Stephanie Mittman (8 page)

The boy drove the horses fast, urging them to go faster still, and Seth, without a choice, followed behind, choking on dust and praying that he wouldn’t be too late.

But too late for what? he wondered. He’d left Abby with a headache, which she’d assured him was nothing. Had she fainted? Had she tripped and fallen somewhere? He told himself that it didn’t have to be Abby he was racing to see, but that didn’t ease the fear that it was.

And then they were racing down Ridder’s Lane and unless Abby had gone walking down by the pond, it wasn’t likely that it was she that they were rushing toward. The rush of relief he felt was followed hard upon by profound shame. Wasn’t everyone in Eden’s Grove his responsibility? Someone needed him desperately—and all he could do was be glad that it wasn’t Abby.

They turned off Ridder’s Lane at Joseph Panner’s place and Seth couldn’t help shaking his head. He was an idiot racing down here after Jed Merganser, who wouldn’t know a medical emergency if he cut his own head off with one of his infernal inventions. Joe Panner’s toes had looked to be healing just fine only a couple of days ago, but the man wanted daily assurances that he would be able to get back out to Ridder’s Pond for that damn fish before the ice melted.

Serve the man right if he fell in again.

See? See?
he thought to himself. It was time to give up medicine. A doctor wishing his own patients ill.
When he got back to his office he was going to write to Massachusetts General Hospital. It was a long shot, hoping someone from such a prestigious institution would consider coming to a little pit-of-the-peach town like Eden’s Grove, but long shots were better than no shots, and he’d heard nothing yet from Philadelphia or Chicago.

“We’re here,” Jed yelled to Panner, as he came back to Seth’s rig and took the reins from him. “Went right through the ice again,” Jed told him. “But this time Pa wasn’t wandering by to save him.”

Seth felt himself grimace. Damn, but with all the real threats to a person’s health, the germs and bugs and sicknesses, the accidents that couldn’t be prevented, the injuries that couldn’t be helped, it was really hard to work up any sympathy for a man who felt the need to tempt fate by going ice fishing on a frozen pond. Twice.

It was eerily quiet, and Ella Welsh, who could best be described in polite terms as Panner’s lady friend, opened the door as they approached it. Tears tracked her face as she squinted out at them.

“He just kept saying to get the reverend,” she said, “so I ran there, but no reverend.”

“Prudence was supposed to find Pa while I came for you,” Jed said. “I got the doc, like I said I would.” And then the boy followed Seth like some lost puppy as he made his way to Panner’s bedroom. Steam rose from the basins of water Ella had used to try to raise his temperature. In the middle of his bed, Joseph Panner looked wholly serene, if a bit gray. Beside him, in a
puddle that was soaking into the bedding, lay the largest walleye Seth had ever seen, no doubt the one that Joseph Panner claimed was the largest in the world, the hook still protruding from his mouth.

“Stupid fool,” Ella said.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to speak of the dead like that, Miss Welsh,” Jed said, hanging in the doorway as if he were afraid to come into the room.

“He wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t been so stupid,” Ella said. “A goddamn fish. What kind of fool risks his life for a goddamn fish?”

Seth had to wonder the same thing. The man apparently had everything else. “Something about wanting what we can’t have,” he supposed aloud, lifting the fish and handing it to Jed. It was heavy, heavier than any fish Seth had ever caught. Panner might have been right about it being the world’s biggest walleye.

“If only you’da gotten him here a little sooner,” Ella said to Jed, her expression softening as she pushed Joe Panner’s graying hair off his forehead.

“He was way over at the Dentons’,” Jed said, clearly defending himself since it had taken so long to bring Seth there.

The town was too big, too sprawled out for one man to see to it. It was too much for one doctor.

At least it was too much for Seth.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Abby said as she came into Seth’s office with what was left of the dessert he hadn’t stayed for. She put two pie halves on his desk,
piling his papers neatly in the corner of it. “Massachusetts General Hospital,” she said, pretending to be impressed.

Seth pulled the paper from her hand. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

No retort, no joke or cute little answer came to mind, so she told him the truth. “I was worried about you. Jed came home and told us what happened and I thought you might need me.”

“
Need you?
” He sneered at her, and she caught a whiff of whiskey on his breath. “Need
you?
When chickens talk, my dear Miss Merganser, relative of the loon, that’s when I’ll need you.
If
then.”

“Tea or coffee?” she asked, walking past him and heading for the small utility kitchen with the little stove meant really for heating up poultices and the like.

“Go home, Miss Loon!” he shouted at her. His words were just a little slurred. Abby thought that he carried his drunkenness well. But then she thought he did everything well.

“Tea, then,” she said. “I like how that goes with quince pie.”

“I hate quince pie,” he said. “And I sure as hell don’t feel like celebrating tonight.” He stood and took the pies over to the door, where he placed them on the seat of a chair.

“Of course you don’t. I don’t blame you.”

“Well, I blame me. Who’s fault was it, if it wasn’t mine? Did I make it clear enough to Joe Panner that his penchant for walking on thin ice was going to kill him? You were there. I never even said—”

“Said what, Seth? That if he fell into a frozen lake he’d likely die?”

“I was way the hell across town,” he said, coming to lean against the doorjamb while she fussed in his kitchen.

“You say
hell
a lot when you’re drunk,” she said, throwing him a quick look while she strained their tea.

“I’m not drunk,” he said, coming closer to her, close enough for her to smell the starch in his white shirt. “You want to know how I know I’m not drunk?” he asked, and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her around so that she faced him.

