The Doctor Takes a Wife Read online

  But she could always pray about the matter, she realized, feeling guilty that she hadn’t thought of that first. No matter when she spoke to Ada, it was best to do so after seeking heavenly guidance, not before. She needed to stop using prayer as a last resort, after she had exhausted all her own efforts, and think of it first.

  Father, I’m concerned about Ada Spencer. I don’t know what’s troubling her, but You do, Lord. Please help her to realize You are always with her, wanting to aid her. Help her to look to You for her needs. And please show me how to be a true friend to her…

  She found a bolt of white dotted swiss in the mercantile that would be perfect for their curtains. While Mr. Patterson was wrapping it up, Mrs. Detwiler came in and made a beeline for Sarah.

  “Hello, Sarah! Did you and the newlyweds have a nice Christmas? How do you liking living in town? Are you coming to the New Year’s Day party at the Gilmores? Well, of course you are, you’re living right on the grounds.”

  Sarah had started to ask about the Detwilers’ Christmas, but when the voluble older lady chattered right on as if she wasn’t expecting a question in return, Sarah smiled and said, “Yes, we did, and yes, I am liking it and yes, of course I’ll be at the party.”

  “Good! I reckon you’ll be on the arm of that fine Yankee doctor. My, you two made a handsome couple dancing at the wedding. You and he have probably been sparkin’ ever since, haven’t you?” she asked with a cackle of laughter.

  Sarah felt herself flushing and shook her head. “No, Mrs. Detwiler, we’re not courting. We just danced one dance together….”

  “Not from any lack of ‘want to’ on his part, I’ll warrant. It was plain as the nose on my face. Now, don’t you let one of your Spinsters’ Club friends snatch up that fine man first,” she admonished, shaking a gnarled finger at Sarah. “You be like your sister—Milly knew a good thing when she saw it and she didn’t dillydally and let some other woman get close to that handsome Englishman a’ hers!”

  Sarah marveled inwardly, thinking how disapproving the older woman had been of Milly when she’d founded the Spinsters’ Club, and how Nicholas had won her over. “Yes, ma’am, and perhaps when the right man comes along, I’ll—”

  “You might not recognize it when it happens. I didn’t, when my George first started coming to call. You think again about that Dr. Walker, miss. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Sarah said obediently. It never did any good to argue with Mrs. Detwiler.

  When she reached home, she found Prissy stirring a pot over the kitchen stove, and upon inspection found her friend hadn’t managed to burn the beef stew Prissy, with Sarah’s help, had started simmering before Sarah left the cottage. “Mmm, that’s going to be good,” Sarah said, sniffing the air.

  Prissy grinned. “Perhaps there’s hope for me yet.” She put down the large spoon. “Sarah, I’ve been thinking, why don’t we invite someone over for supper sometime soon? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Sarah nodded, thinking this might be her opportunity. Prissy could be the very person to help the withdrawn woman open her heart. “How about Ada? She’s been through a lot lately, and perhaps she’d be grateful for some company other than her parents—”

  Prissy wrinkled her nose. “Sarah, Ada Spencer’s been downright odd lately. Just the other day I waved hello to her from down the street and she turned and slunk off in the opposite direction. No, I meant someone enjoyable to be around, like your sister and her husband. Or maybe we should invite a couple of the other ladies from the club—or all of them! Let’s do it after New Year’s Day.”

  Sarah sighed inwardly. She was all for a dinner party, but this meant she was back where she started, needing to find an excuse to talk to Ada.

  The next three days provided no opportunities, either. She didn’t encounter the woman while delivering her baked goods, nor did Ada appear in church on the morning of New Year’s Eve. It seemed Sarah would have to go to the Spencers’ house after all. But now it would have to wait until after the Gilmores’ party the next day, for she was going to be busy this Sunday afternoon helping Prissy and her parents get ready for the event.

  “Dr. Walker, good of you to come,” the walrus-mustached rotund man said, shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Happy New Year!”

  “Happy New Year to you, Mayor Gilmore, Mrs. Gilmore,” Nolan said, smiling at him and his plump pigeon of a wife, fighting to keep his gaze directed politely on them while he longed to look over their heads for Sarah. “It was kind of you to invite me.”

