fit if he missed supper now and then. Doctoring was more than a job to him, more than a profession. It had become his passion, a calling as much as any parson’s call to the cloth was a calling, and it took as many or more hours in a day. He needed a wife who would understand and be of help to him. Someone practical.

  He stepped up on the porch and entered his office. Passing through the front room that served as his parlor and waiting room, he strode back to his office and set the journals and the letter on his desk. He wanted to delve right into the journals, but the letter was another matter. Word from home was seldom happy. He wished he could leave it for another day.

  The address was written in his mother’s script. Nothing unusual about that. His father had never written to him. He heard from his mother only when there was something important to pass on—once a year at the most. He broke the fancy seal and unfolded the letter, then paced the length of the small room while he read.

  And came to a standstill.

  His parents were coming to visit.

  Stunned, he reread the letter. Not once before had they visited him. Once they had stuck him in boarding school, it was he who did the traveling to see them, not the other way around. Not even when he graduated from medical school did they make the effort. This was unprecedented. They would arrive in two weeks. He turned the letter over once more, inanely hoping he’d find more written somewhere else on the page. He wished he could read between the lines.

  What was really going on?

  Chapter Two

  “But it hurts!” Wiley Austin mumbled to his older brother, Kade. His eyes started to tear again as Nelson probed the boy’s thumb with the end of a needle. The large splinter had embedded itself under several layers of skin.

  “Toughen up,” Kade said as he looked on. “Quit your slobberin’.”

  “I ain’t slobberin’.”

  “Are too.”

  “Ain’t neither!” Wiley wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand.

  “You’re doing fine,” Nelson murmured, concentrating on the splinter.

  “Ouch!” Wiley jerked away.

  Nelson straightened and stretched his back. “Shake it out and we’ll try again in a minute.” The grandfather clock in the hotel lobby chimed three times, reminding him that the train carrying the brides would be arriving at any moment. After a busy morning in the office, he’d finally made up his mind to be there...until Wiley’s splinter happened. “Ready to tackle this again?”

  The boy wiped his nose again and stepped closer, holding out his hand. It shook slightly.

  “I’m almost there.” Nelson pressed against the far edge of the splinter with his thumb, picked up his tweezers and eased the splinter out. He held it up. “That’s a big one. You were brave. Not every six-year-old could handle such a big operation.”

  Wiley let out a huge sigh of relief.

  Nelson dabbed at the drop of blood with his handkerchief and then slathered a small bit of unguent on the nearly invisible exit hole.

  The train whistle blew once more and with it came the last chug and wheeze as the wheels slowed to a stop. Shouts sounded from the street as men headed toward the station.

  “Thank you, Dr. Graham,” Sadie Austin said as she descended the steps from the second floor. “I just had to get the last of the rooms ready for the women and Wiley wouldn’t stand still for me to help him.”

  “Not a problem, Mrs. Austin. Glad to help out.”

  “Ma! Can me and Wiley go meet the train?”

  Mrs. Austin hesitated a moment and then nodded. “We’ll go together. I can’t have you two anywhere near the tracks or the train’s wheels. Your father would have a fit. Now, you take hold of your brother’s hand, Kade.”

  “Aw!” Wiley whined.

  “I mean it!” she said.

  Nelson settled his Stetson on his head. For a woman who had never had children of her own, Mrs. Austin was doing a fine job of mothering the two boys. “Going there myself, ma’am. I’ll walk with you.”

  She grabbed her shawl from the table in the entryway as they headed out the front door of the hotel. “I’m glad to see you still here in Oak Grove.”

  “Still here,” he said. People here had worried he would pull stakes and head back East when things didn’t work out with the first set of brides that rolled into town nearly a year ago. What they didn’t know was that the words he’d had with his father before leaving home for good had left a gaping chasm in their relationship—one not easily bridged. The only way he would consider going back to Boston would be if he received a heartfelt “I’m sorry” from his father. Unless their visit had something to do with that argument, he didn’t expect an apology to happen anytime soon.

  “I like the town and the people. And with the new brides there will be more people to doctor in a few years.”

  With Kade and Wiley jumping and yelling between him and Mrs. Austin, Nelson strode down the main street of town to the train station. A number of cowboys had come from outlying ranches for the excitement and they spilled out of the Whistle Stop Saloon ahead of him, lining up, shoulder to shoulder and bowleg to bowleg. As the women descended from the train, their long dresses pressed against their legs from the strong wind. Nelson tugged his hat farther down on his head, so as not to lose it to the blustery spring day.

  “Gentlemen!
Back up! Give the women some breathing room,” the mayor said in his booming voice from where he stood on the train steps. He had already been inside the train to welcome them in his official capacity. “The train must keep to its schedule, so you men help unload the trunks and get their belongings up to the hotel. The ladies will appreciate that more than having you jabber at them as their things ride on to Denver. We’ll have a welcome party tomorrow, once they’ve had a chance to rest and freshen up.”

  Nelson pulled Kade and Wiley back to keep them out from underfoot as a few men surged forward and responded to the mayor’s instructions. Then the line of remaining cowboys parted and the mayor strode through the opening with the women—five of them—following.

  Nelson quickly removed his hat, as did every other man there at the station, and watched the parade of women walk past, their long dresses swishing in time with the twitch of their bustles and the bob of their heads. It was quite a sight for Oak Grove.

  Leading the group was a dark-haired, rather stern-faced woman in a black skirt with thin white stripes and a black shirtwaist. She took long, no-nonsense strides that could match any man’s. When she came near, he realized with something of shock that she was as tall as he was, which meant she had to be nearly six feet without the heels on those shoes of hers.

  The next two women walked arm in arm and were close enough in appearance that he wondered if they were sisters with their nondescript brown hair confined in buns, brown felt hats with flowers and dark brown wool coats that covered them from head to toe. One looked about the town and men with open curiosity in her intelligent expression as she walked, while the other had a severe case of nerves and kept covering her lower face and giggling into her gloved hands.

  The next two women walked single file, surrounded by the last of the cowboys from the saloon, who hid them so much that he couldn’t get much of a look at them. One looked to be quite attractive with pretty chestnut-colored hair, dark eyes and a wine-red hat that matched her cloak. The other appeared to be a blonde with wide cornflower blue eyes. She was a bit older by the small lines near her eyes. She might do—someone with experience in life could be an asset.