That Certain Spark (8 page)

“Fine.” He sat down.

All of a sudden she burst out laughing. It wasn’t one of the little titters that most women did but a full-throated, wonderful laugh. He couldn’t help but smile, almost join in as a matter of fact.
So when I thought maybe she’d smiled about comparing Piet to a horse when he was stuck under the bed, I was right. The woman actually has a sense of humor. But what’s so funny?
She strove to regain her self-control as she touched the swan piece. “I wouldn’t have laughed if there were any possibility you’d made this, but anything this atrocious must have taken days to dream up.”

“It’s a nightmare, and I wasted my time repairing it.”

Tilting her head to the side, she winced. “Perhaps it’s the day in the fairy tale when the ugly duckling becomes a swan.”

“The duck would have made a good meal.”

“I can’t tell where you fixed it.” She studied it very carefully.

“Here, by the beak.”

Running her finger over the area, she closed her eyes. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Hmpf.” That was a good trick. He’d remember it. With his eyes closed, he’d be able to concentrate on the slightest dip or roughness.

The doctor put her hands on his knee and thigh; Karl scowled. Just like that, she went from being a pleasant neighbor lady to a woman doctor. It was just plain wrong. Manacling her wrists with his hands, he rasped, “Your brother—he should be here and do this.”

“My brother is helping Mrs. Orion at the boardinghouse. It seems she needed a few repairs.”

“Groceries—Mrs. Orion helped Doc Enoch buy them.” Karl nodded curtly. “An exchange. Trading is done and we all try to give the widow the better end of the deal. I can wait until your brother is done there.”

The doctor gave him a stern look. “My brother treats animals. He assists when a true need exists. It may seem uncomfortable, but I’m a physician; therefore, it is not improper, Karl. You must allow me to do this in order for me to treat you. Again, that muscle has been badly wounded, and what we both want is for you to recover fully.”

“Fine.” He nodded curtly.

“Concentrate here and here, where my hands are. What I want you to do is tighten these muscles, and as you tighten them very slowly, notice how it straightens your leg and how your foot comes up. Do you see this?”

“Ja.”

“Now I want you to do that again, only this time, instead of having your boot flop, I want your toe pointing toward the roof. Karl, this isn’t a race. Do it slowly.”

“I want my leg to get better fast.”

“That’s dangerous. If you overstress the muscle by doing several exercises quickly, it can tear clear through. The quadriceps here are the strongest muscles in the entire body, and you’re a powerful man. I repaired the damage with great care, but the fragile silk sutures are no match for heavy exertion. As the tissue knits back together and heals, I believe your muscles will repair adequately, but the actual range of your knee and hip’s movement will rely upon faithfully doing these exercises.” Her eyes locked with his. “Slowly.”

He nodded his understanding. As she motioned for him to lift his foot, he did so.

“Don’t stop when your foot comes to there.” She held her hand higher. “I want you to reach this point.”

“My leg—I cannot get it all the way straight.”

“No, you can’t. It’s just a little bit shy of being perfect, and I want you to have a full recovery.” Suddenly an impish gleam hit her eye. She drew her hands away. Crossing them behind her back, she leaned forward and murmured, “Think, each time as you do the exercise, that you are kicking the ugly swan sconce.”

“I’ll recover very quickly now.”

“That’s what I hoped for.”

“Are there any other exercises I should do?”

She showed him a few more, then suddenly she froze. “What are you doing with my chatelaine?”

“Your brother sneaked it to me. Perhaps he didn’t want you to get your hopes up if it couldn’t be repaired.” Pride filled him as he picked up the piece. “But I fixed it. It’s good as new now.”

Reverently accepting it, she rubbed her thumb along the knot-work edge as if to refamiliarize herself with a long-parted friend. She tried the lever and inspected it from the side. A soft look of wonder went over her face. “You did something different with it. As I work the lever, I sense it has more strength than it used to.”

“Whatever originally held it and provided the tension was gone, yet something was clearly needed in that place to make it hold. So I made what I thought might have been there. I hope you will find it satisfactory.”

“This is outstanding. My chatelaine’s never really had the strength I required. I’ve considered having the flat piece on the back elongated. . . .” She turned to stare at something off to the side that suddenly seemed of great interest. “But it’s not possible.”

Karl knew why she’d suddenly avoided eye contact. This topic edged toward indecent. While the pretty part hung outside over the side of her waistband, women tucked the inch-and-a-half to two-inch flat metal back inside their skirt to anchor the piece in place and bear whatever slight weight they’d attach to it. If the inside metal piece were any longer, it would poke the lady in the hip each time she moved.