  “Of course, of course. Everyone in Simpson Creek comes to our open house on New Year’s Day. It’s a tradition, you know.”

  Not only was all of Simpson Creek milling around in the elegantly appointed, brocade-wallpapered ballroom, it seemed as if half of the rest of San Saba County was, too, all of them dressed in their best finery. The scent of rose and lavender water mingled with savory odors of food and the strains of music played by the fiddler.

  “Please, help yourself to the some refreshments, sir,” Mrs. Gilmore said, gesturing at the overloaded table in the far corner of the room. And there his gaze found the woman he sought, for Sarah was standing next to a huge haunch of roast beef, slicing it for a handful of people who were lined up.

  He headed in that direction, but he was intercepted midway across the room by half a dozen people, the last of whom was the mayor’s daughter.

  “My, aren’t you looking handsome tonight, Dr. Walker,” Prissy said, her eyes sweeping over him admiringly. “Just wait till Sarah sees you.”

  He was thankful he had two black frock coats, one for doctoring calls, the other kept for fancy occasions such as this, and that he’d had time to bathe and shave after delivering Mavis Hotchkiss’s baby at a ranch west of town. “Why thank you, Miss Priscilla,” he said, “You’re looking very fine yourself.”

  She dimpled and fanned herself, then leaned close to sniff the air. “Thank you, sir. Mmm, and you smell quite handsome, too.”

  He’d dabbed on some bay rum after he’d shaved. He’d hoped at the time that a certain lady would appreciate it…but his thoughts had been on Sarah, not Prissy. “Miss Priscilla, I didn’t know it was possible to smell handsome,” he said, amused. “You must have a discerning nose, to be able to detect such a thing over the delicious scents wafting from the food table.”

  “Oh, go on over there, you know you want to,” she said, waving him on with a knowing wink. “Doesn’t our Sarah look absolutely wonderful in red?”

  He was glad that with Prissy, at least, he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t longing to stand here and continue making small talk. “As you do in gold, Miss Priscilla,” he said. “Thanks.”

  He crossed the remaining distance to the food table, and seeing that Sarah was still busy slicing beef for the guests in the line, took selections from the other dishes on the groaning board, for he had been at the delivery since dawn and hadn’t eaten since the night before.

  At last he came to the head of the line. “May I have some roast beef, Miss Sarah?”

  She looked up from her carving tools. “Why, Nolan, I didn’t see you come in. Happy New Year to you.”

  May the new year bring about a change in your heart. “Will you have to remain at carving table?” he asked. “I was hoping you could sit down and eat with me.” He gestured at the small tables scattered around the sides of the room.

  “No, I’m only carving until Antonio can come back,” she said, “And here he comes now,” she said, indicating a liveried manservant approaching with a clove-studded ham. “So, yes, I can sit down and eat with you. As it happens, I’ve become very hungry, standing here watching the food go by.”

  He waited while she selected some food, and then they found a vacant table not far from the door.

  “I stopped at your cottage to see if I could escort you to the party, but no one answered,” he told Sarah when they had settled themselves.

  “No, Prissy and I have been here since early mo
rning, helping them get the food set out,” she told him.

  “So I figured. Anyway, I left your cake plate and cover at your doorstep. Best cake I ever had,” he told her.

  “Then you’ll have to try my Neopolitan cake that’s over on the dessert table to see if you still think so,” she said. “And be sure and try the pecan fruitcake Prissy made—please be sure and tell her it’s delicious, for she needs confidence in her baking skills. Oh, there’s Milly and Nick!” She waved at the couple who had just entered the ballroom.

  It was foolish to hope to be alone with a particular woman at a party, he told himself. “It looks like marriage agrees with you two,” he told the couple when they joined them a few moments later, along with Reverend Chadwick.

  “Yes, I quite recommend it,” Brookfield answered, grinning. “”How’s the doctoring business?” he asked in return.

  “For a small town, it certainly keeps me busy. I’ve already helped usher Simpson Creek’s newest citizen into the world today, out at the Hotchkiss ranch.”

  “Ah, a new baby for the new year,” Sarah said, her face brightening with pleasure.

