The Surgeon

“Mornin’, Clarissa.” John straightened, tall and lean, removing his Stetson but looking ill at ease.

“What brings you here?” Clarissa rubbed the waistline of her satin dress, fumbling with the pleats. She was pretty, with long brunette hair that she’d clasped at her temples with butterfly clips, and skin so white and smooth it looked like ice cream. When she swept her disapproving gaze over Sarah’s best housedress, Sarah felt dowdy in comparison.

He introduced the women. They nodded politely, but as he and Clarissa caught up with small talk, Sarah took her bonnet and stepped away to continue studying the merchandise. He’d already told her that Clarissa was the owner’s daughter and didn’t do the hiring. Sarah was waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Ashford to step out from behind the velvet drapes of the back room.

“It’s a pounding right above my heart,” Sarah heard Clarissa say. “Above my breastbone. Sometimes it’s uncontrollable. What do you think it is? Heart palpitations?”

“Perhaps you need an examination,” John replied, his dark features glued to the annoying woman.

Clarissa lowered her eyes coyly. “It would be in my best interest, I can’t deny it.”

“I’ll set up the appointment this morning. I’ll drop by Doc Waters’s office and tell him to expect you.”

Clarissa’s look of surprise was equaled by Sarah’s. “Old Dr. Waters?”

Trying to hide her amusement at Clarissa’s disappointment, Sarah ran her hand along a carriage clock. Fancy pillars showcased an exquisitely painted porcelain dial and side panels. She turned to see John and an embarrassed Clarissa standing two feet away.

“I like the shape of that clock,” said John. “It’s massive.”

“And see—” said Sarah, getting caught up with enthusiasm for the lovely items. “A lever in the base allows you to select silence, half strike and full strike.”

“Yes,” said Clarissa, rushing to take over the conversation. Was there some sort of bidding competition between the two women of which Sarah wasn’t aware? The woman needn’t feel threatened by Sarah, she had no hold over Dr. John Calloway. “The clock face has the name of the retailer,” Clarissa added. “Tiffany & Co., from New York. They’re very prestigious.”

“Never heard of them,” said John.

Clarissa smiled at him—a touch too readily, in Sarah’s opinion.

Sarah raised her eyebrows as she occupied herself with something else. John and his taste for women were none of her concern.

But how could her life turn so drastically from one day to the next? Yesterday at this time she was on a train headed to Calgary, imagining her life with a tender doctor on the prairies, imagining the possibly of bearing their children…She glanced away in humiliation.

She still had Keenan to hope for, the only person left of her family. Did he even go by the same name, or had he changed it to protect himself?

One thing at a time, she told herself. If she took one step at a time, it wouldn’t seem so overwhelming.

Staring into the glass counter, Sarah gasped. “What an unusual watch.”

“Which one?” asked John.

“The slender gold one. The ladies’ pendant watch.”

Clarissa squeezed behind the counter, brushing against John in the process. “Ah, yes. This came in this morning. I appraised and bought it myself, from a man I’m afraid wasn’t fully aware of its value. It’s truly a classic. Eighteen karat gold, from Geneva.”

Sarah frowned. “What a shame about the crown.”

“What?” said Clarissa, peering closer.

“What’s a crown?” asked John.

“The winder knob. It’s off-kilter. Let’s hope the movement inside isn’t beyond repair.”

Clarissa colored and scooped the watch from the case. “It wasn’t like this when I appraised it.”

“Hmm,” Sarah said softly. “Perhaps a switch was made when the seller got his money. It’s a common scam.”

“How do you know all this?” John whispered.

“My father was a clockmaker and owned a store for years in Halifax. He taught me.”

He’d also taught Keenan. Not only had their father taught them clockwork, but gunsmithing. Most folks couldn’t afford to own a Colt or a Smith and Wesson; town clockmakers often doubled as gunsmiths to make everyday guns for local folks. But gunsmithing was something Sarah had buried in her past, and fervently wished Keenan had, as well.

“That’s very impressive,” said a baritone voice behind them.

A friendly and handsome balding man smiled at them as they turned around. John introduced the dashing man as Mr. Ashford. Twenty minutes later, Sarah happily left the store as their newly hired clerk. Working here, she’d have to contend with Clarissa, but seeing that she had no romantic interest in the surgeon, Sarah didn’t foresee a problem.

