The Doctor Takes a Wife (4 page)

Inside the store, Mr. Patterson had set out a chair in front of the counter, and Mrs. Patterson bustled about, setting a bowl of water and some folded cloths on top of the flat surface.

She sank gratefully into the chair, and felt the soothing, cool wetness of the cloth the mercantile owner's wife wiped on her forehead, murmuring, “You poor dear, that was a nasty fall!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Patterson, I—I'll be all right,” she felt compelled to say, though she still wasn't completely certain.

“You'll want to look away,” she heard Dr. Walker saying, as he peeled back the blood-stained, ripped sleeve from her injury. He then took another cloth and soaked it in the water, wrung it out, used it to sponge the blood away. The cut stung like a hundred red ants
were biting her at once, and Sarah bit her lip, determined not to cry out.

Then Dr. Walker patted it dry, and used a long dry cloth to wrap around her arm, ripping one end of it into two strips to tie it expertly, binding the bandage.

She had to admire his cool professional manner. He'd done it all in less time than it took for Mrs. Patterson to stop clucking over her.

“Thank you, Dr. Walker,” she said, standing. “I—I appreciate what you've done. I'm sure it will heal up nicely now.” She'd have to return another day to see about the curtains and the wagon. Right now she wanted nothing more than to escape his gaze and that of the Pattersons and go back to the cottage. She'd doubted he'd accept payment for his impromptu doctoring, but perhaps she could bring him a cake by way of thanks.

“It's a blessing he was there,” Mrs. Patterson murmured in agreement.

“Oh, I'm not done, Miss Matthews. That's a nasty gash you have, and it's going to need proper disinfectant and some stitches to heal properly. You need to come down to the office with me where I can do it properly.”

Her eyes flew open. “Oh, I'm sure that's not necessary,” she protested.

“And I'm sure it is. Come along, Miss Matthews,” he said, tucking her uninjured arm in his.

“But—”

“Best listen to the doctor, dear,” Mrs. Patterson was saying.

“Yes, he's treated wounds on the battlefield, after all,” her spouse added.

She felt herself being pulled out the door, willy-nilly. She trusted his medical judgment, but she wasn't sure she was ready to be alone with him, even if she was only a patient to him in this instance.

H
is hand under her elbow, and keeping his eyes on her still pale face, Nolan led Sarah carefully down the steps to the street. Behind them, a dog had found the bonanza of apple pie splattered against the wall and on the boardwalk and was happily lapping it up.

It was the coldest day he'd experienced since coming to Texas, but it was still nothing to what the weather would be like in his home state at this time of year. Back in Maine, there might well be a foot of snow on the ground and a bitter wind blowing. Folks would be swathed in heavy coats, hats, boots and knitted scarves. Perhaps he'd miss seeing snow eventually, but right now he savored the warmth of the sun on his face.

Then he felt Sarah shiver.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, I—I'm fine.”

Nolan whipped off his frock coat again anyway and settled it around her shoulders over her shawl. She had sand, he thought—real courage and grit. She hadn't given in to her faintness when many ladies would have,
but he had to remember she'd just had a traumatic experience and had lost some blood.

Sarah blinked at the gesture, and a little color crept into her cheeks. “Th-thank you.”

They said nothing more during the short walk to his office. He ushered her inside, seating her in his exam chair which had a flat surface extending over each arm. He was thankful he'd had sense enough to clean and boil his suturing instruments last night, even though the hour had been late—after he'd finished taking care of a cowboy who'd been cut by flying glass in a ruckus at the saloon. The instruments lay on a metal stand, concealed by a fresh cloth, but he wouldn't bring them out yet.

“I'll be right back. I'm going to put a pot of water on for coffee when we're finished,” he said, deliberately not giving her the chance to demur before he walked down the hallway that led to his living quarters. She'd need something hot and bracing when he was done.

Returning, he stepped over to a basin, poured a pitcher of water into it and began to scrub his hands and forearms with a bar of soap, remembering all the times the other field surgeons had made sport of him for what they called his “old maid fussiness” when he was preparing to operate. “I can amputate twice as many legs and arms as you can in half the time, Walker,” one of them had boasted. “And I don't use gallons of carbolic, either.” News of the use of carbolic acid's role in preventing infection had come from Europe in the last year of the war, but only a few doctors in America believed in it.

