Ginny Aiken (25 page)

She’d cried bitter tears and had thought to leave Hartville, but with her faith in Christ and a busy medical practice, she’d soon put herself to rights. As long as Eric did nothing to pierce her fragile shell, she’d be fine.

With a last look at the house, a house that cried out for a woman’s pride and the laughter of children, Letty dismissed its sturdy stone walls and wide porch as treasures not meant for her. She’d been called to heal.

“And heal I will,” she whispered. As she let herself into the vestibule, the scent of lemon oil welcomed her. Mrs. Sauder, Eric’s housekeeper, must have been by to clean recently.

Letty opened the coat closet and hung her cape on a hook. Medical bag in hand, she walked down the hall.

“Who’s there?” Eric called, his tone none too welcoming.

She entered and set her bag by his bed. “It’s me.”

“Come to prod and push at me again?”

“Hmmm,” she murmured. At the washstand, she lathered her hands with pine-scented soap. Towel in hand, she faced her patient.

His cheeks gleamed from a recent grooming, and he’d trimmed his mustache. Letty approached and removed the quilt from his injured leg. The stark white bandage struck her as an affront to his strength. She gingerly parted the edges of his torn underdrawers from the bandage. He sucked in a gusty breath.

Bracing herself against his discomfort, she lifted the dressing from the wound. Under her touch, Eric shifted. She made herself ignore him and did her work. When she finally replaced the torn pieces of gray flannel over the new bandage, he grasped her hand. “Thank you.”

“I’m a doctor,” she answered. “You’re welcome.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m very grateful that you’ve continued to treat me in spite of our arguments and even during my less-than-courteous behavior. Your compassion is greater than . . . than the awkwardness between us.”

Letty tried to move away, but he tightened his hold on her hand. She was about to cry again, and she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t. “It’s my duty—”

“As it is mine to protect you, make sure you’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Through her renewed misery, Letty heard the word
safe.
What was Eric saying? What did safety have to do with her doctoring him? Perhaps the blow had affected more than his leg.

He squeezed her hand. “I will keep you safe even from yourself.”

As if doused with a bucket of icy water, Letty reared up and yanked her hand free. “What did you say?”

He blinked. “I just said I wanted to keep you safe.”

“Yes, I heard that. What else did you say? After that.”

Eric stared at his hands fisted in the quilt. He blushed to the roots of his gold hair.

“Well?” she prodded.

Thumb and forefinger ran over his mustache in the gesture Letty knew proclaimed his discomfort. “I said I’d protect you even from yourself.”

Too stunned by the stab of pain, she prayed for control of her temper and a lessening of her grief. The man didn’t know her; he didn’t see the difference between her and his dead wife.

“I’ve told you I’m an adult,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I know it when I deliver a baby, when I help a lost child find her way out of prostitution, and, yes, even when I kiss you.”

Eric shoved his fingers through his hair. Letty saw irritation, frustration, and a touch of longing in his eyes. “I . . . I care about you, Letty, and I can’t let anything hurt—”

“Stop it! Just stop it, Eric. I’ll only say this once, so listen carefully.” She took a good look at him, dreading what she was about to do. She would hurt him, not intentionally, but because he’d left her no other alternative.

“I am not Martina. I choose to put the control of my life in the Lord’s hands. I don’t need you to tell me what I can do. If I place myself in danger, it’s by my choice and mine alone. God holds me accountable for my actions, and I accept that responsibility.” She sobbed and gasped for air, and tears fell to her blouse.

“Letty—”

“Don’t. Just listen. I’m the real Letty, not the person you think I am. That woman exists only in your imagination, perhaps made up to salve your conscience or atone for your sins. Truth is, you don’t know me at all, not who I really am.” With the back of her hand she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You’re so consumed by your self-imposed guilt that you forget even Jesus’ atonement for sin—yes, yours—on the cross.”

He flinched as though she’d slapped him. Still, she had to make
him understand. “I am Letitia Morgan, a physician, a mature Christian woman, fully able to live my life. I don’t need you to grant me permission to do what I must do. I’m not willful, and I won’t put myself in unnecessary peril.”

With a last look at the man who’d destroyed her heart, she picked up her satchel.

“Good-bye, Eric.”

Three days after the debacle with Letty, Eric unfolded the page Ford had brought him last night. He’d said it was the only letter to the editor since the accident, and as Eric had told him to do the day after his injury, he’d included it in this morning’s edition without checking with him ahead of time.

Dismay struck Eric when he saw the signature at the bottom of the message. He should have read it last night.

Eric turned the paper over and over. He couldn’t believe Ford had printed such an inflammatory letter in the morning’s edition. His reporter should have told him its contents, made him read it right away, something. Provocative statements required careful handling, and these were nothing if not rabble-rousing. Life would surely get more complicated now.

True, he’d written another scathing editorial for yesterday’s paper, but after Letty had fled, fear and anger had clouded what tact he’d ever had.

Each time he remembered their parting, he ached for what he’d lost. His misery was scarcely less than what he’d felt at Martina’s death. Twice he’d loved, and twice he’d lost.