She tucked the escaping strands of her hair beneath her bonnet. “Are you finished drooling over Clarissa?”

“I was not drooling.”

“Yes, you were. You were drooling all over each other. And I, for one, think you’d make a lovely couple.”

It was a strange sensation, watching him flirt with another woman when only yesterday he was her intended. Try as she might, the prickly feeling wouldn’t leave.

He shook his head. The sunlight caught his firm, black temples. “I’d never go within ten feet of Clarissa Ashford. Her former lover is doing serious jail time for larceny and theft. He used to own a sawmill in the Rockies, and she ran off with him when she couldn’t squeeze enough money out of his younger partner.”

“Oh my goodness.” Were these the kinds of people she had to contend with in Calgary? “What are her folks like?”

“They’re honest and hardworking, near as we can tell. You shouldn’t have trouble working there. There is one other jewelry shop you could try, but he just hired a new man.”

“This one’s fine. They told me I can start tomorrow.”

John came to a stop on the sunny boardwalk. The mist had lifted, leaving behind a blazing blue sky.

For the first time in twenty-four hours, her future didn’t look so bleak. Maybe she’d do well in this town. She’d found work and a place to stay, and she’d find her brother, too.

“You haven’t stopped for one minute since your arrival. Look how much you’ve accomplished today.” His smile was warm and true, and had a dazzling effect on her.

Her guard went up. She stepped away from him as shoppers squeezed by on the boardwalk. Sarah could still see through him. She’d found a place to live and a place of employment, so he was free of her. He was off the coals.

“Thanks for accompanying me. I’m sure your presence had something to do with Mr. Ashford hiring me. And now, I suppose you can rest your conscience.”

Now that she was here, she was going to make the best of her situation. Maybe she’d give herself a time limit to find Keenan. The money the Mounties had collected would go a little way toward paying her boardinghouse, but if she couldn’t make ends meet with her new job, she’d have to pack up and go somewhere cheaper.

She hadn’t worked at her father’s store for five years since she and her mother had sold it, and she wasn’t quite comfortable with everything at Ashford’s, but a little time and experience would polish her skills.

John insisted on following her right to the front desk.

“I can handle being on my own.”

“But I’d like to see you to safety.”

“Well, who do you think is going to walk me everyday to and from work? You won’t be around and it’ll be up to me anyway.”

“Stop arguing with everything I say.”

She groaned and kept walking. And groaned again as they entered the small doorway and encountered the two elderly women Sarah had met on the train. While Sarah had kept her personal business to herself for a thousand miles, she’d opened up to them halfway here, around Saskatoon. Sadly, it had been enough time to blab everything.

“Hello, Mrs. Lott, Mrs. Thomas,” said Sarah.

“Why, hello young lady,” said the thinner one, Mrs. Lott, with the kind wrinkled green eyes. “I see you’re here with your new groom-to-be.”

Sarah introduced them to John, who’d never met them. The sisters had obviously heard of him, though. Being the town’s only surgeon, it was understandable.

Sarah squirmed under the sisters’s scrutiny and John cleared his throat.

Mrs. Thomas, the one with the head of completely white hair, turned to John. The older women both looked tiny and frail standing next to his bronzed body. “Sarah told us on the train that she’d been corresponding with a lovely young man. Imagine our surprise when she told us it was you, Dr. Calloway. Have you set the date?”

Sarah swallowed hard and avoided looking at John. “There’s not going to be a wedding.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs. Lott, clutching at her throat. “Why?”

“There was a mix-up, it seems. Dr. Calloway wasn’t the…It wasn’t the doctor who…”

John stepped in, removing his hat. “It was a miscommunication is what it was. I’m helping Sarah to settle in. She just found employment at Ashford Jewelers. Won’t you congratulate her?”

The women gaily offered their best wishes, but Sarah knew she couldn’t avoid the questions forever.

“Perhaps you ladies might keep her in mind if you’re in the market for a lovely strand of pearls or a ring to adorn those pretty fingers.”

The older women giggled. They did look rather wealthy, judging by their fine clothes and necklaces. “Why, Dr. Calloway, we didn’t think you noticed such things.”

