Heart And Home

“And my favorite tablecloth?”

“I’d buy you a new one. If I ever get any patients.” She watched him slowly turn serious. “Probably not a good idea,” he said.

“I was teasing, Adam.” She had a sudden notion that perhaps he had never had a chance to be a little boy. She would bet his childhood hadn’t included a puppy.

“How’s this?” she suggested. “If you treat a farmer or his family and he offers you a pig as payment, ask if he’s got any puppies instead.”

Adam looked stunned. “Offers a pig as payment? You are joking, aren’t you?”

She laughed and turned back to the dishes.

“Pigs,” he muttered. He lifted the stack of platters and, just before he took it to the dining room, added, “If I get paid with a pig, I’m paying for my dinners with it.”

Jane fought the urge to giggle. The situation was too bizarre. Here she was laughing with a man whom she swore she didn’t like, letting him help her with dishes, of all things. Well, she did like him; she couldn’t help that. He would be as impossible to dislike as that puppy they were talking about.

She heard voices in the dining room and realized the clatter of dishes had kept her from hearing the front door. Grabbing a towel to dry her hands, she went out to investigate.

“He’s in the wagon,” a woman was saying.

“You go make sure he doesn’t move,” Adam told her. “I’ll be right out.”

The woman, a farm wife Jane knew only vaguely, hurried to do as Adam said.

Adam turned to her, tossing the tea towel over her shoulder. “Sorry I can’t help you finish.”

Jane shook her head, but he had already turned away. A need to watch him with a patient other than Grams sent her after him. She stood on her porch as he leaned over the wagon. The sideboards hid the patient from Jane’s view, but a small foot extending out the back made her realize it was the woman’s son, not husband that she had brought to town.

Adam spoke softly, the encouraging tones reaching Jane’s ears if not the words. The woman nodded and took his place at the back of the wagon while he ran into his house. Jane walked down her steps and joined the woman.

“What happened, Mrs. Tallon?” she asked, the name coming to her when she saw the six-year-old boy’s face. “How did Billy get hurt?”

“Oh, Miss Sparks,” the woman said, reaching out to her. “He fell trying to build a tree house. I told him to wait ‘til his father could help him.”

“Aunt Jane!” the boy cried. His mother moved quickly to keep him still. “Doc says my leg’s busted.”

“Well, don’t sound so proud,” his mother scolded.

“It hurt a lot at first,” Billy confided. “But now it don’t hurt less’en I move it.”

Adam joined them with splints and his medical bag. Jane stepped out of his way but watched over his shoulder as he cut the boy’s trouser leg from the ankle.

“So what do you think, Doc?” she asked. “Can little boys with broken legs still eat cookies?”

Even where she stood she could see Adam grin at Billy. “I don’t know. A diet of spinach and beets is what I usually recommend.”

Billy looked dismayed for a moment, then grinned back. “You’re just funnin’ me.”

Jane took Mrs. Tallon’s hand. “When the doctor gets through tying him back together, bring him over for a cookie before you head home.”

“That’s so sweet of you,” the woman said, “but we can’t. I’ll need to get home and start dinner. I’ll have Billy’s chores to do now, too.”

“Of course. Say, I have all kinds of food left from the funeral dinner. I’d be pleased if you’d take it home to your husband and boys.”

“Funeral dinner? Your grandmother?” Mrs. Tallon put her arm around Jane’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Miss Sparks. I hadn’t heard.”

“I understand,” Jane said quickly, not wanting to dwell on the funeral. “Now that dinner’s taken care of, you have time to bring Billy by for a cookie. I’ll go box up the food.”

Jane hurried back to her kitchen, uncertain why she had a sudden need to get away. The mention of the funeral, probably. She had managed to forget about it for a while. She had needed something like this to bring her back to her senses. She was starting to have too much fun teasing Dr. Adam Hart.

Grams was barely underground, and Jane was already forgetting her advice. Don’t trust men with anything but business. Don’t depend on them, and don’t let them know your weaknesses.

What Jane knew about her father should have taught her those lessons, anyway. He had used her mother and abandoned them both. What little he’d left her when he died couldn’t begin to make up for the pain he had caused.

Surely all men weren’t like that, Jane had argued, but how would one know?

One can’t, had been Grams’s answer.