“If you want it stronger, I could widen it through here.” He took a pencil and drew on his table. “See here? Instead of it just being straight, what I can do is add by making it shaped thus.” He showed her how he could widen it.

“Like the petal of a flower.”

“Like the petal “Ja, ja, so.”

She looked at him. “Not like the beak of a swan.”

“No, no, not the beak of that stupid swan.”

“I’d appreciate it if you could do it.” Her fingers didn’t quite want to let go of the piece, and he saw her hesitation.

“I’ll do it right now.”

Dr. Bestman looked at all the other pieces he had in line waiting. “That wouldn’t be fair. You have other people waiting on your work, as well.”

“Ah, but you see, yours was still being worked upon. No work is done until I polish it. I had not yet polished your piece, so that means it was still unfinished.”

Her jaw dropped. “You polish silver?”

“I polish each thing that I do. Piet!” he called. “Piet, tell her, do we not always polish each thing that we do before we put it out?”

“Of course. It would not be right to send it out raw. We are not just workers, we are craftsmen.”

“A master craftsman, indeed.” She handed the chatelaine back to Karl. “I thank you very much for doing that for me. I’ll be back later today to fetch it.”

“You need not do that, Doctor.” Warmth radiated from the metal, reminding him of how closely she’d held it. “I will bring it back over to the surgery.”

Just then the mayor rushed in. “I came in to ask a favor of you, Karl.”

“What is that?”

The mayor caught sight of the doctor and muttered something about physicians and confidentiality. He grimaced, furtively looked about, and leaned toward Karl. “I want to ask you not to, ah . . .” His voice died out as his hand came up to momentarily cover his eyes, then slid back as if to wipe a horrid thought from his mind. Again he looked at Karl. “You didn’t, did you?” he asked, hope quavering pathetically in his tone. “Not yet?”

“What didn’t I do?”

“Fix it—my wife brought in tha-tha-that—”

“Are you talking about the swan?” The doctor shouldered right beside Karl.

The mayor groaned and nodded.

Karl clipped, “Ja. It’s fixed.”

“I may as well take it home to her.” Staring down at the piece, then closing his eyes, the mayor said, “A lesser man could have been blinded by having to work on it.”

“Please excuse me for the interruption, but you’ve missed the point, gentlemen. A lesser man did work on it. That is precisely why the piece exists.”

Though flattered by her praise, Karl didn’t dwell on it. He simply named his price for the labor, and the mayor paid him.

“I hope the two of you won’t ever mention what happens next. I am a very clumsy man, you know.” The mayor took two steps, dropped the wall sconce, and trampled on it. When he picked it up, every last segment was bent. Actually mangled—all except for the swan’s beak, which remained perfectly intact. Mayor Cutter lifted it and looked very satisfied. “My only problem tonight is going to be trying to paste on a sorrowful look, you know.”

Eyes narrowed, the doctor stared at the mayor. “If you didn’t like it, why did you have it in your home?”

“Edna Mae likes them.”

“There is more than one,” the doctor stated in a calm tone.

Karl marveled at her self-control. He’d almost blurted out the same words, but in a roaring question of disbelief.

Glad to have a sympathetic audience, the mayor nodded. “My wife brought a pair of them into the marriage and is sentimental about some cockamamie story about what they represent.” He held up the mangled piece. “With one ruined, she’ll have to take the other down.”

Karl and the doctor remained silent. They’d shared the same opinion of the sconce, but a man deceiving his wife rankled.

“My wife likes symmetry, you know, and with just one wall sconce, the house won’t look right. Karl, show me something masculine, something you could make now that you’re doing this kind of work for the next few days.”

“No. I’m only doing this till the end of the week, and I have far too much to do already.”

“I’m sure you can find something simple . . . anything!” The mayor went to a sample book at once and flipped through it. Every other page, he’d nod his head and say, “Um-hm. Oh this, yeah, oh, very nice. Very nice.”

The doctor slanted Karl a look. “You must not overdo, else the incision will open and you’ll begin to bleed. The work you have before you is the limit.”

Karl wasn’t about to have a woman order him around. Caught between a bossy woman doctor and a conniving husband, he scowled at them both. “Nothing’s gotten done since the two of you got here.”

“Come, Mayor Cutter. Like all the men in Gooding, he’s a gentleman and won’t sit in a lady’s presence; so he won’t ease back onto that stool until I leave.” Dr. Bestman closed the book on the mayor’s hand and pressed the sconce into his arms. Her voice dropped. “With the pain he’s enduring, it’s a wonder he’s not roaring like a wounded bear.”

