Romancing the Widow Read online

  “Can you move?”

  She made to sit up again but fell back at the sharp stab in her right shoulder.

  Another man appeared above her, the blacksmith from the looks of his soiled leather apron. “She’s the parson’s daughter. They live behind the church across the way.”

  Impatience rolled through the blue gaze and their owner straightened. “I know.” He spoke to the smithy. “Tie my horse to the rail. I’ll be back.”

  The man leaned in again, his features softening. “I’m Haskell Jacobs. I’m going to pick you up, get you off the street and to your home. Blink once if you understand.”

  She blinked.

  He slid one arm beneath her shoulder, cringing when she flinched. The other arm slipped beneath her knees and he lifted her as he stood. She closed her eyes and fought the nausea that roiled in her stomach.

  O Lord, the very man I feared has me in his arms and I am helpless! Forcing her eyes open she tried to guess his intended destination. He crossed the street and took the lane beside her father’s church. At least he was headed in the right direction.

  Against her will her eyes closed and her churning stomach threatened to expose everything she had eaten that morning. She gritted her teeth, but the nausea increased. Her left arm was pinned against a hard chest and her right lay across her lap. She wiggled her fingers and raised her hand to her face, wincing at the effort.

  “Don’t try to move.”

  The deep voice rumbled against her ear. Gruff, yet gentle, as much a paradox as flashing eyes beneath a black scowl.

  She fingered her temple and found gravel and dampness.

  “You hit hard. You’re bleeding, but you need not be frightened. I’ve got you now.”

  She looked up as he spoke and caught the comfort he offered in spite of his looks.

  “Marti!”

  Her mother’s cry startled her and pain shot through her shoulder again. Closing her eyes, she turned her face against the stranger’s chest. A man’s smell filled her senses—warmth, sweat, an equine earthiness. His heart pounded as hard and fast as the horse’s hooves had danced around her. His horse’s hooves? He had nearly run her down and now he was carrying her up the porch steps.

  “Is she all right?” Fear rippled her mother’s voice as she held the door open to the parlor. The stranger—Haskell?—set her gently on the settee and tucked a cushion behind her neck before pulling his arm away.

  “Do you have a doctor in Cañon City?” he asked her mother.

  “Yes. Doc Mason’s place is at the other end of town.”

  “I’ll ride down and get him. It’s the least I can do.”

  Martha fought against her heavy eyes to catch her mother’s expression.

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “She stepped in front of my horse at the livery. When he reared, a front leg knocked her to the ground. She may have broken her shoulder.” He touched his hat brim and backed toward the door. “I’d best be getting the doctor, ma’am. My apologies. I’ll cover any expenses.”

  The front door closed and Martha’s consciousness threatened to do the same. Her mother’s skirts whispered near and Martha forced her eyes open again. Worry pinched her mother’s brow.

  Martha raised her left hand toward her mother who caught it. Her eyes refused to focus and fluttered closed.

  A warm hand brushed across her forehead. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get a cool cloth and clean you up a bit.”

  Martha tried to nod, but the effort added to her nausea. She heaved a sigh and sank into the cushion.

  * * *

  Haskell heeled Cache into a lope and kept a careful eye on the boardwalk and cross streets for anyone who might rush in front of him. He didn’t need to run down another careless pedestrian.

  What was she thinking, charging out that way? Did the widow have a death wish?

  She’d caught him off guard at every turn, and as she’d lain ashen and unmoving in the street, death was what he feared. The gash on her head had stopped his heart. Stopped the very blood in his veins. Thank God, she lived.

  He hadn’t thanked God for anything in a long time.

  He reined in at a yellow, two-story house with green shutters. A sign hung from the porch: Marion Mason, M.D., Surgeon, Dentist.

  Dismounting, he looped the reins over a fence picket. At the covered porch, he knocked on a door marked Surgery and stepped inside.

  “Hello?” He took off his hat.

  A worn-looking woman came from an adjoining room, wiping her hands on a white bloodstained towel. “You need help?”

  He’d never met a woman doctor. “You Doc Mason?”

  Her thin brows wrenched together. “No. He’s washing up. Give him a minute and he’ll see you.” She gestured to a row of mismatched chairs against the front wall. “Have a seat.”

  He remained standing.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Her manner, not her gender, made him glad she wasn’t the doctor.

  She returned to the surgery and muffled voices blended above a groan. Haskell made out the word laudanum and watched the doorway. Feet scuffed on the hardwood, a chair scraped across the floor.

  He glanced outside at Cache, still wide-eyed and nervous after the collision, ears swiveling at every street noise. The dark gray sidled up along the fence to keep one eye on the road.

  Haskell huffed. Even his horse knew better than to have his back to the door.

  At a clearing throat, Haskell spun, caught less prepared than his horse.

  “May I help you?” A balding man with wire-rim glasses halfway down his nose and shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his arms walked to the center of the room and waited. His hands were ruddy from a recent scrubbing. The scent of alcohol wrapped his short stature.

  “A woman’s been hurt. She’s the parson’s daughter. Can you come and look at her?”

  The doctor rolled down his cuffs as he returned Haskell’s query with one of his own. “Which parson? There is more than one, you know.”

