Would-Be Wilderness Wife (4 page)

Drew herded everyone down the stairs. They all found seats in the front room, Simon and James on opposite ends of the table, John on a bench alongside, Beth in Ma's rocking chair and Levi sprawled on the braided rug with Drew standing behind him leaning against the stairs. He caught himself counting heads, even though he knew everyone was present. Habit. He'd been watching over them for the past ten years, ever since the day his father had died.

It had been a widow-maker that had claimed their father. Drew had been eighteen then, and only Simon at sixteen and James at fourteen had been old enough and strong enough to help clear the timber for their family's original claim. None of them had seen the broken limb high on the massive fir before it came crashing down.

“Take care of them,” his father had said when his brothers had pulled the limb off him and Drew had cradled him in his arms. Already his father's voice had started wheezing from punctured lungs, and blood had tinged his lips. “Take care of them all, Andrew. This family is your responsibility.”

He had never forgotten. He hadn't lost another member of the family, though his brothers had made the job challenging. They'd broken arms and legs, cut themselves on saws and knives, fought off diseases he was afraid to name. Even sweet Beth had given him a scare a few months ago when she'd nearly succumbed to a fever much like their mother's.

He'd kept them safe, nursed them through any illness or injury. His had been the shoulders they'd cried on, the arms that had held them through the night. He'd been the one to ride for medicine, to cut cloths into bandages. He'd been the one to sit up with them night after night. Having someone help felt odd, as if he'd put on the wrong pair of boots.

That odd feeling didn't ease as Catherine came down the stairs to join them. As if she were a schoolmarm prepared to instruct, she took up her place by the fire. The crackling flames set her figure in silhouette.

“I thought you would all want to hear what I believe about your mother's condition,” she said, and Drew knew he wasn't the only Wallin leaning forward to catch every word.

“Two culprits cause this type of fever,” she continued, gaze moving from one brother to another until it met Drew's. “Typhus and typhoid fever.”

Neither sounded good, and his stomach knotted.

“Aren't they the same thing?” John asked.

She shook her head. “Many people think so, and some doctors treat them the same, but they are very different beasts. With typhus, the fever never leaves, and the patient simply burns up.”

Beth shivered and rubbed a hand up her arm.

“Typhoid fever, on the other hand,” Catherine said as if she hadn't noticed, “is generally worse for the first two or three weeks and then starts to subside. Given how long you said she's suffered, I'm leaning toward typhoid fever, but we should know for sure within the week.”

Simon seized on the word. “A week. Then, you'll stay with us for that long.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I promised to return Miss Stanway to Seattle tomorrow,” Drew said.

Simon scowled at him.

“We need her more than Seattle does,” Levi complained.

His other brothers murmured their agreement.

“That isn't our decision to make,” Drew argued.

“No,” Catherine put in. “It's mine.”

That silenced them. She clasped her hands in front of her blue gown. “Doctors take an oath to care for their patients. My father believed that nurses should take one, as well. It is my duty to care for your mother and for you, should you sicken.”

A duty she took seriously, he could see. Her color was high, her face set with determination as she glanced around at them all. “I will stay until your mother is out of danger.”

Simon stood. “It's settled, then. Drew, clear out your cabin and let her have it. You can bunk with me. I snore less than Levi or James.”

John rolled his eyes. “That's what you think.”

“Oh, I couldn't take anyone's cabin,” Catherine started.

Drew held up his hand. “No, Simon's right. Not about his snoring. He's louder than Yesler's sawmill.” As his other brothers laughed and Simon shook his head, Drew continued, “You need a place of your own. I'll clear out my cabin tonight so you can sleep when you finish with Ma.”

“I intend to stay up with her tonight,” Catherine warned him.

“Then the cabin will be waiting for you in the morning,” Drew assured her.

She smiled at them. “Well, then, gentlemen, I will leave you for the night. I understand the youngest Mr. Wallin sleeps upstairs. I'll send him if we need anything.”

Again Levi looked as if he were going to protest, but one glance at Drew and he shrugged and settled back on the rug. Drew watched her climb the stairs, Beth right behind her.

“That's quite a woman,” Simon mused, stretching his feet over Levi's prone form toward the fire.

“Never met one so determined,” James mused.

“You never met one with that kind of education, either,” John reminded him. “I like the fact that she isn't afraid to speak her mind.”

“Bit on the bossy side,” Levi said with a yawn. “But she'll do.”