As the conversation mellowed, Mrs. Lott turned to Sarah. “Would you and the doctor care to join us for dinner? We could meet here, later, say around seven?”

Sarah craned her neck awkwardly up at John, wondering what he thought.

His response seemed smooth and well rehearsed. “I’m afraid I must decline.”

“But we insist,” said Mrs. Lott.

“Unfortunately, I’m needed in surgery.”

Mrs. Lott put her warm hands on top of Sarah’s. “But you’ll join us, won’t you, dear?”

“Certainly.” Sarah’s tension eased. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad living here. John’s standing beside her indicated his support and respect in this town, and unless the Mounties leaked the truth, no one needed to know that her arrival had been a hoax. Perhaps she could hold her head high. Perhaps the town would welcome her.

“And where might you ladies be off to, this fine morning?” John inquired as they passed in a cloud of perfume.

“Why, you might call it a family reunion. Our young nephew is here from New York City, and we’re off to visit our cousin, Mrs. Polly Fitzgibbon.”

Chapter Five

“How on earth did you get a bullet lodged in your thigh?” In a sour mood and troubled by the man’s injury, John asked the question later that afternoon at the hospital.

Sprawled on the examination table with his trouser leg torn apart, Corporal Travis Reid groaned in pain. John had given him an opiate, but hadn’t wanted to sedate the man too heavily until after his anesthesia and bullet extraction.

“We were hunting. O’Malley thought he saw a doe scrambling through the woods. His shot ricocheted off a maple and hit me in the thigh.”

Irritation nipped at John. The hospital needed more medical officers. Standing beside him on the surgical ward, Logan, the veterinarian, was ready with his doused rag of chloroform. An animal doctor.

“And now you’re out of commission due to an irresponsible hunting accident.”

Travis grimaced, trying to make light of the situation. “No venison for supper tonight, either.”

John was beyond amusement. He was tired and hungry and mad at their carelessness. “Never mind the venison,” he snapped. “Out of eighty-eight men, we’ve got eleven out due to injuries. The others got hurt in the line of duty, but this injury was totally unnecessary. Couldn’t you be more careful?”

“Sure, Doc,” Travis snarled. “But not everything’s always right or wrong. A man’s gotta have distractions, not work all the time. But I reckon you don’t know much about that.”

John balked. No one had ever talked back to him. And then his temper dissipated as he realized he was berating an injured man. “Dammit, Travis, sorry.”

With a softer nod, Travis succumbed to the chloroform. John removed the slug then sutured the wound.

What was wrong with him lately? Why did he bark at everyone? When Travis was settled, John sought the privacy of his quarters. He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t the lone man Travis made him out to be.

But since Christmas there’d been no time to spend with women, no time to take a leave, no time to go hunting or fishing, no riding to the foothills. The police were busy.

Just last week the Grayveson gang had stolen forty-eight mustangs a hundred and fifty miles to the south. By the time the Mounties had given chase, the outlaws had faded across the American border. Cross-border gangs had been one of the main reasons the Mounties had been formed by the federal government sixteen years ago. That and the illegal whiskey trade with the Indians. But the Grayveson gang would probably be back, selling the Montana horses and cattle they would probably steal next to the folks in Alberta where the brands weren’t recognized.

Maybe Wesley had had the right idea. If it’d been John who’d died instead, would he have been satisfied with what he’d accomplished in his life so far? Poor Wesley had been robbed of his life; the loss had triggered John to think more about his own direction. Was work all that fulfilled him?

When he was a younger man, he’d envisioned himself in the future with a wife and children, maybe grandchildren in his retirement years. But he hadn’t had the time or the inclination to look for a wife. There wasn’t much choice, unless he went for a fifteen-or sixteen-year-old daughter of one of the ranchers, or the occasional European immigrant, or a daughter of one of the Metis Indians. And the years kept passing by.

John was forty years old today. Like most of his private affairs, he kept his birthdate to himself. But what had happened to his vision of family?

He sifted through the medical journals that he’d picked up from the train depot. He leafed through them with disappointment. It looked like this month’s British medical journals wouldn’t supply any answers to his other problem, either. During the twelve months he’d been treating the blacksmith on Angus McIver’s ranch, John hadn’t been able to pinpoint the man’s illness. The blacksmith was only thirty years old yet sometimes he walked with a shaking palsy, like an old man.

