The Doctor Takes a Wife. Laurie Kingery

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СКАЧАТЬ to go see the newlyweds,” Edward murmured, after they had shaken hands with Reverend Chadwick and had spoken with several members of the congregation.

      “Yes. I think marriage will be good for Nicholas, especially marriage to your dear sister,” Richard told Sarah. “He’s made an excellent choice. Just think, Edward, now there’s only Violet for us to see safely married….”

      “As she’s hardly out of the schoolroom, I hope that will be some time from now,” his brother said, but Sarah was no longer listening.

      Instead of gazing down the main street of Simpson Creek to her right, toward the hotel where they would meet Nick and Milly for dinner, she had glanced to her left, where a low white picket fence surrounded the doctor’s office.

      Just as she looked, the door opened. Perhaps Nolan had peered out, seen her emerge from the church and was coming to greet them? Perhaps she could say something to indicate she would like to talk to him later?

      But instead of Nolan Walker, she saw a female figure emerge, glance furtively at the townspeople strolling away from church, then turn away and walk quickly down the alley that ran past the side of the doctor’s office. A dark bonnet hid her features as soon as the woman turned her head, but in those brief seconds when she had been facing toward the church, Sarah recognized Ada Spencer.

      What is she doing there? Doctors don’t have office hours on Sunday mornings. Therefore she must have been there for a completely nonmedical purpose. Thinking about Ada’s secretive manner, Sarah was suddenly sure the two had been Up to No Good.

      She thought back to the summer, when Ada had been giddy with excitement over being courted by that Englishman Harvey Blakely. Blakely had come to try to blackmail Nicholas about his past or, if he wouldn’t cooperate, to expose Nick’s disgrace in India, but after failing to discredit Nick, Harvey had been the first casualty on the day of the Comanche attack. Ada had been a virtual recluse ever since, and never came to the Spinsters’ Club meetings. When she thought about her, at all, Sarah had assumed Ada was still mourning her English beau, scoundrel that he had been. In the excitement of her sister’s wedding, Sarah had forgotten all about Ada.

      Now, though, it seemed that Ada had set her cap at a new bachelor, and perhaps Nolan Walker was all too willing to meet with the vulnerable woman in his office at a time when they wouldn’t likely be interrupted by patients.

      They probably hadn’t even remained in the office. Behind it was the doctor’s private living quarters— Sarah knew this from her long friendship with Maude Harkey, the late doctor’s daughter and also a member of the Spinsters’ Club who had shared those quarters with her father until his death in the Comanche attack. When Dr. Walker had taken over as town physician, he had been offered the space, and Maude had moved in with a married sister in town.

      Sarah’s heart sank. Though she had been looking forward to clearing the air with Dr. Nolan Walker, and perhaps more, she knew now she had been right all along about him.

      Dr. Walker was nothing but a Yankee opportunist—little short of a carpetbagger. And now, it seemed, he was a womanizer as well, and was engaged in an improper relationship with a woman who had already proven she was more than willing to go to any lengths to have a suitor.

      Resolutely, Sarah turned her face away from the doctor’s office, and gazed directly ahead of her toward the hotel. She’d go straight home after her dinner with Milly and her new husband. She’d cook a fine supper for the cowhands and perhaps begin planning for her move to the cottage she would be sharing soon with Prissy.

      It was a good thing she’d found out about Dr. Walker’s true character before she’d made a fool of herself. Perhaps she should warn the others in the Spinsters’ Club, she thought, firmly ignoring the ache in her heart.

      The time had gone by quickly. Milly and Nick had arrived home December 23, and Sarah welcomed them back with a wonderful supper.

      “Oh, Sarah, why don’t you stay till after New Year’s?” Milly said the morning after Christmas. “It doesn’t seem right, your moving out right now. Why not stay till then?”

      “It was a wonderful Christmas, wasn’t it?” Sarah said. “Your first one as husband and wife,” she said, smiling at the couple across the table. “But Milly, I can’t keep putting it off. Today’s the perfect day. Bobby and Isaiah are already set to load up the buckboard right after breakfast, aren’t you?”

      Down the table, the two cowhands nodded.

      Sarah looked forward to sharing the cottage with Prissy, for her lively and vivacious friend knew no strangers. It would be fun teaching Prissy how to cook and manage a household. And what would it be like, not having to cook three square meals a day for hungry cowboys, and hitch up the horse whenever she had baked goods to deliver?

      An hour later, all was in readiness for her departure.

      “Now remember, you—”

      “Can always come back,” Sarah finished for Milly, from her perch on the driver’s seat of the wagon loaded with her bed and chest of drawers, as well as a pair of chairs Milly said she could spare. “I know. And perhaps I will, after I teach Prissy a few basic kitchen and housekeeping skills.”

      “She couldn’t possibly be any slower to learn to cook than I was,” Milly said. “Now, with the fried chicken, you dip it in the beaten eggs, then the flour and spices, right?” She was to cook her first dinner without help tonight, and she’d already admitted she was nervous about it.

      “Right. Actually, I’m more worried about teaching Prissy how to launder clothes than the cooking,” Sarah said. “She still thinks doing the laundry consists of handing her dirty clothes to the housekeeper. But don’t worry, your first supper will be fine.”

      “Of course it will, darling,” said Nick, who’d been helping Bobby and Isaiah load the wagon. He put an arm affectionately around his wife’s waist.

      Sarah watched them with a certain wistfulness. She was so happy for her sister, yet wondered if she would ever know this happiness herself.

      She straightened and nodded to Bobby, sitting next to her and holding the reins, and Isaiah, who waited on his horse beside them. They were coming along to help her move her furniture into the cottage. “We’re burning daylight, as Josh would say. I reckon we’d better get going.”

      By noon, the men had unloaded everything on the wagon, placed it all wherever Sarah and Prissy had directed in the little cottage, rid the house of a mouse that had sent Prissy shrieking in panic out into the yard and departed. Now Sarah and Prissy sat down and enjoyed the sandwiches Sarah had packed for their midday meal.

      “It’s shaping up well, isn’t it?” Prissy said, surveying with satisfaction the room that served as a combined dining area and parlor. They had arranged the round oak table between the kitchen and the couch and chairs, and there was a fireplace along the back wall. Behind the dining room and parlor, a short hallway divided the two bedrooms.

      “Small, but cozy,” Sarah agreed. “But I just realized something I should have thought of before…”

      “What’s that?”

      “Now that I’m here, I won’t have the wagon to deliver my baked goods to the hotel and mercantile. It’s a lot to carry, so I’m either going to make at least a couple of trips back and forth to the cottage, or—”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