The Doctor Takes a Wife (19 page)

Despite the warning, Jesse jumped to his feet, grabbing the pistol he'd laid on the table when he had started to eat.

Instinctively, Sarah threw herself under the table, and gunfire erupted over her head.

It stopped in less than a minute. Jesse's bullet, fired after he'd been struck from both sides, buried itself harmlessly in the ceiling, and he lay dead on the floor. Sarah scrambled to her feet and ran into Nolan's arms amid the haze of gun smoke and floating plaster dust. She promised herself she would never leave those arms again.

“Thank God, thank God,” Nolan murmured, in between kisses.

“Take Sarah home,” Nick said after a few moments, during which Nolan kissed Sarah thoroughly and assured himself she hadn't been hit by any flying lead. “I'll catch up with the others.”

Sarah saw warring impulses in Nolan's eyes—the desire to stay with her and take her home, and the need to offer his help to the posse, to finish the duty he had taken on.

“I could ride with you,” she offered gamely, though in truth it was the last thing she wanted to do. “I'll keep to the rear when you catch up with the outlaws, I promise.”

Nick shook his head. “We can manage, Sarah. Even if I wanted to take you up on your gallant offer, I have your sister to answer to, you know. Go home, the two of you. The posse's probably already caught up to the rustlers by now. I'm sure I'll meet them coming back, driving the rustlers before them, with the cattle bringing up the rear. We'll see to Holt's body on the way back, as well.”

“All right, then,” Nolan said. “There was at least another horse in the barn. Sarah, let's go home. You have a friend with a sore head waiting for you there.”

“Prissy? She's all right? Oh, thank God!” she said, then turned into Nolan's embrace again. “Home,” she murmured. “With you. What a wonderful sound that has.”

A
week later, Sarah and Nolan sat in the meadow across Simpson Creek from the church, enjoying a picnic lunch among the bluebonnets and Indian paint-brushes that carpeted the ground. Peace had reclaimed Simpson Creek now the rustlers had been captured, due to Colonel Throckmorton's attempt to save his own hide by leading the posse straight to them.

“Where was Prissy off to so quickly after church?” Nolan asked, lounging on his side amid the lush green spring grass and gnawing on a chicken leg. Behind him, mockingbirds called to each other from the cottonwoods. Simpson Creek burbled on its way to joining the San Saba River.

“Oh, she's taken over as chairwoman of the Spinsters' Club, and she's hosting Sunday dinner up at the big house for them. They're planning a big party for bachelors and spinsters in late May, you see, and she thought the ladies should get together and discuss the plans.”

“She's perfect for the job,” Nolan agreed. “Our Prissy is quite the planner.”

Sarah sighed. “I hope she meets someone this time. She had planned to invite Major McConley, you know—she'd been flirting with him outrageously at every opportunity—but then someone told her that he had a wife and four children back east. She was devastated for at least half an hour.”

Nolan chuckled. “Never say die, that's Prissy. Don't worry, Sarah, she'll find someone when the time is right.”

Sarah sighed. “I'd just like to see her as happy as I am,” she admitted. “I know she's happy for us, but she knows she'll have to make a change when I move out and get married. She can hardly stay in that cottage by herself, it'd be too lonely. But she can't quite make up her mind whether she wants to invite one of the other spinsters to live there or move back in the big house with her father.”

“That's my Sarah,” he said, extending an arm to tickle her nose with a vivid red Indian paintbrush blossom. “Always more concerned for others than herself. It's one of the things I love about you.”

She swatted playfully at the flower, capturing it, and tickling him back. That led to kissing, naturally, but after a while she drew back again and studied him.

“I think we should discuss setting a wedding date,” Sarah said suddenly.

Nolan laid aside the battered flower. “You do?” he said, clearly pleased. A slow grin spread over his face. “I'm ready to marry you at any moment, you know that, sweetheart. But I thought you wanted to wait a while, to be courted.”

Sarah smiled back. “I do. But I think some time in
June would be perfect, and between now and then, my ‘Man of Maine' could do quite a bit of courting, don't you think?”

“Oh, Sarah,” he said, taking her in his arms again. “I don't plan to ever stop courting you, even when we're married. It's too enjoyable.”

1. How does Sarah's character, as the meeker, less certain of the Matthews sisters, change during the course of the story?
   
2. Before the story begins, Sarah loses the man she thought she was going to marry. Have you ever believed someone you loved was lost to you forever, only to have them reappear in your life? How did that work out for you?
   
3. Sarah believes she can only love a man who was loyal to the Confederacy in the recent Civil War. Have you ever believed you could only love one sort of person, only to fall in love with someone of another very different group?
   
4. Why is the verse “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (II Timothy 1:7) significant to this story?
   
5. Why do you think Ada is never healed of her insanity?
   
6. Years before the story begins, Dr. Nolan Walker loses his wife and child to cholera. Why do you think some healing does not take place despite our prayers?
   
7. How do you think crime and punishment were different back in the old West, as compared to today?
   
8. How would you describe Sarah and Nolan's positions in regard to faith at the beginning of the book, compared to the end?
   
9. How does Nolan's experience in the war compare to that of an army physician today?
   
10. How do you think online dating services today compared to the mail-order bride concept of the 1800s? Have you ever participated in such a service?
    
11. Have things occurred in your life that made you believe God didn't care about what happens to people? What evidence have you seen that He does care?
    
12. Jesse Holt has an expectation that Sarah has been waiting for him, and will go along with his plan for her to live a life on the run with him, but Sarah refuses to do so. Has another person in your life ever had unrealistic plans for you? How did you counter those expectations?
    
13. Jesse Holt's frustrated desire for Sarah becomes twisted into a desire for vengeance. Have you seen a desire for revenge warp someone's life? How did it impact your life?
    
14. How does the life of a single woman in small-town America compare with the life of a single woman today?
    
15. Do you have a loyal friend like Prissy Gilmore? How has she impacted your life? What sort of man would be best for Prissy?