Jane busied herself transferring food into pie plates and bowls she wouldn’t miss before Mrs. Tallon had a chance to return them. She tried to convince herself that her relationship with Adam was still business, the same as her relationship with George or the guests in the boardinghouse.

He was just one of the first men she had dealt with who was close to her age. Her responsibilities kept her from socializing much except with boarders, who tended to be older. That was the root of the attraction.

And why shouldn’t she have a friend her own age? She was not quite twenty-two and couldn’t remember ever having a friend. That was all Adam was. He had, after all, the beautiful Doreena. His interest in Plain Jane was probably because of their ages as well.

Or more likely because of his stomach.

At any rate, it was pleasant to have a friend, Jane decided, tackling the rest of the dishes once she had started a small pot of coffee. And she was safe from Adam because of Doreena.

Adam couldn’t explain why he wished Jane had stayed. The boy and his mother were both cooperative and calm. He didn’t need or even want her help.

He tried to put her out of his mind as he set the boy’s leg and gave them instructions. “Don’t put any weight on that leg,” he finished. “I’ll come out to take a look at it tomorrow. Let me know immediately if there are any problems.”

“Thanks, Dr. Hart,” Mrs. Tallon said. “I’ll talk to the mister about how to pay you and get it taken care of as soon as possible.”

“Can we go see Aunt Jane now?” Billy asked.

“How am I supposed to get you in there?” his mother responded. “I’ll see if she can send a cookie home with us.”

Suddenly the excuse to be in Jane’s kitchen again was more than Adam could resist. “I’ll carry him in, Mrs. Tallon. You can get the door.”

“I always come see Aunt Jane when we’re in town,” Billy explained. “She likes little boys.”

“I think you like her, too,” Adam said, carefully supporting the injured leg as he lifted the boy into his arms.

“I shouldn’t do it since I hardly know her,” the boy’s mother confided, “but sometimes I let Billy play at Miss Sparks’s house while I do my shopping. She doesn’t seem to mind and Billy’s much happier that way.”

Adam was a little curious as to what the everefficient-and-tidy Miss Sparks thought of having a little boy underfoot. He guessed she let Mrs. Tallon take advantage of her, the same way everyone at the funeral dinner had.

But then, she was the one who’d offered cookies.

Adam carried Billy into the kitchen, spotless now and smelling of fresh coffee. Jane had already positioned a chair with a pillow on it to support the broken leg. When Billy was comfortably seated, Adam stepped back to watch Jane. She gave the boy a hug then knelt down on the floor. “That’s one fancy leg you’ve got now,” she said. “Dr. Hart went to a lot of work to keep you from climbing trees.”

“That’s not why,” the boy said.

Jane smiled at the child as she rose to her feet. She served coffee to the adults and milk to Billy, and set a plate of oatmeal cookies on the table.

Jane was comfortable with the farm woman and talked easily about weather and crops. She was obviously a special friend to Billy. Adam watched her wink at the boy and slip him another cookie after his mother had said he’d had enough.

“The leg set all right, didn’t it?” Jane asked him as Mrs. Tallon prepared to leave.

“It’ll be fine. I just want to keep an eye on it for the next few days to be sure the splint keeps it immobile and there are no other complications.”

“She can’t keep bringing him into town,” Jane said, wrapping some cookies in a napkin and tucking them into one of the boxes that sat by the door.

“I’ll ride out to the farm,” Adam said. He wondered what was bothering her. Mrs. Tallon had said they hardly knew each other. Was she worried about the boy or did she know something about the farm that he didn’t? Her comment about pigs came back to him.

But her mind was on a different track. “He could stay here,” she said.

Chapter Four

“Can I, Ma? Please,” Billy begged.

Adam was sure his face showed his surprise. It would make it easier for him to check on the boy, of course, but Jane had just lost her grandmother. She hadn’t yet caught up on the sleep she had lost during the woman’s illness. A lively little boy frustrated by a broken leg would not make her life easier. He held his breath and waited to see what Mrs. Tallon would say.

“No,” the mother said finally. “Your father will want to talk to you.”

A new problem occurred to Adam. “No spankings until the leg is healed,” he said.

Mrs. Tallon laughed. “You don’t need to worry about that. But he’ll likely be doing extra chores once he’s healed.”