  “I trust Mavis had an uncomplicated lying-in?” Milly asked. “That’s her fourth, you know.”

  Nolan had just opened his mouth to answer her when a shrill cry rose over the hubbub of chattering and the clinking of silverware against china.

  “So there you are, Nolan!”

  Chapter Eight

  Ada Spencer pointed at him, her tone shrill. Her other hand fluttered down to her abdomen. She wore a green hooped gown that would have been the height of fashion before the war, but now it looked decidedly out of place. Her mother was a larger woman, so perhaps it had been hers, for it hung loose as a sack on Ada. Her hair had been pinned on top of her head in a parody of an upswept chignon. Her eyes were unnaturally bright. Two hectic flushes of color blotched her pale cheeks.

  Antonio, the Gilmore’s manservant, hovered uncertainly behind her as if he hadn’t wanted to admit her to the party, but he hadn’t known quite how to stop her.

  Conversation hushed and people turned to stare. The fiddler stopped playing.

  Nolan stared, and darted a glance back at Sarah. “Excuse me…” he whispered. “Reverend, perhaps you’d better come with me,” he added in an undertone, and started across the room, feeling as if he had blundered into a nightmare.

  Sarah rose. If there was trouble from Ada Spencer, she didn’t want Nolan to face it alone. Milly stood, too, and they followed Dr. Walker and the preacher.

  “Miss Spencer, what’s wrong?” Nolan said, when he reached Ada, “Are you ill? Is it—” He kept his voice down, wishing they didn’t have such a large, curious audience.

  “Ill? No, Nolan…the baby’s just fine, kicking away,” Ada announced in tone of brittle gaiety that was audible to at least half the room. Her hand remained protectively over her abdomen. “Naturally, since you and I…well, I thought you would be by to escort me to the party, but you never appeared. And here I find you consorting with another woman!” She stared at Sarah as if she had never met her.

  “Ada, we were only talking…Nolan?” Sarah said uncertainly, even as Milly put a cautionary hand on her shoulder.

  “Miss Spencer is ill,” Nolan said, making sure his tone was firm and would carry at least to the closest fringe of people who were avidly listening. He figured they could inform the rest. “Miss Sarah, Mrs. Milly, Reverend Chadwick, would you mind coming with me? We’re going to help Miss Spencer home.”

  “But, Nolan, I came for the party!” Ada protested, looking over her shoulder at the party behind her. “I haven’t wished Happy New Year to anyone, or had any of the food over there on the buffet table, and our child makes me so hungry!”

  Nolan felt the blood drain from his face. He fought the impulse to recoil from this woman. “Come with us, Miss Spencer, please,” Nolan said in the kindest, gentlest tone he could muster, the kind of voice one used with a fractious animal—or the insane.

  “Nolan, we really are on a first-name basis aren’t we? After all…” Ada glanced meaningfully downward and laughed. Her eerie merriment made his skin crawl.

  “We’ll take you home. You want to take good care of yourself, don’t you?” What must Sarah be thinking? If he’d ever had any hope that Sarah would change her mind about him, it was surely lost now.

  They managed to herd Ada out into the vestibule, and while Reverend Chadwick was wrapping Ada’s shawl around her shoulders, Nolan turned to Sarah, hoping to whisper that he’d be back later to explain.

  But Ada must have seen him out of the corner of her eye, for she whirled away from Reverend Chadwick, fury in her eyes.

  “Is it too much to expect you to be faithful to the mother of your child?” she demanded. “You stay away from him, you—you—” Thankfully, words failed her then, but she started gathering herself as if she meant to lunge at Sarah.

  Nolan and the reverend took a firm grip on the struggling woman, and suddenly Nick Brookfield was there too, helping them, putting himself between Ada and his wife and Sarah.

  Nolan wanted to shout at the crazed woman, “Be quiet! You know that’s not true!” but all he could do was turn to Sarah, and let his eyes plead with her to understand. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he managed to say, even as he struggled to keep a hold on Ada.

  “Now, Miss Ada, you mustn’t excite yourself, you know it’s not good for you…” Reverend Chadwick was saying in his soothing voice, but it was obvious she wasn’t listening. The mayor, his wife and Prissy hung back at the entrance of the ballroom, their eyes wide, obviously unsure what to do. All the partygoers were gathered behind them, their mouths hanging open in fascinated horror.