“Yes, and you lose most of them to infection days
later,” he'd retorted, “while most of mine live to re cover. So I still come out ahead.”

He felt her curious gaze on him, watching as he scrubbed up and down, the harsh lye soap stinging his skin. Then he poured diluted carbolic acid over his hands. When he looked back while he was drying his hands on a clean towel, though, he found her staring at his open rolltop desk. He'd been looking at a small framed daguerreotype he normally left hidden in a drawer, and when he decided to stroll over to the mercantile, he'd absentmindedly left it out on the desk.

“That's my wife and son,” he said, when he could find his breath. “They died the summer before the war began.”

Her eyes widened and grew sad. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she said quickly, then seemed to hesitate, and he knew she was trying a polite way to ask the question.

“Cholera,” he said, sparing her the need.

“Oh…how terrible,” she murmured. “You had no other children?”

He shook his head, firmly suppressing the old pain within him. “No. Now you're going to have to be brave,” he said, knowing his words would distract her from further questions. He brought the bottle of diluted carbolic acid and a basin to the armrest. Pulling a stool over, he sat, then carefully unwrapped the bandage around her arm. He held her arm over the basin, and caught her gaze.

“This is going to sting,” he warned. “You want a bullet to bite?”

He'd hoped his little attempt at humor would make her smile, at least for a moment. but she only shook
her head and looked away, putting her other hand to her mouth.

“Go ahead,” she whispered.

He poured the carbolic acid over the wound, wincing inwardly as she gasped and clamped her free hand over her mouth.

“Sorry. I don't want you to get blood poisoning or lockjaw from that rusty nail.”

After removing the basin, he rolled over the tray of instruments on its stand and unscrewed his jar of boiled catgut suture in alcohol, pulled out a couple lengths and laid them on the stand among his instruments. Then picking up a suture needle, he threaded it.

“This is going to hurt, too, I'm afraid, though not as much as that carbolic.”

“Do what you have to do,” she said, tight-lipped, her face as white as the unbloodstained part of her bodice.

He bent his head to his task. She couldn't know how much harder this was for him than it had been to suture a soldier's cuts, knowing his touch was inflicting more pain on the very woman he cared about so much. He had to steel himself to ignore her wince each time he inserted the needle into her flesh. Thanks to his experience in battlefield surgery, he was able to close this relatively uncomplicated wound quickly. When he was finished, he looked at his patient.

Her head lay back against the headrest of the chair, her eyes were closed. Pearls of sweat beaded her pale skin.

“I'm done,” he said, wondering if he ought to get out
the vial of hartshorn he kept in his desk for swooning ladies. “You were very brave, Miss Matthews.”

She opened her eyes and smiled wanly at him. “Thank you.”

He saw her dart a glance at the neatly sutured wound before she raised her gaze back to his face.

“This may scar a little,” he said, “but not as much as if we'd just bandaged it. And you're going to have to watch it for infection. Any red streaks or swelling or drainage, you come back to see me immediately. I'm going to rebandage it,” he said, and took up a roll of linen, which he circled around her forearm and tied by the ends as he had at the store. “Now I'll get that coffee I promised you.”

“Oh, but you needn't bother—” she began, but he cut her off.

“No bother, I want some, and I need to see a little more color in those cheeks before I let you out of that chair. If I let you get up now, you'll collapse like a wilted lily.” Wishing he could invite her back to his kitchen but knowing it would seem improper to her, he left without waiting to hear any further protests.

He returned a moment later, carrying two sturdy crockery mugs full of steaming coffee.

“I took the liberty of putting sugar in yours,” he said. “I didn't know if you take it that way, but you need the sugar for energy right now.” Then, a little less certainly, he said, “It's probably a little strong for you. I could get some water—”

“No, it's fine,” she assured him. “Josh, our foreman, always says it isn't ranch coffee unless it's so strong the
spoon stands up in the cup.” She took a tentative sip, then another deeper one before he spoke again.

“Is this a good time to have that talk?”

 

“T-talk? What talk?” Sarah stammered. She should have known he would take advantage of being alone with her like this to claim the fulfillment of her promise. She could hardly refuse to talk to him, now that he'd played the Good Samaritan and taken care of her wound.

