The Midwife's Choice (6 page)

Now all she had to do was take those blessings and put them to good use.

Come morning, she intended to do just that.

D
rat! Martha had overslept again. Not just a few hours this time. By half a day!

She charged into the kitchen. Empty. She glanced around the room. Brilliant sunshine danced through the openings in the curtains. A hearty chicken stew bubbled on the cookstove. The worktables were wiped clean of any evidence of the day's baking. She could hear the chattering of voices coming from the shop.

“It must be after ten,” she muttered. With so much to do, she could ill afford to waste half the day abed. She needed to see Victoria first and set her own house in order before she tackled the problem of finding a home for Samuel and Will. With her mind made up about Victoria's future, she was anxious to see her daughter.

She proceeded directly into the shop, where she hoped to find Victoria helping Fern and Ivy. Along each side of the room, checkered cloths covered tables laden with what was left of the day's offering of breads and sweets. Straight ahead, she saw the two sisters, but there was no sign of Victoria or her benefactor.

Fern stood on top of a stool in front of a narrow window. Ivy stood below, holding the other end of a freshly laundered and ironed curtain they were trying to rehang.

Ivy grinned, and her blue eyes twinkled. “Thought you might sleep through till tomorrow morning.”

Fern turned her head and studied Martha for a moment. “You look rested,” she quipped before getting back to her task.

“I don't think I've ever slept this late in my life! I'm so embarrassed to have to apologize to you both again. Here, let me help,” she insisted as she approached them.

Ivy waved her back. “We're almost finished. Did you get yourself some breakfast?”

“No. I wanted to talk to Victoria. I thought she might be in here with you.”

Fern sniffled and took the rest of the curtain from her sister. “She's with Mrs. Morgan helping her settle in at Dr. McMillan's. Thought she'd be back by now.”

“June moved to Dr. McMillan's?”

Ivy clucked. “Such a refined lady. So considerate. We tried to tell her it wasn't an imposition to have her here with us, but she insisted. It'll be nice for the doctor to have the company of an old friend, don't you think?” Her eyes widened. “Did she tell you that her brother went to school with him and that—”

“She did,” Martha quipped, reluctant to hear the tale repeated.

Fern finished her task and climbed down from the stool. “It's probably best if she stays with him. Rosalind's there. So's Burton, so people won't be able to gossip.”

Martha nodded. Her friend and her husband lived with Dr. McMillan, just as they had with Doc Beyer, with separate quarters on the third floor. Rosalind Andrews tended house and cooked for the doctor. Burton, who had only just returned after legal charges against him had been dropped, worked at the sawmill during the week and handled the heavier household chores and the stable.

“You and Victoria need some time together. Alone. Without anyone trying to interfere,” Fern added and cast a harsh glance at her sister.

Ivy ignored the warning. “Don't be absurd. Mrs. Morgan has no intention of interfering. She came all this way, even in her delicate condition, just to make sure Victoria arrived safe and sound.”

Martha wanted to ask Ivy if she wanted a halo to hang over June's head, but thought better of it. Ivy always did see the best in people. Fortunately, Fern's pessimism was a healthy counterbalance, at least most of the time. “I think I'll venture over and see if Victoria's ready to come home, unless you have something you'd like me to do first.”

Fern and Ivy shook their heads in unison. “Nothing,” Fern insisted. “Go on. When you both come back, it'll almost be time for dinner.”

“I sent a few things over with Victoria for the doctor and the Andrews. You could bring the plates back,” Ivy suggested.

Martha agreed, found her winter cape hanging on the peg in the kitchen as June had promised, and went out the back door. Several pie pans had been returned, by custom, and lay stacked on the steps. She put the pans into the storage room, closed the door, and tugged her cape a little tighter.

The sun seemed unnaturally bright today, but the air was nippy. She walked around the back of the building and went directly to the covered bridge. Relieved that no one seemed to be out and about, she hurried. It took a few steps for her eyes to get adjusted to the shadowy walkway, and she was halfway through when an all-too-familiar figure came out of Dr. McMillan's and headed straight for the bridge.

Her heart did a flip-flop, and conflicting emotions tumbled through her spirit. Thomas Dillon was definitely not a complication she needed today.

She slowed her steps, waiting for him to take notice of her.
She had ended their first courtship twenty-five years earlier. In the ensuing years, each of them had married someone else and had families. Each of them had endured the pain of losing a beloved spouse. Each of them had followed callings—Martha as a midwife, Thomas as mayor and town leader, heir to his father's fortune and the legends surrounding Jacob Dillon's founding of Trinity some sixty years earlier.

For the past few months, Thomas had seemed determined to restore the affection they had once shared, and she had let him. Faithful and ardent, he had stopped just short of asking her to marry him. As much as she cared for him, however, she was not sure exactly how she would respond if he did ask her.

She was cautious. And uncertain. She was also forty-two years old and set in her ways. She had a life and a calling that demanded most of her energies, if not her time, as her problem with Victoria could attest. She had absolutely no intention of abandoning her calling.

Not for Thomas.

Not for anyone.

Still, part of her yearned for his companionship, to ease the loneliness she felt whenever she left a household and headed home, where she knew no one she could call her own was waiting for her. Another part of her, quite to her embarrassment, longed for physical intimacy, a touch, a gentle kiss. . . .

She shook her head to clear those shocking ideas, just as Thomas entered the bridge, apparently so lost in his own thoughts he had yet to notice her presence. He was tall and lean, and as handsome as no man had a right to be at his age, which only made her feel a little more self-conscious about her curves, which had become even rounder since she had moved into the confectionery.