  Sarah was pale, but to his relief, Nolan saw no suspicion or condemnation in her eyes, only pity as she gazed at the thrashing crazy woman, then back at him. He thought she saw her nod, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Shaken, Sarah watched the door close behind the three men herding Ada Spencer.

  “Well, I never,” breathed Prissy, who had come up beside her. “It’s not true, is it? What Ada said about a baby—hers and Dr. Walker’s?”

  “No, I’m sure it’s not,” Sarah said quickly, though she could not have said why she felt so certain. She didn’t know Nolan Walker that well, she reminded herself. Was this why Nolan had thought Ada needed a friend, because she was expecting a baby and had no husband? Or because Ada was losing her mind? Or both?

  “No, it’s not true,” Milly said behind her. “Sarah, let’s walk to the cottage, shall we? I think it’s time to discuss something with you. You don’t want to stay longer at the party anyway, do you?”

  “No, I…I don’t,” Sarah agreed, feeling perilously close to tears. “You don’t mind, do you, Prissy?”

  “Of course not. If it’s all right—” her gaze sought Milly’s permission in addition to Sarah’s “—I’ll come, too. Mama and Papa will understand.”

  Revisiting in her mind the October day the Comanches had attacked in the midst of the Founder’s Day celebration was hard for Sarah, but she felt relieved when Milly had finished speaking.

  “So Ada had just told you and Nick that Harvey Blakely had abandoned her while she was with child when his horse brought him, mortally wounded into town?” Sarah murmured. The saucer rattled as she set down her cup of tea with a shaking hand. “How dreadful.”

  “And you never told a soul her secret,” Prissy breathed. “You’re so good, Milly.”

  Milly shrugged. “It wasn’t my secret to tell. I in tended to be a supportive friend to her, but I hardly saw her after that. And what with getting ready for the wedding and all…” She threw up her hands.

  “I know what you mean,” Sarah said with a guilty sigh. “I meant to do the same when she started acting so oddly….”

  Milly’s brow furrowed. “You know, for a woman who’s four or five months along…I wonder if that’s why she wore that loose gown…” Her voice trailed off and she refused to elaborat
e. “Never mind, I was just thinking out loud. It’s none of my business.”

  “Poor Ada,” Sarah said, her heart aching as she remembered the wild look in Ada’s eyes.

  “I think you’d better stay away from her, after how she acted tonight,” Prissy muttered.

  “But now she needs friends more than ever!” Sarah cried.

  “I’m afraid what she may need is an asylum, dear,” Milly said, putting a comforting hand on her sister’s shoulder, “since Harvey’s death seems to have unhinged her mind. And if anyone’s foolish enough to believe Ada’s wild accusations even a little, it’ll be Dr. Walker who may be needing friends.”

  Sarah stared at her sister. As usual, Milly was right. “I won’t stop being his friend,” she said. “He’s a good man.”

  “I agree,” Prissy said.

  Sarah sighed. “What we can do for Ada is pray for her,” she said.

  “You’re right,” Milly said, and joining hands with her sister and Prissy, they did so, right then, asking the Lord to give Ada a clear mind so she would know what was true and what wasn’t.

  Nick arrived at the cottage shortly after that to collect his wife, reporting they’d succeeded in getting Ada home, and that Dr. Walker and the reverend had stayed to explain what had happened to her elderly parents. Then he and Milly left, wanting to reach the ranch before darkness fell.

  “Looks like almost all the guests have left,” Prissy remarked, standing on their porch step after she and Sarah had waved goodbye to Milly and Nick. The drive that curved in front of her parent’s large house and the street beyond was now nearly bare of carriages.

  “I imagine Ada’s outburst put a damper on the festivities,” Sarah said. She could imagine all too well that the scene Ada had made would be the talk of the town for a long time to come. Please, Lord, don’t let anyone believe Ada’s unbalanced raving.

  “I think I’ll go help Mama and Papa finish up for a while. I’ll bring back some of the leftover food for our supper,” Prissy said.