A Midwife Crisis (6 page)

John hadn’t expected Katie to be so easily convinced to work for him. Of course now he was faced with the small dilemma of what to do with her once she arrived. His plan had been to use her as bait for the ill, but she probably wouldn’t agree to sitting on the front porch with a sign around her neck. He needed something legitimate for her to do.

Pacing around his office, he studied the immaculate shelves, all his equipment neatly organized and his medical books in their alphabetical order.

“Damn,” he muttered, quickly jerking the books onto the floor, before collecting his instruments and laying them in a pile.

It wasn’t enough. That small mess could be organized in a matter of minutes, not days. Rushing to the basement, he retrieved some of the smaller crates that had been used to ship his possessions from New York. He returned to his office and stuffed everything he could into the crates. Emptying drawers, pulling pictures from the walls, he managed to achieve his desired results. The room was in shambles and not a moment too soon.

The clanging of the brass bell on his front door announced the arrival of a guest. Peeking through the
curtains, he saw Katie standing on the porch. Her dark cloak pulled closely to ward off the chill, the handle of a basket looped through the crook of her arm. He took the time to regain his breath as Mrs. Adkins answered the door.

“Dr. Keffer?” Mrs. Adkins said. “Katie Napier is here.” She stepped through the doorway of his office, and her mouth gaped open.

Don’t say anything, Mrs. Adkins
, he willed, knowing the state of his office surprised her. Hell, it surprised him.

“Miss Napier,” he said, walking toward Katie in hopes of stopping Mrs. Adkins from exposing his charade. “I’m so glad you agreed to help me. As you can see, I need it.”

He glanced at Mrs. Adkins, and the twinkle in her eyes told him his secret was safe with her. “I’ll leave you two to work,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her.

“My, oh my,” Katie said, turning a small circle as she removed her gloves and eyed the pandemonium around them.

“I’ve been occupied,” he lied, “and I just haven’t had the chance to organize things since I’ve moved in.”

“Well”—she allowed him to remove her cloak—“we’d best get busy.”

He laid her cloak across the back of the only accessible chair in the room, then picked his way through the chaos to his medical instruments. Those were the first things he had to get off the floor; the thought of one of them breaking under foot sent a shudder through him.

“Did you get a chance to tell your friends they could contact you here if they need you?” Was that too obvious? He glanced askance, but she didn’t seem suspicious.

“Yes, I told several people at church yesterday.” She dug through his box of diplomas. “As a matter of fact, Eunice Kopp is stopping by after a while for some goldenseal root. Her stomach is actin’ up again.” She smiled before continuing. “Of course, by the time she gets here she could have six or eight other things actin’ up.”

She lifted his medical diploma with its ornately carved wooden frame from the crate. “Do you know where you’d like to hang this?”

“Hmmm.” He pretended to think. “How about the wall behind my desk?”

She crossed the room and hung the picture on the nail it had occupied until fifteen minutes before. “Why, that’s perfect.” Standing back to admire her work, she made a quick adjustment to the frame. “And the nail was already there.”

“What luck,” he mumbled, taking as much time as he could to place his stethoscope in the cabinet, scooting it a few inches to the left, then back to the right. This disaster needed to last a few days, or at least until he had the chance to create another. “So when is Mrs. Kopp coming by?”

“This afternoon.”

He kept his back to her with the pretense of putting away his instruments, but the truth was, he found deception more difficult than he’d anticipated. “Does Mrs. Kopp have a large family?”

“Yes, and all of them sick with one thing or another.”

“Good. Not that they’re ill, of course, but good that they can come here—or to you—for help.” Could he have bumbled that any more?

Silence.

Great. Katie was already on to him. Slowly he turned toward her, expecting a knowing, if not rebuking, expression on her face. Instead, he found her kneeling on the floor beside his medical books, touching the leather bindings as though they were gold.

“Do you read, Miss Napier?”

“
An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy
,” she read from the cover of the top book on the stack. “I don’t read books like these, but I read most anything I can get a hold of.”

“And what is your favorite?”

A wistful smile flitted across her lips as she carried Leidy’s anatomy book to the shelf. “Shakespeare.”

She could not have surprised him more if she’d spoken in Chinese. “You—you can read Shakespeare?”

He hadn’t intended his response to be condescending, but the spark in her eye and the pink flush to her cheek told him he’d offended.