  Haskell clenched his jaw. He couldn’t keep his thoughts clear when the widow had them in an uproar. “At the other end of town, behind the white clapboard church. She’s a widow. The daughter, I mean.”

  The doctor perked up. “Marti Hutton—er, Stanton? Pastor and Annie Hutton’s daughter? What happened?”

  Haskell’s jaw cramped tighter. He didn’t need questions, he needed action. “She was knocked to the ground by a horse. Stepped into the street without looking.”

  “I’ll get my bag and meet you there. My buggy’s out back.” With that, the doctor left Haskell standing in the parlor like a dismissed child. A back door closed hard and he took that as his cue to leave. Shoving his hat on, he crossed the short yard, lifted Cache’s reins from the picket and swung up.

  So much for a ride along the river.

  At the livery he pulled off Cache’s rig and carried it inside where hammer pings rang from the back of the barn.

  Pete Schultz wasted no daylight. Every door and window was fastened open and a draft pulled through the alleyway, sweeping the furnace heat from the stable.

  Haskell stowed his tack and returned to the parsonage behind the church. A buggy waited in front of the house with a sleepy-eyed nag in the harness. Doc Mason’s.

  Covering the three steps in one leap, he paused at the screen door.

  “Yes, he brought her in just moments ago, then rode to fetch you,” said Mrs. Hutton.

  Being the subject of a woman’s conversation wasn’t the most comfortable thing he’d endured, especially since the accident was his fault.

  Check that. It was not his fault.

  He knocked on the door frame.

  Mrs. Hutton pushed open the screen. “Come in. The doctor’s just arrived.�
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  He snatched his hat. It’d been in his hands more than on his head that day.

  Doc Mason sat on a low stool pulled close to Marti—or Mrs. Stanton or Ms. Hutton. What did a man call a widow, especially one as young and striking as this one?

  The blue velvet settee set off her copper hair as if designed to do just that.

  Mason leaned close to the widow’s ear and gentled his voice. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

  Haskell cleared his throat. “I can.”

  The doctor turned and glowered over his wire frames. “Well, speak up.”

  “She stepped in front of my horse.”

  Expressionless, the doctor continued to stare. “And?”

  “He reared and when he came down, his knee knocked her to the ground.”

  “Didn’t you see her coming?”

  I was distracted. Haskell stiffened. He didn’t have to answer to this man, or anyone. “She hit hard.”

  His eyes flicked to the purple swelling beneath the now-clean gash. “May have broken her shoulder.”

  Mason turned back to his patient and held his hand against her brow. An odd resentment prodded Haskell.

  “Come over here and help Mrs. Hutton. I’m going to palpate Marti’s shoulder and you need to hold her still.”

  Annie Hutton’s eyes locked on Haskell’s as if daring him to harm her daughter again. A she-bear ready to charge. He laid his hat beneath a chair and took his place at the widow’s feet. He’d set his share of bones, but out on the trail, not in a parson’s parlor. And they’d been men’s bones, not those of a fragile young woman with a worried mother at hand. Just to be safe he pulled the widow’s skirt hem over the buttoned shoes, then wrapped both hands around ankles he could snap with a flick of his wrist.

  Mrs. Hutton placed a hand on her daughter’s left shoulder and slipped her other arm over her chest and around her ribs.

  This was awkward at best.

  Doc touched the right shoulder, pressing with seasoned fingers. The widow lurched, but her mother held firm. She kicked against Haskell, hard enough to break her own ankles, but she did not cry out.

  He’d seen men fare far worse.

  “It’s not broken.” Sweat beaded on the doctor’s forehead. “Dislocated. Hold her, now. I’m going to pop it back in place.”

  Haskell squeezed. Mrs. Hutton leaned into her daughter. Doc Mason yanked.

  The widow’s eyes flew open as if she’d been shot, then she fell slack and her head lolled to the side, her mouth open. Out cold.

  Haskell let go and shoved his shaking hands in his pockets. What was wrong with him?

  Chapter 4

  Martha sat at her dressing table, eyes closed, basking in Joseph’s attention. He stood behind her, pulling the hand-painted brush through her hair with long, smooth strokes. Smiling, she lifted her eyes to meet his in the glass.

  She gasped at the dark visage there, the ice-blue gaze that bore into her with an unsettling possessiveness. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again to see the parlor ceiling above her. Her parents’ parlor. A sling secured her right arm to her chest and her feet flounced awkwardly over the short settee’s armrest. She struggled to sit upright and a movement behind her warned of an approaching presence.

  “Allow me.”

  A deeply tanned hand took hold of her left arm and steadied her as she pulled herself up and swung her feet to the floor. The effort spun her head like a top and she raised her left hand to her temple.

  “Are you all right?”

  Again, that voice. She leaned against the settee’s back, gripping an armrest.

  “I’ll get you some water.”

  “I don’t want any water.” Her abruptness scratched her own ears and she glanced at the tall stranger standing in her parents’ home, so committed to her well-being.

  Training at a pastor’s hand forced a quieter response. “But thank you.”