His expression told her that he knew she'd been playing for time to think, that she knew exactly what talk he meant. “The talk you promised me at the wedding, even said you'd look forward to, and have avoided ever since. The talk in which you're going to explain why you don't like me.”

“I haven't avoided you,” she protested. “I've been very busy at the ranch, what with Milly being off on her honeymoon and all. I haven't come into town except to deliver my pies and cakes, go to church and attend a meeting of the Spinsters' Club.”

He raised an eyebrow as if to imply that if she could do all that, she could have made time to talk to him. “So why don't you? Like me, that is. You seemed to like me well enough when we were corresponding, but as soon as you set eyes on me, you no longer did.”

Sarah sighed. She was trapped and there was no getting around it. She'd promised to do this and she had to honor her word. She owed him her honesty, at least—but now that it came down to it, and especially after what he'd done for her today, she didn't feel as
righteous about her dislike as she had before. Or as certain.

“Perhaps you find me a homely fellow, not much to look at,” he ventured, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

She met his gaze head on. “Dr. Walker—”

“Nolan,” he corrected her. “We're not speaking as doctor and patient now.”

“I'm sure you have some sort of a mirror,” Sarah said, “so you know very well you're not ugly.” Quite the contrary, she thought, looking into his deep blue eyes and studying his strong, rugged features. She took a deep breath. “All right, but remember you asked to hear this. I didn't like you because you're a Yankee.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “So you thought well enough of me until I spoke to you.”

“Yes, and that's your fault. You never said you were a Yankee. By writing to me from Brazos County, you allowed me to believe you a Texan.”

“So you dislike me strictly because I come from the North,” he stated. “Doesn't that sound rather arbitrary on your part, seeing as the war's over? As I mentioned, it hasn't prevented the rest of the townsfolk from accepting me. Why is it so important to you?”

Sarah sighed again, steeling herself to the pain of talking about Jesse. “I was engaged to a wonderful man before the war began,” she said. “Jesse Holt. He…he died in the war—at least, I have to assume that, since he never came back. The men who did come back said…” She looked down as she struggled to finish. “Sometimes when men were killed, they…they…couldn't be identified.”

Nolan's eyes, when she looked up, were unfocused, haunted, as if he was remembering that and worse.

“I loved Jesse,” she said simply. “I…I can be your friend, I suppose…that is to say, we don't have to be enemies. But you came in town to court me, isn't that right? How can I keep company with someone who fought with the Union, when they killed my Jesse? And don't tell me that you were just a doctor, caring for the wounded,” she said, when she saw he had opened his mouth to speak.
“You wore blue.”
All the old grief swept over her, threatening to swamp her, and she bent her head, struggling against tears that escaped anyway. She put a hand to her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I…I thought I was over it.”

Now it was Nolan's turn to sigh. “I know,” he said, shifting his gaze to the daguerreotype on his desk. “Mostly, I only have pleasant memories about Julia and Timmy…but once in a while someone will walk like her, or a little boy will remind me of him… But I know they wouldn't want me to mourn forever, Sarah.”

She noticed he had switched to using her first name, but she didn't correct him.

“It's been over five years now since they died,” he said. “I want to go on with my life. I…know it might be too soon for you.”

“I wanted to go on with my life, too,” she said. “Meet a good man, get married… That's why I agreed to join the Spinsters' Club when my sister started it.”

“But you didn't want to meet a Yankee.”

She let the statement stand. “You're free to court any of the other ladies in the group, or find someone elsewhere, you know.”

“I know,” he said. He raised his head to look at her, and it was a long silent moment before she found the strength to look away.

“We're friends, at least. That's something.” He gave her a half smile. “Here's some bandages,” he said, reaching inside a box and taking out several rolls of bleached linen. “Keep the arm clean and dry and change the dressing every day. Will you come back in a couple days, so I can satisfy myself that it's healing properly?”

She nodded, thinking she could bring him that cake then, and offer to pay him something, also. “Do you have to take out the stitches?”

He shook his head. “No, they're catgut—made of sheep intestines, really—so they'll absorb on their own inside, and the part that's showing will disintegrate and fall out.”

She stared at the bandaged wound and shuddered. “Sheep intestines?”

He chuckled. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you that.”

Then he smiled at her, and she was so struck by what a compelling smile he had that she forgot all about sheep and their insides.