“That she will,” Simon agreed. “The only question is, which one of us is going to marry her?”

Just what he'd feared. Drew stiffened. “No one said anything about marriage.”

Simon glanced around at his brothers. “I believe I just did.”

John nodded, brightening. “Inspired. She's smart, and she has a skill we sorely need.”

“And she's not bad to look at,” James added.

“You could do a lot worse, Drew,” Levi agreed.

Drew shook his head. “You're mad, the lot of you. I'm not getting married.”

“Suit yourself.” Simon rose and went to the fireplace to scoop up a handful of kindling. “We'll draw straws. Short straw proposes.”

Drew stared as his other brothers, except Levi, rose to their feet. “Don't be ridiculous. She wouldn't have any of you.”

James shrugged. “Doesn't hurt to try.”

Simon squared up the sticks and hid all but the tops in his hand, then held them out to his brothers. “Who wants to go first?”

Drew strode into their group. “Enough, I said. No one is proposing to Miss Stanway, and that's final.”

His brothers exchanged glances. Simon lowered the sticks. “Very well, Drew. For now. But you have to marry someday if you want kin to inherit your land. You'll never build that town for Pa unless you do. I think you better ask yourself why you're so dead set against her.”

“And why you're even more set against us courting her,” John added.

Chapter Four

S
o one of the Wallin brothers was going to marry her. Catherine shook her head as she crossed the floor to the big bed. Either they didn't know voices carried in the log cabin or they didn't care that she realized their intentions. It truly didn't matter which was the truth. She wasn't getting married.

“Do you think bonnets or hats are more fetching on a lady?” Beth asked, following her. “I'm of a mind for bonnets. They cover more of your face from the sun, and they have extra room for decorations. Feathers are ever so flattering.”

She was chattering again, voice quick and forceful, but it seemed a bit more strained than usual, and Catherine couldn't help noticing that Beth's color was high as she joined Catherine. Was she trying to pretend she wasn't aware of her brothers' intentions?

Her patient was awake, green eyes watchful. “You mustn't mind Simon,” Mrs. Wallin murmured, proving that she, too, had heard at least part of the conversation downstairs. The ribbon ties on her nightcap brushed the skin of her cheek. “Being the second son after Drew has never been easy. He tends to assert himself even when there's no need.”

As Beth tidied up the room, Catherine raised her patient's wrist to check her pulse. It seemed just a little stronger, but perhaps that was because Mrs. Wallin was embarrassed by her sons' behavior.

“And there is no need to assert himself in this situation,” Catherine told her as she lowered Mrs. Wallin's hand. “I'm here to help you. Nothing more.”

Mrs. Wallin shivered, and Catherine touched the woman's forehead. Still too hot, but did she perhaps feel a little cooler than earlier? Was Catherine so desperate to see hope that she had lost her ability to be objective?

“Am I going to die?” Mrs. Wallin whispered.

Beth gasped. Catherine pulled back her hand. “Not if I can help it.”

As Beth hurried closer, Mrs. Wallin reached out and took Catherine's hand, for all the world as if Catherine was the one needing comfort. “I'm not afraid.” Her eyes were bright, and Catherine told herself it was the fever. “I know in Whom I've put my trust. But my boys and Beth, oh, I hate the idea of leaving them!”

Beth threw herself onto the bed, wrapping her mother in a fierce hug. “You're not leaving us, Ma. I won't let you!”

The room seemed to be growing smaller, the air thinner. Catherine pulled out of the woman's grip.

“Now, then,” she made herself say with brisk efficiency. “I see nothing to indicate your mother must leave you anytime soon. The best thing now would be for her to rest. I'll be right here if she needs me.”

Beth straightened and wiped a tear from her face. “Yes, of course. I'll just go help Drew.” She hurried from the loft.

“She's a dear child,” her mother murmured, settling in the bed. “She'll need someone besides me, another lady, to help guide her.”

Someone besides Catherine. “Rest now,” she urged, and Mrs. Wallin nodded and dutifully closed her eyes, head sinking deeper into the pillow, face at peace.

A shame Catherine couldn't find such peace. She perched on the chair beside the bed and tried to steady her breathing. Still, the woman's fears and Beth's reaction clung to her like cobwebs. Who was Catherine to promise Mrs. Wallin's return to health? Only the Lord knew what the future held. Her earthly father had drummed that into her.

We may be His hands for healing
, he'd say as he washed his hands after surgery.
But He will determine the outcome of our work.