Her heart raced like a schoolgirl's. Again. A reaction that unfortunately had been repeated all too often these past few months.

The moment their eyes met he broke into a smile and quickened his step. “Martha! Just the woman I wanted to see on this glorious day!”

“Glorious indeed,” she responded, although with all she had to do today, glorious was not quite the word that came to mind, unless the good Lord decided to add a few extra hours for her benefit.

Thomas stopped only inches in front of her. Close. Too close.

She took a step back.

“You're looking well, Martha. I heard the news. You must be overjoyed to have Victoria home to stay. I'm so happy. For both of you.”

She smiled. News about Victoria's plans to return to New York City had not yet spread, but she was not about to lie to Thomas. “Victoria is only hoping to be home for a short visit,” she responded, and briefly explained the situation. Before he asked any questions, however, she turned the focus back to his own family. “I take it Eleanor is well?”

His smile broadened at the mention of his daughter's name. After Martha's intervention, Eleanor had returned to Trinity with her husband and would be presenting Thomas with his first grandchild soon. “Very well, thanks to you. We've both been blessed, haven't we?”

“We have.” She could not help envying his blessing more than her own. With his son, Harry, away at school, Thomas had been left alone after Eleanor had married and moved to Clarion, some thirty miles away. Temporarily, Eleanor and Micah now made their home with Thomas while they made plans to settle here permanently.

“Take a sleigh ride with me,” Thomas urged. “I have something I want you to see.”

“A sleigh ride? Now?”

He grinned, adding extra warmth to his gray eyes. “Now. The horses are hitched. The bricks are warming. The blankets
are stacked on the seat. And Mrs. Clark is packing a picnic for us, even as we speak.”

She laughed. “A picnic? It's the dead of winter, and we have half a foot of snow on the ground!”

“All the more reason to have a picnic. It's . . . it's unconventional. Unexpected. It'll be an adventure. And I promise to have you home before dark.”

His enthusiasm was contagious. She was sorely tempted, and disappointed to have to decline. “I can't. I'm on my way to fetch Victoria. She's at Dr. McMillan's with—”

“Actually, I just left there. It seems she left more than an hour ago with Dr. McMillan and a Mrs. Morgan. Rosalind told me it was Mrs. Morgan who brought Victoria home.”

Martha's eyes widened. “They left? Left for where?”

“Just a sleigh ride. Maybe,” he added, “maybe they went for a picnic.”

She pursed her lips.

He took her arm, turned, and led her through the bridge. “Rosalind said they wouldn't be back for several hours, so before anyone else makes demands on your time, I'm packing you into the sleigh and stealing you away. I'll tell Mrs. Clark to take a walk over to the confectionery to let Fern and Ivy know you're with me.”

Martha held her temper in check. She was annoyed that Victoria had gone off without even bothering to return home to see her mother, let alone ask her permission. She was angry at June for spiriting Victoria off and mad at Dr. McMillan for being their accomplice. She was put out that she had slept late, and perturbed with Thomas for being so all-fired sure of himself. For starters.

“A picnic,” she grumbled. “I must be out of my mind for letting you talk me into this. A picnic!”

He laughed and leaned close. His very nearness melted all of her anger and disappointment and set her blood to simmer
with emotions that spelled pure trouble. “Yes, a picnic. Among other things. Along the way, you can tell me all about Victoria and her adventures.”

Candle Lake lay frozen solid, stilling the waters that fed the three creeks that joined and cascaded together as Crying Falls and pooled into a pond at the north end of town. Snow-draped, barren trees and occasional stands of evergreens, still deep with the color of life, formed a natural horizon that stretched as wide as she could see and high, nearly touching the few winter clouds overhead. Chimney smoke from nearby homesteads gently twirled upward.

Martha snuggled deeper beneath the blanket, chilled but content. “It's so peaceful,” she murmured. Her spirit relaxed, despite all the worries that troubled her. This was a place she would like to visit again, if only to recapture the feeling.

Thomas smiled. “Peace and quiet. True balm for the weary and the troubled.”

She shivered again, certain he could see straight into her heart and mind. Just like he always had. An annoying habit, one of only a few that had prompted her to end their courtship so long ago.

“You're cold.” He clicked the reins. “We're almost there. Once we're inside, I'll get a good fire going to warm you up.”

She looked at him askance. “Inside? I thought you said we were going on a picnic?”

“We are. Of sorts. No questions,” he cautioned when she opened her mouth. “Not yet. Just observe.”

He turned the horses down a path nearly hidden by a stand of tall evergreens and guided the sleigh toward a two-storied log cabin situated on the shores of the lake. When he stopped the sleigh and helped her down, she had so many questions she could not quite decide which one to ask first.

He placed a finger to her open lips and hauled the basket out of the sleigh. “Inside with you. First, the fire. Second, we eat. Then you get to ask your questions.”

She braced her feet and refused to take a single step before she had at least one question answered. “Just who happens to own this cabin?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. It matters.” Just why Thomas was being so secretive triggered alarms that kept her feet planted firmly on the snow-packed earth. She was not about to let him rush her into anything, because she knew only too well that he could sweet-talk her into making a big mistake.

“I'm not putting a toe inside that cabin until you tell me what you're up to, Thomas Dillon.”

He frowned, put the basket down, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You're a stubborn woman, Martha Cade.”

She huffed. “I don't like secrets, and I'm especially not fond of being ordered about.”

“Ill-tempered, too.”

“Only when I'm cold and hungry and treated like a . . . a child.”

He eyed the basket, then glanced at the door. “Well, I'm cold and hungry, too.” He picked up the basket and took out a key to unlock the door. “I'm going inside to get warm and have my picnic. Are you going to join me or not?”