His leg hurt, but he didn’t want her announcing it.
I’ll take that up with her later. Doctors supposedly take a vow to hold things in confidence.

“Pain?” Mayor Cutter cast a disapproving look his direction. “You’re given to exaggeration, young woman. He’s fine. That just goes to show how little you know about medicine.”

“Mr. Mayor, are you questioning the veracity of my degrees or the value of my experience?”

“Diplomas can be falsified, as can be letters of reference. So few citizens here are willing to have you treat them, it’s impossible for you to have gained any level of experience whatsoever.”

The doctor grabbed a slip of paper from the worktable, looking as if she would merrily toss the mayor down the closest well. She snatched up Karl’s pencil and with quick, sure strokes, listed the names of no fewer than eight different references. She handed the page to Cutter. “As you’ve questioned my integrity, professional ability, and experience before a witness, I hereby demand you confer with any of these individuals. Until you have all the facts, Mr. Cutter, mind your words. I’ll look past them this once, but if this is repeated, you’ll knowingly be committing slander. As a politician, you know well the importance of the words you employ and their ability to build consensus or the potential damage they can cause. It is my hope we’ll work together for the good of this community.”

Karl had to give her credit. She’d kept her tone crisp and businesslike, even gave the mayor leeway that he didn’t rightfully deserve after implying she was a liar. Any man would have called him out; she provided facts and roped him in before he rode roughshod over her.

“You could conjure up any number of names.” The mayor dropped the paper.

“Among them, the dean of the medical college in Chicago?” Doc arched a brow. “And the chief surgeons of two different hospitals? Or—”

“Quit chippin’ your teeth. Nag a man half to death—that’s what women do. It’s one more reason why they oughtn’t be doctors!”

While Skyler growled, Karl again swept the doctor behind himself. “Don’t raise your voice at the lady.”

The mayor sneered. “I didn’t raise my voice at a lady.”

Every muscle tensed with the need to fight for this woman’s honor. From behind him, he felt the slightest brush of a hand and the softest whisper, “I forgive him.”

“You forgive him, but I do not.” He continued to stare at Cutter. “Get out.”

“I don’t need your forgiveness.” Clutching the crushed sconce to himself, Cutter marched out the door.

Unable to wheel around without his leg tearing apart, Karl yanked her into view. Before he could open his mouth, she stabbed her forefinger into his chest. “I forgive that blustering windbag, Karl Van der Vort, but I don’t forgive you!”

Nine

F
orgive me? You should thank me!”

“I don’t need rescuing.” Punctuating each word with a poke to his chest, Taylor added, “Do you understand me?”

FKarl snorted. “You need to be rescued from yourself, if this is what you believe.”

His observation brought her up short. Taylor sucked in a sharp breath, then started laughing. “You’re not going to rescue me from myself any more than you’re going to get me to thank you.”

Sagely nodding, he finally sat on his stool. “I knew you to be a stubborn woman when first I looked at you. My mother—she had the same line to her jaw.”

From the way he’d spoken of her in the past, the hulking man loved his mama. Because of that, Taylor overlooked the insult of being called stubborn. “Women must use their wits because we don’t possess brute strength.”

“You didn’t use your wits just now. Not with Cutter.”

“Of course I did, and you’re going to want to know how, aren’t you?”

He started to rummage through some scraps of silver. “No.”

Astounded, she leaned closer. “Why not?”

“Forgiveness is not of the mind; it is of the soul.” He seemed to have some method to his actions, and Taylor found pleasure watching the way he strove to manipulate his large fingers around a plethora of minute tools lying atop a faded square of maroon felt on the workbench. For all the deft-handed, long-fingered surgeons who’d practiced with laudable skill, she’d never seen a sight she admired more than when his fingers dusted a spot and gently set her chatelaine in the center, where the lighting glowed best. “I’ll have this to you by the end of the day.”

“Thank you. I’m sure my brother told you how important it is to me.”

“Earlier, Piet and I discussed respecting the legacy given us. So it is with you.”

“You’re a smart feller, Doc Enoch.”

Enoch looked up from the coon dog. “Smart enough to know you’ve helped your dogs whelp plenty of times, Mr. White. Why don’t you stop wasting your time and mine and say what you want to?”

A sheepish grin crossed the man’s face as he glanced over at his wife. “Said you was smart. Feller like you’s gotta see reason. It’s better for you to do the doctorin’.” The second Enoch started to react, the man hastily half shouted, “You can do the critters, too. Goodness knows we’ve all been needin’ help when our horses or cattle take sick.”