“Yes, Dr. Keffer,” she responded, her voice cool as a frosty windowpane. “I can read Shakespeare.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…it’s just that most people find Shakespeare tedious.”

She carried a few more books to the bookcase. “I guess I’m not most people.”

And a truer statement was never made.

At least now he understood why her speech was more educated than that of the others. Returning his attention to his instruments, he moved the stethoscope back to the place he’d had it before he’d stuck his foot in his mouth. The ticking of the mantel clock made the only sound in a room that was far too quiet.

“
Othello
?” he asked, when he could bear the silence no longer.

“
Romeo and Juliet
.”

“That’s my favorite too.”

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he caught her glancing back with a wry smile, subtle but enough to melt some of the frost. “So tell me, Miss Napier, how did you manage to end up with three fiancés?”

“I made the mistake of agreeing with my family when they decided it was time I got hitched.”

He turned his attention to his syringe, the stethoscope finally landing in the correct spot. “Don’t most people marry only one at a time?”

She chuckled softly, and the frost melted completely. “I only intend to marry one of them, but I’m having a horrible time deciding which one. Every time I’m around them, they fight and bicker with each other so that I can’t get a word in edgewise.”

“Perhaps it would work better if you saw them separately.”

“How would I manage that?” She seemed genuinely interested in his opinion, and genuine interest should never go unrequited.

“You could give each of them a different day of the week to do their calling. That way you’d get to know them without the interference of the others.”

“That’s a good idea. Now, can I ask you a question?”

“I believe you just did.”

She smiled, and the sun broke through. “You know what I mean.”

He returned her smile, unable to do otherwise. “Ask away.”

“Will your wife be joining you any time soon?”

He froze. It took a second before his mind allowed him to remember that none of the people here knew what had happened. It was only natural for Katie to assume Julia’s mother would be following from New York. He turned back toward his cabinet, finding it easier to say what he had to if he wasn’t looking at her.

“My wife is dead.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was hushed and tinged with the uncomfortable realization she’d opened a painful wound.

“No need to apologize, Miss Napier.” He fought down the paralyzing guilt, threatening to choke him. “You didn’t kill Lois…I did.”

The jingling bell at the top of Frank Davis’s door sounded far too chipper, given Katie’s frame of mind.

“Mornin’, Katie.” A chorus of greetings met Katie from the men sitting around the potbellied stove.

“Mornin’,” she responded, barely looking up from her reticule.

John had given her money to buy some ink for his office, even though Katie had seen a full bottle in one of the crates. Didn’t matter. She’d gladly jumped on the excuse to make a quick trip to Frank’s store. John’s startling revelation had left them both too rattled for polite conversation.

Katie didn’t believe for one minute he’d murdered his wife, but the pain in his voice left no room for questions.

He’d talk when he felt like it.

“Katie?” Harold said, separating himself from the gang around the stove.

“Oh, good morning.” In her frazzled state, she’d failed to notice him.

“I heard you was working down at the doc’s office now.”

“Yes, but just a few days a week.”

“If’n you was to marry me, you wouldn’t have to work nowhere.”

Except in his kitchen? “I’m working because I want to.”

He snorted. “Ain’t proper for you to work so much alone with that man.”

“Dr. Keffer is a respectable gentleman, and his daughter and housekeeper are there at all times.” Her response probably sounded defensive, but Harold hadn’t heard the pain in John’s voice. Defending him seemed natural at the moment.

The bell at Frank’s door jingled again, causing Harold to glare at the person entering behind her. She sighed. That could only mean one thing.

“Mornin’, Katie.”

“Mornin’, Randy,” she answered before she even saw his face. She didn’t need to. She’d seen Harold’s.

“Dagnabbit!” Harold fumed. “Do you have to be everywhere I am?”

“Listen, you old coot—”

“Gentlemen!” Katie interrupted before they came to blows. “It’s actually good that you are both here.” She waited, hands lifted to keep them apart, until they relaxed and faced her. “This arguing and bickering is keeping me from getting to know any of you.”

“He started it,” Randy said, pointing an accusing finger at Harold.

“
You
started it when you walked in the door,” Harold answered, and the hackles rose again.

“Hush!” Both sets of eyes rolled toward her sheepishly. “I have decided the only way to solve this problem
is to separate the three of you when it comes to seein’ me. Harold”—she tipped her head in his direction—“you get Mondays. You’re welcome to come out to the cabin on Monday evenings for dinner, if you’d like, and we can get a chance to talk a little.”