Surely, her words had made clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. She felt sufficient unto herself, and she rejected his protection. Well, he couldn’t do as she asked. Having survived widowhood, he couldn’t stand by and watch a woman he loved fly straight into danger.

Even though she wanted no part of him, he still felt compelled to eliminate the threat she faced because of her treating the young tarts.

Although Eric knew Letty would never acknowledge it, the rejection of Hartville’s respectable society and her clinic’s failure were not the worst things that could happen to her; not even was
contracting a disease. The possibility of revenge by the seamier elements loomed over her. She was, after all, trying to close down a lucrative industry.

The memory of a struggle for a pistol between father and son made a sudden return. The father had died hours later, and the son told the sheriff it had been an accident. Since the family was above reproach, no one questioned his account. The mother died of a stroke not long after, and the boy kept the father’s suicide a secret.

Eric pushed the past aside and focused on the present. He’d called a meeting of the town council in his front room. The men had agreed with him. The best option was to close the brothels and jail the women who didn’t leave town in the five days the council ordered. Eric had reported those facts, no matter what Letty thought.

Discomfort struck him, especially at the thought of Regis Tolliver’s self-righteousness. Everyone knew he kept Lily LaRaine, Bessie’s main competitor, in business almost single-handedly. Yet he’d been among the first to stop by the newspaper and complain about Letty doctoring the girls.

How could Eric dig himself out of the hole he’d dug? First, he’d gotten close to Letty. Then when he’d started falling in love with her, he’d failed to keep her out of something so foul that now her safety wasn’t certain. Finally, his fears had driven a wedge between them, and he now missed her sunny presence.

Besides, how dare she write that offending epistle on the very typewriter he’d lent her? To think she would use something that held the memory of their first kiss to defy him in a public verbal duel!

The office had another typewriter, and he could respond in kind, but he didn’t want her response to it in tomorrow’s issue. He didn’t put it past her to charm Ford into doing just that. He had things to say that couldn’t be said in public. He’d have to answer privately and hope her common sense prevailed.

Heavy footsteps alerted him to someone’s arrival. He knew it wasn’t Letty. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Ford.”

“Come in, come in,” said Eric, glad to see someone who could fetch him the typewriter. “What brings you back today?”

Ford’s hat landed by the door. His brown coat fell a few feet farther into the room. His jacket flopped over the back of the chair that Anna Sauder, the housekeeper, had placed near the bed. Finally, Ford’s ancient black tie puddled in a thin stream of tired silk at his feet.

“I heard rumblings in town today,” the reporter said, rubbing the inked side of his nose. “The Swartleys seem to have another dupe.”

Eric sat straighter. “Did you hear who? Maybe we can stop the swindle and even follow those swine to their source.”

Ford’s finger crammed his spectacles closer to his blond brows. “I hate to say anything, seeing you’re hurt and can’t go anywhere, and I can’t be sure of what I heard, but I did hear it, and I got worried—”

“Enough. I understand you don’t want to deliver bad news, but I’m not on my deathbed. Tell me. Who’s their target?”

“Slosh.”

“Slosh? Horace Patterson?”

The spectacles fell onto Ford’s lips. Another stab of his index finger squashed his bushy eyebrows behind the glass. “I heard Slosh, and I told you Slosh.”

Eric swore.

Ford flinched.

Eric apologized.

Ford scooped up his spectacles from where they had landed on top of his tie.

Eric cursed his leg and Slosh’s inability to stay sober and keep his trousers shut. With the Swartleys’ money, the man was sure
to invest in spirits and time with one of Bessie’s girls instead of in the care of his five needy children.

The one he couldn’t curse, however, was the persistent doctor who would surely view this development as further evidence of male weakness and debauchery.

“Well,” he finally said, “why are you still here?”

Ford bounded up. One arm of his spectacles flew off his ear and curved over his white-gold hair. He replaced it behind his ear and shoved the glass circles up his nose again. He bent to retrieve his tie and lost his spectacles altogether.

“For goodness’ sake, Ford, keep track of your things, will you?” Eric rarely lost patience with his friend, but with five children about to lose their home, he couldn’t tolerate wasted time.

Ford donned his coat, rammed on his hat, and stuffed his tie in his pocket. “I’m on my way,” he said. At the doorway, he paused. “Just where do you want me to go? And do what?”

Eric laughed. Ford’s clumsiness was legendary, and it felt good to laugh again after days of pain. “Follow Slosh. Become his best friend if need be. Just don’t let him out of your sight. Don’t give the Swartleys a chance.”

Against his better judgment, he added, “Go tell Dr. Morgan what we suspect. She’ll want to keep an eye on the children. You can also tell her the stitches in my leg should probably be removed.”

As Ford left, Eric leaned back into his pillows, frowning. He’d just decided it was best not to see Letty again, yet at the first opportunity, he’d summoned her to his side. He couldn’t wait until she stormed back into his life.

He wouldn’t need to write that response, after all.