“How?” she asked, tipping back her head so that she could see his face, his sad dark eyes with the lines that radiated from them, reminding her of how he used to smile.

“Because if I were drunk, I’d take you in my arms and kiss those soft lips of yours,” he said, and he pulled her closer against him. “I’d drop kisses on the top of your head,” he said, doing just that. “I’d tip your head back until you were just at the right angle”—he tipped her head just so, until her lips were inches from his, until she could feel his breath on her face—“and I would kiss the hell out of you—”

He dipped his lips to hers, gently, just barely brushing one against the other, pulling back slightly, coming at her a little harder then, pressing his lips against hers, easing hers open so that his tongue could play against the inside of her bottom lip, so that it could sneak into her mouth and do wicked things to her insides.

“
If
I were drunk.” He stood up straight and made sure she was steady on her feet. “Is that how your
friend in St. Louis kissed you?” he asked, folding his arms against his chest.

“Like that?” she asked when she could talk again, when she could drag in a breath and push the words past the lips he had kissed. She leaned closer to him, wishing he would open up his arms and drag her against the length of him. “I’m not sure. Could you show me again?”

And then she saw where his laugh lines came from. Tipping his head back he all but roared at her. “Your father ought to lock you up and throw away the key, young lady!” he said, and then the man who had kissed her seemed to vanish, and in his place was Dr. Hendon, cool, calm, collected.

“To protect me from you?” she asked, but before she could add
I think not
, he shook his head.

“Not me. I’m on my way out of this town, Abby dear, just as fast as I can find someone to take over this practice.”

“And what will you do with yourself, Dr. Hendon? Or should I call you Seth, now that you’ll be giving up doctoring?”

He seemed to give the matter more thought than it deserved. “You should continue to call me Doctor since I am your elder.” He took one of the teacups she had filled and went back to his desk. “Thanks for the tea. You ought to go on home now.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “What will you do with the rest of your life?”

“Maybe I’ll go pan for gold in Nome,” he said, and she let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was
holding. So he didn’t have a plan. There was nothing, and no
one
calling to him. Nothing and no one but her. “I read about a gold strike up there in your paper, Miss Newspaperwoman.”

“Well, that sounds wonderful. No responsibilities. No one depending on you. Just what you’ve always wanted,” she agreed.

His smile wasn’t all that bright, as if she weren’t supposed to have taken his suggestion so seriously. Well, she’d be just as serious about all of this as he was.

“You won’t be leaving before the summer, will you?” she asked. “Emily is expecting again, and since you delivered Suellen—well, gosh, I guess you delivered everyone in this town under the age of twelve, huh?”

“Eleven,” he corrected. He got a wistful look on his face, and shameless as she was, she meant to exploit it.

“Remember when the Rogan boys were born? Three babies at once! Of course, no one expected them to live, being so tiny and all. They sure are little terrors now!”

He smiled. Abby was sure that he knew just what she was doing, but for some reason he let her do it anyway. Maybe sometimes a body just needed to hear that things were better than they were thinking.

She gasped. “Did you hear about little Stevie Solomon? Seems he wrote some dirty words on his slate at school and Miss Kearny caught him and threatened to wash his mouth out with soap!”

“Why wash his mouth?” Seth asked. “Did he say them, too?”

“Well, I don’t think she wanted to smack that boy’s
hand when it really is a miracle that he can use it at all, what with how bad it got mangled up in his pa’s reaper. Of course, I suppose if you hadn’t been here and his father had just wrapped it up good, it’d be just as fine today, don’t you think?”

“I get your point, Abidance. You don’t have to lay it on quite so thick,” he said, taking a second helping of the quince pie he supposedly hated.

“I have apple, too, if you prefer. I know I want my fill before I give up sweets for Lent,” she said, opening the top of the pie keep and popping a bit of crust into her mouth. It didn’t taste as good as her best pies, but she surely liked the way Seth watched her eat it, liked the warmth that spread inside her under his gaze. She took a bit of the crumb topping and put it carefully into her mouth, then licked her finger, her eyes locked with his.

“I remember things too, Abby,” he said softly. “I remember a little girl coming to me in tears because her baby doll had lost her arm and wanting to know if I could fix her. I remember you and Sarrie hiding in my examining room so that you could see if the pictures in my medical books were for real.”

“I’ve grown up, Seth,” she said, reaching out and running her finger down the side of his face, feeling the stubble on his jaw that came with the night.

“And while you were doing that, I grew old,” he said sadly, taking her hand in his and putting it back down on the desk. “Much too old and sad for someone like you.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said thoughtfully. “About
medicine, I mean. Maybe it makes you too sad. Maybe you could love me if you were a prospector.”

“But I’m not a prospector,” he said with a sad smile. “Am I?”

“Not yet,” she said, “but maybe you will be.”

M
Y
D
EAREST
A
BIDANCE
,” A
BBY’S COUSIN
A
NNA
Lisa had written.

The paper crinkled in her pocket and Abby’s mother frowned at her as if the tiny noise would disrupt the dignity of Joseph Panner’s funeral. As if there were any dignity to Joseph Panner’s funeral! Had it not been that he’d drowned in frozen waters, she’d be tempted to say
that they’d be fighting over his legacy before the man’s body was cold.

“A man of honor, a devout man, known to all of us for the ability to live up to his shortcomings …” her father was saying, while behind her Ansel snickered at her father’s words.