Two Brides Too Many (24 page)

When he’d accepted the job here, he’d planned to devote his life to medicine—to his work. He didn’t expect to find a woman in this wilderness who would challenge his resolve to avoid romantic entanglements. The only good thing was that he wouldn’t have to worry about that now. He’d probably already scared Kat away for good.

Morgan took another sip of coffee and stared down at his fried egg. The egg was runny, not fully cooked. He poked at the filmy white with his fork.

Naturally, she hadn’t taken his ultimatum well. He hadn’t earned the right to offer counsel, let alone impose his opinions. He didn’t know what possessed him to be so bold as to tell her what she could and couldn’t do, but he knew why he had reacted so strongly: fear. Fear for Kat’s safety. Fear that she’d be too far off for him to protect her. The hospital was only a couple of blocks away from Hattie’s, and he liked it that way.

But his worst fear of all was that he’d lose Kat. He’d already lost Opal, and he couldn’t suffer that kind of loss ever again.

Morgan slathered orange marmalade on his slice of honey wheat toast, but it didn’t help. The bread was still dry and hard to choke down, and so was Kat’s move and the fact she was too stubborn to hear his concerns. He needed to tell her about his past…about Opal. She needed to know why he’d reacted the way he had. He knew that she also needed time to recover from her own ordeal.

“Like another cupful, Dr. Cutshaw?” Morgan rose from his chair. The reverend mother stood beside him, holding an empty coffee mug in one hand and the blue enamel percolator in the other.

“Good morning, Sister.” He nodded, and she poured coffee into both mugs. “Thank you.”

She returned the coffeepot to a sideboard and glanced at the empty spot across from him. “Mind if I join you?”

“Please.” He pulled the chair out for her and then sat back down, watching steam rise from his cup.

“You’re doing fine work, Doctor, and we consider ourselves truly blessed to have you working in our hospital.” Her headpiece sat squarely atop her head, wisps of white hair framing her work-worn face.

“Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. You’re a most capable and gracious assistant.” Following the fire, they’d worked together to save dozens of lives. Eleven days ago, they’d spent the better part of three hours together saving Mr. Goeke after he’d lost his leg in an explosion. “Folks around here really know how to make a doctor feel needed.”

“You are needed here.” She held her cup to her lips and took a sip. “And I’d say the Lord made you for this kind of doctoring.”

Morgan glanced up at the crucifix. “I think I’m beginning to realize that.”

“Beginning to?” She set her mug down on the scarred table and wrapped her hands around it. “That’s not what you were expecting when you came to Cripple Creek?”

“No ma’am.” Morgan stared down into the rich, dark coffee in his cup. “My aspirations would’ve had me locked away in a research lab.”

“What happened to change that?”

He hadn’t intended to say so much, but something about this gracious woman made him want to answer her. There was curiosity etched in her warm brown eyes, but more importantly, compassion.

“A woman.” He shook his head. “Penelope Covington and I practically grew up together in Boston.” He imagined Penelope’s gloved hand waving to him over the fedoras, bowlers, and mushroom-style hats at his parents’ last soiree. “Our fathers are both surgeons. Both serve on the board of trustees of the Medical Research Institute in Boston.”

The sister sipped her coffee, her gaze still fixed on him, and he took another bracing gulp before continuing his story.

“When Penelope turned sixteen, I became her bull’s-eye. She wanted a husband. But she and I were never more than friends as far as I was concerned, and I married Opal.”

“You’re married?” Sister Coleman asked, gently touching his hand.

“I was. Opal died nearly three years ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered her voice full of maternal compassion.

“When my wife died, Penelope’s father took up Penelope’s cause, as did mine. Though I still felt spoken for, in their eyes I was again an eligible bachelor.”

“Some women don’t know when to give up, do they?”

“No, and Dr. Covington didn’t know when to tell his daughter no. The man offered me a job as a research scientist at the Institute, but the position came with a wife.”