And the outcome of a life.

Did he have to go, Lord? Did You need another physician in heaven? But why take Nathan, too? Did You have to leave me alone?

The tears were starting again, and she blinked them fiercely away. She'd had her fill of them months ago. She couldn't look at the sunny yellow rooms of their home in Sudbury without seeing the book her father had left before going to war, the galoshes her brother had forgotten to pack. The polished wood pew in their community church had felt empty even though another family had joined her in it. Every time she'd walked down the street, she'd seem nothing but stares of pity from her neighbors.

Still, her father had taught her well.

You cannot let sorrow touch you, Catherine
, he'd admonished.
You are here to tend to their bodies. Let the Lord heal other hurts. Remember your calling.

That was what she'd done in those dark days after her father and brother had died. None of the other physicians in the area had wanted to attach themselves professionally to an unmarried nurse. Even the big cities like Boston and New York had been loath to let an unmarried woman practice. Widowed men who had known her father well offered marriage, the opportunity to mother their motherless children. Even her minister had counseled her to find a good man to wed.

When she'd seen the notice advertising Asa Mercer's expedition to help settle Washington Territory, she'd known what to do. She'd put the house up for sale and donated their things to those in need. Then she'd packed her bags and sailed to the opposite side of the country.

All her experiences had taught her how to wall off her emotions. It did no good to question her past. She must look to her future, to the health of the community she could improve, the lives she could save. She had no intention of entering into marriage, with anyone.

For once she opened the door to feeling, she was very much afraid she'd never be able to close it again.

* * *

At the far edge of the clearing in his own cabin, Drew yanked a pair of suspenders off the ladder to the loft. As he tidied the place so Catherine could sleep there that night, all he could think about was Simon's ridiculous demand that one of them must marry the pretty nurse.

He ought to be immune to such antics by now. But after years of proximity, his brothers knew just how to get under his skin like a tick digging for blood.

Oh, he'd heard ministers preach on the subject. A man had a duty to marry, to raise children that would help him subdue the wilderness, make a home in this far land. Children were one way a man left a legacy. To him, the fact that his brothers had reached their manhood alive and ready to take on the world was enough of a legacy.

He knew the general course of things was for a man to find his own land, build a house, start a profession and marry. He had this house and was top in his profession, but he couldn't simply leave his mother, Beth or his brothers to fend for themselves. They were his responsibility, his to protect. That was what any man did who was worthy of the name. That was what his father had done.

How could he call himself a man and leave his family to tend to a wife? In his mind, a wife took time, attention. She'd have requirements, needs and expectations. He already felt stretched to the breaking point. How could he add more?

Oh, he had no doubt Simon and James were looking to marry one day, and John and Levi would eventually follow. But to stake a claim on a lady after a few hours of acquaintance? That was the stuff of madness.

Or legend.

He snorted as he gathered up the dishes he hadn't bothered to return to the main house. Their father had claimed he'd fallen in love with their mother at first sight when he'd met her at a barn raising.
Her hair was like a fire on a winter's night, calling me home
, he'd told his sons more than once.

Before his father had died, Drew had dreamed it would happen that way for him. Though there were few unmarried ladies in Seattle, he'd thought someday he might turn a corner, walk into church and there she'd be. But at twenty-nine, he knew better. Love was a choice built from prolonged presence. And with six lives already depending on him, he had chosen not to participate in adding more.

“Hello, brother Drew!” Beth sang out as she opened the door of his cabin, basket under one arm. She stepped inside, glanced around and wrinkled her nose. “Oh, you haven't gotten far, have you?”

Drew looked around as well, trying to see the place through Beth's eyes. He'd built the cabin himself, his brothers lending a hand with planing and notching the logs and chinking them with dried moss and rock. He'd crafted the fireplace in the center of one wall from rounded stones gathered along the lake. As his father had taught him from what he'd learned in his homeland of Sweden, Drew had built a cabinet for his bed tick, setting it next to the hearth for warmth. A table and chairs of lumber cut from trees he'd felled rested on the rag rug his mother had woven for him. A plain wood chest sat against the far wall, waiting for him to start carving. All in all, his cabin was a solid, practical place to sleep between long hours of working. Very likely, Beth considered it far too plain.

But it didn't matter what his sister thought. It mattered what Catherine Stanway thought, and he had no doubt she'd find it lacking.

He pointed his sister to the corn-tassel broom leaning against one wall. “If you think the cabin needs more work, feel free to lend a hand.”