If it weren’t for his Christian scruples and his promise to his sister that he wouldn’t damage his knuckles defending her, Enoch gladly would have punched the smile off the dolt’s face. In a deceptively bored tone he said, “If you try telling me how to run my life or my practice again, you could only hope to have a physician as talented as my sister to attend you after I finish reining in my temper.”

“Are you threatenin’ me? You can’t do that!”

“It wasn’t a threat; it was a promise. On the other hand, you implied a threat when you said it was better for me to assume both practices. As I know my sister’s skill is unequaled, that could only mean that you must believe some other threat exists—and the only logical assumption is that harm would befall either my sister or me.”

“You’re mistaken.” Mrs. White gave Enoch a stingy thin-lipped smile that didn’t reflect in her eyes. “I’m sure my husband merely felt compassion for the bachelors of Gooding. You can treat man and beast, and we can send away for another physician; but finding an attractive, marriageable young woman who’s willing to come live here is exceedingly difficult.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. It’d be better if she stopped doin’ a man’s job and set about seein’ to a man’s pleasure. There’s a heap of men who’d be tickled to have a gal wearin’ their ring, cookin’ Sunday suppers, and singin’ lullabyes to a passel of their young’uns.”

“I just came from the Richardsons’.”
Or more accurately, barely escaped from there.
“You can pass the word to all of those bachelors that Richardson has a daughter who’s unspoken for. His wife informed me that double wedding they have planned could be a triple easily enough.”

“Men round here are desperate, but they ain’t fools.”

Mrs. White added, “Linette means well, bless her heart—”

“She’d probably say the same thing about you. She seemed to be a sincere young woman.” Enoch rose. “It’ll be ten cents for my visit.”

“Ten cents! Nuthin’ was a-wrong!”

Hooking his thumbs in his pockets, Enoch looked at White. “There was plenty wrong—just not with your dog. You want me to betray my sister by asking her to give up the thing God’s called her to do, and you expect me to assume responsibilities for which I’m not trained. But I am a veterinarian, and even though it was under false pretenses, you summoned me out here on a professional call for your animal.”

“Ten cents is robbery. ’Specially since you done nuthin’ I couldn’ta done myself.”

“Prized coon dog like this needs mindful tending when she’s due to whelp, but if you needed professional help, it should have been with that bird dog.”

“Netta?”

The retriever came at the sound of her name. Enoch commented, “Something’s wrong on her left hindquarter. She’s limping.” He examined Netta and found a splinter in the fold of her leg. After removing it, he rubbed her belly. “Oh, so Queenie’s not the only one having babies here.”

“Huh? What?!” White perked up and groped her belly. He shook his head. “Nope. Shouldn’ta got my hopes up like that.”

“Let me show you. Hey, girl.” Enoch stroked her side before moving to her belly. “Between twenty and thirty days, there are firm, discrete lumps from the pups’ placentas. In a few more days, the lumps will be spread out through the womb and easy to mistake for her intestines. Here.” He ran the edge of his thumb over one spot, then another. “And here. Feel those.”

White did so. “Well, I’ll be. We were all laid up with a miserable complaint, then harvest was upon us and we all had to get out to the fields. I just didn’t notice Netta—”

“She and Dash throw off fine pups,” Mrs. White interrupted. “How many will she have?”

“Can’t say for certain. I’d estimate six. Maybe a runty seventh. She’ll probably whelp mid-January.”

“Farming families don’t keep much cash, Doc Enoch.” Mrs. White wrapped her arms around her ribs. “Would you wait and take a puppy or maybe take one of Queenie’s?”

“A fine coonhound is worth far more than a dime, Mrs. White. So’s a retriever.”

“How ’bout chicken? You’ll take home chicken, won’t you?”

C risp, golden-fried chicken?
“You bet!” Enoch figured he’d made an excellent deal until Mrs. White handed him a squawking gunnysack.
Bartering instead of being paid is part of country living. I expected that. Maybe not this soon, and certainly not with live chickens.

“These will make for a couple of nice suppers.”

“Indeed, they will.”
I just don’t know for whom.

“By the way, Doc, we got a son—Ozzie. Him and Lloyd Smith are fast friends and hardworking boys. They’ve dreamt up that you’ll hire them.”

“I suppose I could scare up odd jobs for the boys to do. Mucking, too.” Enoch couldn’t be sure who squawked more over that news—the chickens or Mrs. White. He mounted up and started for home, then looked down at the sack in his grip. What was he going to do with chickens?