Rubbing the back of his neck, John looked up at the wall clock. Six-fifteen. Sarah would be having dinner soon.

She could be a major distraction. Hell, she was already.

If marriage was what she wanted and why she was here, he was certain she’d soon find a husband. With her pretty smile and ready attitude for hard work, she’d have suitors begging for her company. Some men might consider her to be a handful, but her amusing tongue lashings reminded John of his younger sister. He and Beth had been closest in age and they’d argued night and day. After she’d passed away so suddenly, he’d felt guilty for years about their constant bickering, but as he’d matured, he’d realized they had only been children and the arguments hadn’t meant he’d loved his sister less.

He missed Beth. And his younger twin brothers, Hank and James…Much to his mother’s annoyance, John had been the only child who hadn’t eaten any of the food at the fairgrounds that Sunday. He’d had an upset stomach and couldn’t eat, but wouldn’t admit to the nausea or his ma wouldn’t have allowed him to ride the carousel. The rest had stuffed themselves with sausage and bread and vegetable soup and corn on the cob, then licorice and walnuts and mints. And lots and lots of water. Contaminated water. That’s how they’d contracted the typhoid that had killed them. He and his ma and pa had been the only ones left standing. Ten other children had died that week, as well.

The wall clock chimed six-thirty. Why hadn’t Sarah married before this? Why had she been so desperate to answer a newspaper advertisement and why so far away from home? Or was she simply as alone in the world as he was?

His stomach growled with hunger. Rising out of his chair, he strode to his closet. Donning a newly ironed dress shirt and his Sunday pair of pants, he headed out the door. It was his fortieth birthday, and what did he have to lose?

“Mrs. Lott, here I am!” Sarah rushed down the carpeted stairs, hoping to catch Mrs. Lott and her sister before they escaped into the milling crowd. The boardinghouse owner had established a reputation as an excellent cook and there was often a lineup for her dining room.

Lifting the fabric of her finest blue twill skirt so she wouldn’t trip down the stairs, Sarah waved again but the two women ignored her as they headed to the front door. They were going in the wrong direction.

Sara shouted louder. “Mrs. Lott! Mrs. Thomas!”

Weaving past a gentleman in a bowler hat, Sarah squeezed along the stair wall. When her sleeve brushed an oil painting, it jarred and she lunged to straighten it.

A hallway full of people stared. Some women averted their eyes and whispered to their friends. Sarah was struck by self-consciousness. She’d created a stir because she’d been too zestful in her shouting and clumsy with the painting.

However, the elderly sisters turned and waited for her. Like Sarah in her white mutton-sleeve blouse and cameo brooch clipped to her throat, the ladies were dressed in their finest.

Sarah squeezed past a man with a walking stick. Puffing to catch her breath, she felt herself flush with enthusiasm as she peered into the wrinkled green eyes of dear Mrs. Lott. “I’ve come to join you for dinner.”

Ten feet past their shoulders, the stained-glass door opened. Dr. John Calloway strode through it.

With a quickening of her pulse, Sarah slunk into the corner, hoping he wouldn’t catch sight of her. What brought him here? He’d said he was on duty this evening, so he must be on a doctor’s call. In a glance, she didn’t see a medicine bag, only an annoyingly handsome man with slicked-back hair and a white silk shirt. He loomed a good ten inches above the crowd.

Mrs. Lott had her back turned, so didn’t see him. She wasn’t smiling at Sarah as she had been that morning. “But we’ve already eaten.”

“Oh—” Had Sarah made an error? She pivoted on her high-heeled black boot to glance at Mrs. Thomas. “But…”

Mrs. Thomas brought her leather gloves to her nose and sniffled. Her shock of white hair, pinned in billowing curls atop her head, shook with disapproval.

“But I thought you said seven o’clock. I’m five minutes early.”

“Dr. Calloway declined, remember?”

“Yes, but I thought I’d mentioned I would join you alone.”

“Sorry, there must have been a miscommunication.”

A burning heat slapped Sarah in the face. Polly Fitzgibbon had obviously done her work. She likely spread the gossip of Sarah’s nakedness in John’s arms and God knew what else.