“No!” She set her coffee cup on the table with the same force he remembered feeling when he’d finally used the word on the two doctors trying to control his life.

“He said, and I quote, ‘You’ll have a top-notch lab and be able to provide well for my daughter.’”

“Of all things.” Her face hardened for a brief moment. “Well, all the better for us, I say. Like I said, the Lord made you for doctoring in this kind of place.”

It felt good to have her as an advocate.

“If my father and the Covingtons had their way, I’d be living the life they thought I needed, in their shadow.” He took a sip of coffee.

Here in the company of the reverend mother, Morgan believed he really could live a new life and make a difference. And as he drained his coffee cup, he found himself hoping that new life included Kat Sinclair.

T
HIRTY
-O
NE

C
louds in various shades of gray and white had escorted Kat, Nell, and Rosita all the way up the hill to the cabin Saturday morning. Now, as the three of them sat at the kitchen table, a steady stream of raindrops tap-danced on the tin roof—a fitting punctuation for their first evening in her new home. Kat looked up from her stack of pages and glanced over at the open flapboard window on the back wall and breathed in the aromatic scent of the spring rains.

Her mother’s quilt covered the rope bed, and the two trunks formed a wide V in the corner. A scrap of yellow cloth graced the center of the table, and the lantern sitting on it cast a golden glow over the homey room. It certainly didn’t boast the comforts of Hattie’s place, but it was hers. Patrick was most certainly a scalawag, but he had provided this house for her, and for that she was thankful.

“I make Mama. See?” Rosita pushed her drawing across the table and slid it on top of the pages Kat had written for
Harper’s Bazar
.

Kat studied the sweeping lines, dots, and swirls, and then looked
up into the child’s eager face. “Your mama was very pretty, like you, Rosita.”

The little girl nodded, her eyes shining like polished black pearls.

Nell closed her Bible and leaned forward, gazing down the length of the table at the drawing. Rosita rose to her knees and slid the artwork over to her. Nell scanned the page with her finger.

“Miss Kat is right, Rosita.” Nell looked up, her blue eyes wet. “We’re going to miss you when you go with your grandmother Monday.”

Rosita patted Nell’s hand, and then grabbed her drawing and flipped the page over to the blank side. “I make Abuela now.”

The cast-iron kettle on the potbellied stove began to hiss. Kat rose and took the few steps to the cupboard, glancing back at Nell, who was wiping away tears with a handkerchief. “It won’t be a true tea party without teacups and saucers,” Kat said, pulling three tin mugs from nails above the wood plank countertop. “We’ll have to use our imaginations some, since we don’t have much in the way of fancy here in Kat’s Kitchen.”

Nell giggled and laid the hanky on top of her Bible. “Kat’s Kitchen. I like it.”

“May not have much, but I do have the teas I brought from Maine.” She pulled two small canning jars from the shelf. “Chamomile or peppermint?”

“Peppermint sounds good to me, but you need to finish your writing. Let me get that.” Nell started to stand, but Kat waved her back down.

“Thank you, but this is my thinking time. It’s an important part of the writing process.” At least that’s what Kat hoped, and she also hoped that something printable came out of it. She’d written a couple
of pages last evening before turning out the light, and a couple more this evening after supper. Now she needed to think before she wrote the ending and recopied the story in her finest penmanship.

While Kat steeped the tea, filling the one-room cabin with a pungent fragrance, she saw Nell pick up the copy of the magazine from the table. It had been tucked under Morgan’s arm yesterday. Applying for the job of “woman out West correspondent” for the magazine had been his idea. It was a kind gesture that Kat had greatly appreciated—at least, until he felt the need to offer his opinion about her cabin. Her cheeks burned. From there, things had sped downhill faster than a runaway train.