Turning toward Randy, she said, “And you can have Wednesdays. Freddie gets Fridays.”

“And the doc gets the others?” Harold asked in a tone Katie was beginning to find annoying.

“The doc isn’t courting me.”

“Ain’t the doc married?” Randy asked, his ire suddenly directed away from Harold.

“He’s a widower,” she murmured, digging into her reticule for her money. Time to get ink and get out before she had to defend John to Randy too.

“So you’re workin’ alone with the doc, and he ain’t married?”

Too late. His tone matched Harold’s, and she’d had about enough of both of them. “I’ll work with whoever I’ve a mind to, and if you two don’t like it, I’ll just marry Freddie.”

Whipping around to the counter, she slammed the coins on the top with more force than she’d intended. Poor Frank jumped, knocking his glasses sideways on the end of his nose.

“I need a bottle of ink, Frank.”

Frank hurried to retrieve a bottle from the shelf behind the counter and hand it to Katie. It wasn’t like her to raise her voice or slam her hand on countertops. It felt pretty good, despite the fact Randy, Harold, Frank, and the gang around the potbellied stove stared at her in disbelief.

She stuffed the bottle into her reticule and walked to the door, head held high. If they didn’t like this side of Katie Napier, so be it. She liked it fine.

The trip to the store had been the perfect remedy for the tension that had built between her and John. By the time she returned, he was back to normal, smiling his tight-lipped smile and rearranging the instruments in his medical cabinet with the speed of a snail. No wonder his office was still a mess. The man couldn’t even put away a bandage without moving it ten or eleven times.

They talked of nonpersonal things, such as Shakespeare and the weather, until it was time for her to take the three-mile hike back to her cabin. Her mind whirled through a thousand possible reasons why John would say such a thing about his wife’s death, while she traipsed down the wagon road and across the creek to her home.

That whirling mind was the only explanation she could give for why, until Harold thumped on their door precisely at dinnertime, she’d forgotten it was Monday. And she had promised Harold Mondays.

Grandpa beamed as he hurried over to shake his hand. “Katie, why didn’t you tell us Harold was coming over for supper?”

“I wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it.” She quickly pulled more bread out of the Hoosier and set another plate at the table, hoping her excuse sounded reasonable.

Harold barely nodded in her direction before Grandpa dragged him to the hearth to warm up and chat. Her irritation at basically being ignored only escalated
when immediately after dinner Grandpa and Harold dove into a game of checkers that lasted long after Grandma and Pa had already gone to bed.

Katie darned socks while the two laughed, goaded, and bickered away the evening, leaving her knowing no more about Harold when he left than when he came. Except that he wasn’t as good at checkers as Grandpa and occasionally, according to Grandpa, he cheated.

“You’re just mad ’cause I beat you,” Harold said, pulling on his coat and hat.

Grandpa hooked his thumbs into his suspenders with a snort. “We’ll just see about that next time you come.”

It was all Katie could do not to roll her eyes. Another evening of those two carryin’ on was not something she looked forward to.

“Harold, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can, Katie.” His surprised expression made her wonder if he’d forgotten about her existence until that moment.

Lifting her cloak from the peg by the door, she gestured for Harold to join her on the porch. Getting away from Grandpa was the only way she’d get a private word with her would-be husband.

They stepped into the cold night and across the creaky porch boards to a pair of rocking chairs where Katie took a seat. She waited while Harold creaked into the other one.

“Why do you want to marry me?” she asked, once all the creaking was done.

“I, uh…” He stopped to think, which was probably
a good thing. “You’re a fine cook and a good woman.”

Not a ringing endorsement for a marriage proposal, but it was no doubt honest. “That all?”

“Course not.” He chuckled and suddenly she felt herself blush. “A man my age needs a woman what’s good with herbs and such.”

“Oh.”

“My bowels ain’t what they used to be.”

“Oh.” Again, but then what else could a woman say after something like that? “Well, I’m glad we had this little chat,” she said, wishing she’d stayed in the house with her darned socks.

Harold bid her good night, then walked down the hill to his waiting wagon. His old horse was standing patiently in the same spot he’d left him, the only evidence of passing time being the pile of manure on the ground behind the animal. Evidently, the horse’s bowels worked just fine.