  The man’s face bore the lines of one who squinted long and tirelessly into the sun. A deep indentation ringed his head, evidence of a hat normally worn over black collar-length hair. His shadowed jaw could have smoothed her nails if she dared raise them to it. She curled the fingers of her left hand and slid them beneath her skirt.

  Determined to know, she softened her tone. “Who are you and why are you here?”

  He pulled a footrest closer. Martha fully expected it to collapse beneath his weight, but it held him, though his knees pitched high, as if he were perched on a milk stool. In spite of his seating, he relaxed and the tension in his jaw loosened. “Haskell Jacobs, ma’am. I carried—brought you in from the street where you fell.”

  That explained the sling.

  “Why are you here?”

  He swallowed. “I brought you in—”

  “I know that.”

  A blue gaze slashed across her.

  She would not be intimidated. Not in her parents’ home. “Why are you here, in Cañon City, Mr. Jacobs?”

  The light dimmed as a shade drew down, shutting her out from what lay in those icy depths. “Business.”

  The next logical question jumped to her lips, but she bit it back.

  She raised her chin. “I see.”

  Footsteps approached from the kitchen and her mother appeared with a tray. “A cup of tea is just what you need, Marti. I’m glad to see you’ve awakened.”

  Evidently Mama thought Mr. Jacobs needed one too, for three cups perched atop the tray as well as the silver sugar bowl and three spoons. She stopped at Martha’s knee and held the tray, searching for signs of fever, illness, nerves, rash, pox—all the things a mother feared would overtake her offspring, regardless of their age.

  “Thank you, Mama.”

  A weak smile. Her mother turned to Mr. Jacobs, whose hand dwarfed the teacup. Surprisingly skillful with the china, he declined the sugar and held the cup and saucer unwaveringly.

  Those hands would swallow her hairbrush.

  Betrayed by the uninvited image, Martha smarted at the heat in her face and bent her head to hide her humiliation.

  Her mother took the chair to Martha’s left, facing Mr. Jacobs. Silence encased them in a delicate web that Martha cared not to break herself. She sipped the hot tea. Chamomile, her favorite.

  The sun slanted through lace curtains at the west window and cut ornate designs on the carpet. Her father would be home soon for supper. Shouldn’t Mr. Jacobs be leaving?

  Head down, she peeked at his boots, dusty and black like the rest of his attire, other than a gray shirt beneath his shadowed chin. A coat brush would do the man a world of good. Had he no wife to care for his clothes?

  O Lord, help me. I am surely losing my mind.

  Her head ached with the search for clear thought and one bobbed to the surface.

  “The apron.” She looked to Mr. Jacobs. “Did you see an apron?”

  He stared as if she were a halfwit.

  She stared back.

  “Were you wearing an apron from the store?” Her mother’s cup landed hard on the saucer.

  Martha flinched. “No. I had rolled it up. It was in my hands, I think.”

  Mr. Jacobs retrieved his hat from beneath a chair and stood. “Thank you, Mrs. Hutton.” He set his cup and saucer on the tray that waited on a side table and turned to Martha. “I’m glad to see you are feeling better. Next time, look both ways before you step into the street.”

  Fire rushed into her temples. How dare he speak down to her. She was not a child. He ran into her. She opened her mouth to set him straight when her mother rose. “Thank you, Mr. Jacobs, for bringing Marti home safely. I do appreciate your concern.” She followed him to the door and clasped both hands at her waist.

  He held out a silver piece.

  “No, but
thank you. We can cover the doctor’s expenses. Really, it is not necessary.”

  He laid the coin next to the lamp by the front window, jerked his hat on and nodded to them both.

  “Ma’am. Miss.” Then he left.

  Her mother ignored the silver, returned to Martha and sat next to her, reaching for her left hand. “I’m sure he meant well.”

  “I am sure he meant nothing of the sort.”

  The set of her mother’s mouth forewarned a lecture. Martha withdrew her hand. She was not a child. Did both Mr. Jacobs and her mother see her as such?

  “Marti—”

  “Why do you insist on calling me that? I am not a schoolgirl. I am a grown woman, an educated woman.”

  That had not come out as she intended.

  Her mother’s face paled and her jawline tightened. She looked directly into Martha’s eyes.

  “Educated enough not to step in front of a man on horseback?”

  Martha’s anger evaporated.

  “What if he had run you over? What if he had trampled you and left you in the street?”

  The suggestion certainly described Martha’s emotions at the moment. Tears clogged her throat and stung her eyes. She fingered the neck of her bodice.

  Her mother’s tone softened. “What were you thinking?”

  At such gentleness, the barricade broke, and words gushed out on a wrenching sob. “I was thinking of children—the children I will never have.”

  Martha leaned into her mother’s embrace, much more a schoolgirl than a woman. “Oh, Mama, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought I could go on without Joseph, but I can’t. I’ve tried and everywhere I turn I think of him, of what might have been.”

  She pulled a hankie from her sleeve and held it to her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been sorry quite long enough for something you’ve no need to apologize for. Is this what Joseph would want you to do—grieve your life away? Or would he want you to remember him for the good days you shared? Be the vibrant young woman he fell in love with?”