Adam carried Billy back to the wagon, and Jane and Mrs. Tallon followed with the boxes of food. After saying their goodbyes, Adam and Jane stood side by side and watched the wagon pull away.

“It was nice of you to offer to keep Billy,” Adam said.

Jane gave him a sad smile. “It would have kept my mind off things,” she said.

“You need to get some rest.”

She shook her head. “I need to start dinner. I need to keep busy.”

Adam watched her walk back to the boardinghouse. Once she was inside, he returned to his own little house. He slumped into a chair and stared at his closed front door.

This house was way too quiet. He needed other voices and activity around him. He wished he were sitting in Jane’s front parlor. Even if no one else was there with him, he would be able to hear the other boarders if they walked across their rooms. He would know that he wasn’t alone.

He needed to convince Doreena to join him. He had already sent one brief letter describing his welcome to Clyde. He hadn’t mentioned her refusal to come or his disappointment. He had been afraid he would say something he later regretted.

How could she think he would decide not to stay? Hadn’t she listened to him at all? He could understand if she said she didn’t want to leave her family and live in a comparatively primitive little community. But that wasn’t what she’d said. She had said she was sure he would go back.

It didn’t seem right that she should make him choose between the life he wanted and the woman he loved. He would get pen and ink and tell her so.

He was halfway to his feet before it occurred to him that that was precisely what he was asking her to do: choose between the life she knew and her love for him.

He slumped back into the chair. The difference, of course, was that he was the man. Tradition held that a woman left everything behind and started a new life with her husband. Doreena, however, would be leaving behind considerably more than most women. And getting far less.

Besides, he wasn’t her husband yet. She could still refuse. It came down to the same question. Was he willing to give up his dream of practicing medicine on the frontier in order to be with Doreena?

With a sigh, he rose and moved to the desk. She had given him a year. Perhaps he could change her mind.

It took him most of the afternoon to write the letter, in part because he carefully chose each word, but also because of the interruptions. Two separate farm families stopped to meet him. They were in town anyway, they pointed out. Neither needed medical attention, but were merely checking him out, deciding, he supposed, if it would be worth calling on him if the need arose. He hoped he made a favorable impression. The fact that one of the farmers called him son did not seem like a good sign.

Finally the letter was written. He tapped the pen against his chin as he reread it. He had told about Billy Tallon, pointing out that without his help the boy might have been crippled for life. He had mentioned the Cartland sisters, brushing very lightly over their flirting. He hoped he had depicted them as amusing neighbors.

He had skillfully written of the old woman dying of pneumonia and of taking his meals at the boardinghouse next door without ever actually mentioning Jane. Now he wondered why. He hadn’t been afraid Doreena would be jealous. He simply hadn’t been sure how to describe her.

Thinking of his neighbor, he was considering arriving early for dinner when he had another knock at his door. “Come in,” he called as he turned the letter over and placed the cleaned pen on top.

He stood as Rose Finley, the woman who had introduced herself at the funeral dinner, stepped across his threshold. She moved aside to admit a woman Adam guessed was just shy of twenty.

“This is my daughter Rosalie,” Mrs. Finley said, smiling proudly as the girl curtsied. “This, my dear, is Dr. Adam Hart.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Rosalie said, with a tilt of her head that reminded him instantly of Nedra Cartland.

“She’s been feeling poorly lately,” Mama Finley continued. “I’ll just wait here while you examine her in private.” She plopped down in a chair and folded her arms, looking rather pleased.

Adam hesitated a moment before directing the young woman into the adjoining room. He closed the door behind them and leaned against it for a moment.

Rosalie stood in the center of the room, making a slow turn as she studied her surroundings. “I’d feel more comfortable if the shades were drawn,” she said.

Adam opened his mouth to protest, but she had already stepped to the window that overlooked the street and was stretching to reach the shade pull. He quickly found a match and lit the lamp.

“Miss Finley—”

“You can call me Rosalie,” she said, tossing a smile over her shoulder as she went for the other window shade.

“Rosalie,” Adam began, becoming conscious of just how tightly the girl’s dress fit when she stretched up on tiptoe.

“Yes?” She turned around and eyed him innocently.

Adam would have bet money there was nothing wrong with this woman except an overeager mother. Still…

“Have a seat,” he said, indicating a stool that would bring her nearly eye-to-eye with him. “What seems to be the problem?”

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