He busied himself with shaking out the quilt his mother had made for him.

Beth hummed to herself as she set down the basket and began sweeping dried mud off the floor. “I like her,” she announced, and Drew knew she had to be talking about Catherine. “She knows a lot. And did you see that dress? There was one just like it in
Godey's
.”

His sister devoured the ladies' magazine, which generally arrived in Seattle months after its publication back East. The editor of
Godey's
, Drew was convinced, had never laid eyes on a frontier settlement, or she'd never have suggested some of the outlandish fashions. What woman needed skirts so wide they couldn't fit through the door of a cabin or allow her to climb to the loft of her bed?

“I'm sure Miss Stanway was all the rage back home,” Drew said, hauling the table back into place in the center of the room from where James and John had shoved it during a friendly wrestling match a few days ago.

“Here, too.” Beth giggled as she paused. “I think Simon is smitten.”

“Simon can go soak his head in the lake.” The vehemence of his words surprised him, and so did the emotions riding on them. The first thought that had popped into his head at his sister's teasing was the word
mine
.

Beth must have noticed the change in his tone as well, for she turned to regard him wide-eyed. “You like her!”

Drew shoved the chairs into place with enough force to set the table to rocking on its wooden legs. “I like the fact that she can help Ma. That's what's important—not the rest of this tomfoolery.”

“I suppose you're right.” She resumed her sweeping, angling the pile of dust toward the doorway. “Still, I hope she'll let me talk to her about how they're wearing their hair back East. Every time I try the curling iron, I get it so hot I can hardly touch it. I bet she'll know how to do it right.”

Hand on the wooden bucket to fill it with fresh water from the pump outside, Drew paused. “You think she curls her hair?”

“And irons her dresses.” Beth nodded with great confidence. “She might even use rouge to get that glow in her cheeks.”

What was he doing? This wasn't the sort of thing a man discussed, even with his little sister. He hefted the bucket and headed for the door. “You're too young to rouge your cheeks or curl your hair, Beth. And Miss Stanway is here to help Ma, not teach you things you don't need to know.”

Beth made a face at him as he opened the door. “You don't get to decide what I need to know. You couldn't possibly understand. You're a man.” When he turned to argue, she swept the dirt up into the air in a cloud of dust that nearly choked him.

Drew waved his hand, backing away. “I'm your brother, and the last time I checked, I'm responsible for your upbringing. If you can't leave Miss Stanway be on such matters, I'll make sure you have other things to do elsewhere.”

“You would, too,” Beth declared, lowering the broom. “But you're right. We should be thinking about Ma.” Her face crumpled. “Oh, I sure hope Miss Stanway knows what's she's doing. I just can't lose Ma!”

Cold pierced him. Drew went to enfold his sister in his arms, getting a broom handle on the chin for his trouble. “We won't lose her, Beth. We won't let her go.”

Beth nodded against his chest, and he heard her sniff. When she pushed back, she wiped her face with her fingers, leaving two tracks of mud across her cheeks. This from the girl who admired rouge, of all things.

As Drew smiled, she turned to glance back into the cabin. “The place is looking better already. You go check on Ma, and I'll add a few finishing touches.”

Drew cocked his head. “Like what? I'll have none of those doilies you're so fond of.”

Beth turned to him, eyes wide. “Who could hate an innocent doily? They're so dainty and cultured.”

Everything he was not, he realized, and trying to pretend otherwise served no one. “Just remember, this is a man's house,” he told his sister as he stepped out onto the porch. “Miss Stanway may be staying awhile, but I'm the one who lives here.”

With a feeling he was talking to the air, he left Beth humming to herself.

Rouge. He shook his head again. His mother had complained about the stuff from time to time.

A lady makes the most of what the good Lord gave her
, she'd said after they'd visited Seattle a few weeks ago.
She doesn't need to paint herself or squeeze herself into a shape she wasn't born with.

He had never considered the matter, but the thought of his sister prettying herself up made his stomach churn.

A few strides across the clearing brought him to their parents' house. Once, they had all lived there, his brothers curled up on beds on one side of the upstairs room, and Beth with their parents on the other. When he'd laid claim to the land next to his father's, he'd built his own house. Simon had done the same on the opposite side, clearing the land there. Now James was in the process of outfitting his cabin on the next set of acreage he had claimed. Tracts were already platted for John and Levi, as well. When they managed a town site, their father's name would go on even if he hadn't.