As she poured the tea into the mugs and the steam rose, so did her indignation. She and Morgan hardly knew each other. She had to make certain decisions at the depot when Patrick and Judson did not meet their train. She tracked down Patrick Maloney at the saloon to discover the truth. She wasn’t mindless, and Morgan had no right to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. Kat huffed and set the cups on the table harder than she meant to, then returned to her chair.

Nell looked up at her with a pinched brow, then glanced at the pages Kat had written. “Your writing seems to be going well. What did you decide to write about?”

“It’s a story about women finding strength and gaining wisdom in the Wild West.”

“Hmm.” Nell’s blue eyes shimmered in the lantern light. “That ought to be good.”

“Thank you, Nell. I appreciate your support.” Her sister hadn’t been happy about her decision to move into the cabin, but Kat’s feelings were different. Morgan wasn’t family and it was inappropriate for him
to weigh in on Kat’s decisions where Nell might. They weren’t courting, so it wasn’t his place to comment on her limited choices. While Rosita scribbled and Nell sipped her tea, flipping through the pages of the magazine, Kat dipped her pen in ink and began writing the conclusion to the story.

She’d just added the period to the last sentence when a gunshot startled her and sent her pen streaking across the page. Nell sat in stunned silence, her eyes wide, while Rosita scrambled under the table.

Kat had heard about gunfights in town, but she hadn’t expected any up here, at least not so soon. When male shouts rang out and pots and pans rattled, she darted to the open flapboard window beside the stovepipe. Pulling the prop stick out of the window frame, she pulled the board shut and quickly latched the hook and eye. The commotion behind her told her that Nell was doing the same thing with the flapboard on the back wall.

“What’s going on? What do we do?” Nell’s chin quivered in the way it always did when fear was about to claim the best of her.

Someone pounded on the door. Kat put her finger to her mouth. She wasn’t sure what good being quiet would do at this point, but she didn’t know what else to do. The three of them were here alone. No one but Hattie and Morgan knew they were here, and neither of them would come calling at dusk.

Following Nell’s gaze, Kat looked up at the two long bent nails over the door and the shotgun they cradled. She’d never touched a gun before, but then, they’d never been women alone in a miner’s cabin either. Nell stood and carried her chair toward the door, and then set it down. She hiked her skirt and stepped up onto the chair.

An even louder knock startled them. Nell jerked and lost her balance,
letting out a shriek. Kat caught her sister’s arm and steadied her, keeping Nell from falling on top of her. She held her finger up to her lips, but it was too late. Whoever was out there knew they were inside.

“You Sinclair sisters all right in there?” The man’s voice was gruff but familiar.

Her heart still racing, Kat opened the door. Boney Hughes stood on the stoop, chewing tobacco, water dripping from his tattered hat.

“Mr. Hughes?” Nell pushed a fallen curl from her pallid face.

Rosita ran toward the man, her arms open wide, and he stepped inside to embrace her. “I heard you ladies moved in today.” He looked down at the wet floor, then up at Kat. “Sorry for the mess, ma’am.”

“Was that you shooting out there?” Kat glanced past him and out at the road. She didn’t see anyone else.

“Yep, that was me. That’s what I came to talk to ya about. Just scared me off a big black bear.”

Kat and Nell both gasped.

“A bear? Where?” Kat refused to look into the falling darkness and quickly closed the door behind their fusty guardian angel. She made a mental note to avoid the outhouse anytime after sunset and before full sunlight.

“More paper, Miss Kat?” Rosita tugged on Kat’s skirt. “I make Mr. Boney.”

Kat moved to oblige Rosita, pulling a clean sheet of paper from her stack. She set it in front of the girl, who set to work.

“I was headed up to my claim for the night and saw the light on in here. That’s when I heard that old bear grunting around that cabin down across the road from ya. I’d done forgot all about warnin’ you about the critters up here.” The miner’s bushy brows ran together, and
he grew serious. “You still got Paddy’s shotgun? They come in mighty handy for scarin’ off the four-legged kind, and most of the two-legged ones.” He angled his head toward the weapon over the door.