“Sis!”

“Merciful heavens.” Taylor set aside the treatise on asthma she’d been reading and rose from her desk. She tried to recall the last time Enoch had yelled for her.
There must be an emergency
. Grabbing her bag, she dashed through the kitchen and out the back door. Her momentum almost carried her right down the steps, but she caught the rail just in time when she noticed her brother standing alone. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Why did you shout for me? I was reading a fascinating piece on asthma and—” Her eyes widened. Enoch pulled a gunnysack from behind his back. It wiggled.
He brought me a puppy! He knows how long I’ve wanted one. Only I’m not going to say anything. I’ll let him tell me.

“I was over at the Whites’. They have a coonhound, Queenie. Even-tempered as could be. Anyway . . .”

Once he mentioned the coonhound, Taylor couldn’t take it any longer. She dropped her medical bag and skipped down the steps. Just feet away, she suddenly froze. “Enoch, that gunnysack did not cluck.”

“Not exactly. At least not the sack.” He started to open the top.

“No.” She shook her head as if her denial would change the facts. “There aren’t chickens in there.”

“Sure are. They’ll make a couple of fine suppers.”

Gaping, she stared at him for a full minute. “For whom? Neither of us knows how to cook.”

“Maybe this new stove won’t burn stuff.”

“It’s not the stove; it’s us. When it comes to food, we’re pyromaniacs.” Another thought occurred to her. Backing up a big step, she added, “I categorically refuse to kill or pluck them.”

“You don’t have to act so dramatic, Taylor. Bartering instead of being paid is part of country living.”

“Certainly not with live chickens! Go do some more country living and barter them off to someone else.”
And bring back a puppy this time.

“There’s not much I could get for a pair of chickens. Maybe what we ought to do is keep them in that coop. We’ll undoubtedly wind up with more, and it has to be easier to parlay several chickens for something decent than to quibble with a pair. It’s probably why the coop’s here to begin with.”

“Brilliant deduction,” she said in a wry tone.

“You’re going to have to help me. Mrs. White used twine to tie their legs together.” They freed the fowl from the bonds and put them in the wire coop.

“So what about their coonhound . . . Queenie, was it?”

“Yes. She’ll be whelping soon, and their retriever is having a litter in mid-January.”

Taylor clutched his sleeve. “And I’ll get a puppy?”

“They offered, but I didn’t accept.” Giving her an impatient look for the outraged sound she made, he said, “They’re hard up for money and can sell a pup for a good sum. Besides, what business do you have, owning a puppy? Coming and going at all hours of the day and night—you don’t have time for a helpless little creature.”

“I put up with you.”

“I’m insulted. I’m not a pup. I’m a wolf.”

“Yes, you are.” She reached up past his collar and checked. “Still wet behind the ears, though. That makes you a wolf pup.” Not wanting him to sense her disappointment over not getting a dog, Taylor tousled his hair. “Helpless, too—at the stove and at the coop.”

“And at the bedside of a man caught by his suspenders.”

Taylor finally managed a true smile. “How is it you concocted such a complex solution to the problem when such a simple one existed?”

“I told you: I wanted to be in a position to watch your expression when you came back into the room.”

“When did you— Oh!” Taylor couldn’t believe it. She’d thought the worst of her own twin, that he’d betrayed her just for the sake of coarse male camaraderie, when he’d simply wanted to be in a position to watch.

“You swept into that room with the fire of an avenging angel. With Piet mistakenly thinking you were talking to him instead of Karl, all your aggression disappeared into nothing more than a mere wisp of smoke. The only thing that was more hilarious was watching beefy old Karl pull down the hem of his nightshirt and yank up his socks.”

Disbelief and giggles shivered through her. “Like prissy old Great-Aunt Agatha?”

“No. Piet started yammering instructions from under the bed, worried lest his brother scandalize and offend you.” A huge grin split his face. “Karl looked like a man passing out forks to cannibals before he had to crawl into a pot.”

“He doesn’t deserve that distinction; I do. Ever since I arrived, I’ve been boiling in oil and folks keep stoking the fire.”

“Then scoot over. I’m hopping into the pot.” Enoch’s words couldn’t be sweeter. His unswerving loyalty humbled her. “Where two or three are gathered, Jesus is with them, so He’s with us. We’re never going to burn.”

“Like Shadrach, Meshach, and To-bed-we-go?” she teased, remembering the time he’d messed up that name in the Bible story.

“Yep.” The chickens both fluttered and squawked.