John spoke beside her, causing her pulse to leap again. “Good evening, ladies. I see I’ve arrived in time. I’d like to join you for dinner if I’m still invited.”

Trying to hide her disgrace, Sarah spun around to weave back up the stairs to the solace of her room. “It seems we’re both late, Dr. Calloway.”

He grabbed her wrist firmly and held it to his side, but smiled at the other women. “Late? It’s not seven yet.”

Sarah tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he held her strong. A silent turbulence roared between them. Had he overheard that the sisters had declined Sarah? What was he doing? People were staring, and he was making the situation worse. It didn’t help that his touch flustered her thoughts.

The two women puckered their lips. “We’ve already eaten, Doctor. Good evening.” They strolled away.

Another couple brushed by John and Sarah. They mumbled, inaudible to most, but not to Sarah, which was the effect she knew they were seeking. “…caught red-handed with her clothes off. Phony mail-order bride. Wonder how much she charges…”

“Now just a minute,” said John, red beneath his collar.

The sisters hesitated near the door, glanced back and fanned their faces with their gloves. Dead silence filled the hallway. Not a person in the crowd moved.

“John, don’t—” whispered Sarah.

“Come back here, ladies,” John commanded. “I’d like to explain something to you.”

The women clicked their tongues. Someone held the door open and they slinked into the blue evening sky.

With a heated look of fury, John glared at the staring faces. He must have realized they were gauging his possessive hand on Sarah’s wrist, because he dropped it quickly.

His absence left a cold spot on her wrist. She hadn’t been touched like that for a very long time. It’d been a raw act of control, of possession. She fought the unwanted feeling of satisfaction it brought her.

“Good night,” she said softly, rubbing her wrist, turning up the stairs, afraid to draw more attention to herself.

“Wait.” John pressed his warm hand into her sleeve and held her back by the arm. Heat arced between them.

Judging by the murmuring and shuffling of feet, the crowd had lost their interest in John and Sarah. She stiffened her posture with pride.

When she turned around, a step higher and almost eye level to his handsome dark face and searching gaze, he added, “You still have to eat. There’s a great steakhouse around the block.”

The corner of his mouth twisted with a little smile. What would it be like to kiss that generous mouth?

“I don’t think I’d be good company.” She raced up one step and he followed by one.

“Better company than those two women.”

His gentle attempt to make her smile worked. Why should she run for cover? Who were they to treat her like that?

A teasing gleam twinkled in his brown eyes. Maybe she should keep her distance from John. He’d already rejected her once.

“Steak sounds good.”

“If I can calm down long enough,” John said an hour later over dinner, “I’ll go to Mrs. Lott and Mrs. Thomas, and explain what happened. That you were caught in the middle of an idiotic game between my men, and brought here under false pretenses.”

Sarah watched the golden candlelight flicker over the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, over the short wave of brown hair. The shadow of a beard and mustache added to his brawny appearance. Yet a white silk shirt draped from his wide shoulders, in soft contrast to his rough masculinity.

“I think that they think that once I met you…I no longer wanted—” he swallowed “—to marry you.”

Sarah cut into her rib eye steak. “I’d prefer to explain it to them myself, thank you, when the time is right.” She arched her shoulders against her high-backed chair, loosening the tension in her muscles. “But I’m no longer sure it’s worth it.”

John glanced over her ruffled blouse all the way down to her cinched waistline. She was covered from wrist to throat by fabric, but somehow John’s heated glance made her feel as though her clothing was totally improper. How did he have that ability to make her so aware of her own sensuality?

“The rumors are spreading. Unfortunately, it’s worth your reputation.”

Her heart pounded in an offbeat rhythm. She knew he was right, but she wouldn’t allow panic to set in.

He slid his empty plate away. “And as far as being caught this morning—together like we were—let me try to explain that to them, at least.”

“Could you try to explain it to me first?”

She captured his attention with the remark. He laughed softly. “I see your point. Maybe it’s best if we don’t try to explain it at all.”

He swirled his glass of white wine with one large hand, gazing into its depth. His fingers, long and lean, were tinted from the sun and exceptionally clean and trim. His hands were beautiful; a captivating paradox to the rest of his rough-and-rugged presence.

Then he sipped his wine, calling her attention to his well-defined lips. She wished she would stop noticing everything about him.