Dorothy Garlock (3 page)

“Mr. Jones, Dr. Forbes isn’t an old goat! And if you should be foolish enough to get fresh with me, be aware that I carry a large hatpin, and I know how to use it when I meet up with a masher who isn’t smart enough to keep his hands to himself.”

“Ouch! Masher, huh?”

“Yes, masher. Now, where can I hang my wet clothes?” “Toss them on the line over the stove. When the rain lets up, I’ll take you over to my pa’s place, and in the morning I’ll go down and pull your car out of the mudhole.”

“I would appreciate that. And, of course, I’ll pay you for the trouble.”

“How much?” He was laughing at her. His expression was rich with the droll humor of a natural-born flirt. His eyes, beneath heavy straight brows, were so blue, so bright and vivid with laughter that they fascinated her. They were twinkling stars in his sun-browned face. There was a fine etching of spider wrinkles around his mouth. He was a good-looking man, probably well aware of it. Watching him set out bowls and spoons on the table, she judged him to be between twenty-five and thirty.

“How far did you drive today, Miss R.N.?”

“Asbury. April Asbury. I drove from Kearney. I stopped to visit a distant cousin.”

“By jinks damn! I’m dining with a relative of Jesse James. They say everyone in Kearney is related to him in one way or the other.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. My cousin moved there from Independence a few years ago.”

“Naw?” He looked crestfallen. “Shoot! If you were related to the outlaw, it would have raised my standing at the pool hall. I might have gotten a few free games after spinning the yarn about the cousin of Jesse James spending the night at my house.”

“You mean that would create excitement—”

“Sure. If you’ve seen the uncle of Charles Lindbergh, you’re a celebrity in town.”

In spite of herself, April laughed. “Do you ever get off-stage, Mr. Jones?”

“Not when I’m having fun, Miss Asbury.” He grinned at her and nodded for her to sit down. “My sister Julie is like a mother hen.” Joe stirred the stew heating on the stove. “Even though most of us are grown up now, she still mothers us.”

“Most of you?”

“Our baby sister, Joy, just turned sixteen. She’s a handful, but no more than our other sister, Jill, was at that age. Jill’s married to my best friend, Thad Taylor. We own adjoining tracts of land and farm together.” Joe ladled stew into a bowl and placed it in front of April. “If I’d known I was going to entertain a lady tonight, I’d have shaved.”

Inhaling the aroma from the stew, April suddenly realized that she was hungry.

“I hate to leave Daisy down there on the road all night.” “Hell and damnation, woman!” Joe dropped his spoon on the table. “You didn’t tell me there was another woman—”

“You didn’t ask me.” April enjoyed watching him jump up from the table and pull out a slicker and mud boots.

“Does she have an umbrella?”

“No. An umbrella wouldn’t cover her.”

“Well, hell. I don’t have another slicker.”

“She doesn’t need one. This stew is delicious. I must get the recipe from your sister. You should eat yours before it gets cold.”

“I can’t sit here and eat when a woman’s sitting down there on the road. She’s probably scared to death.”

“She isn’t a woman.”

“What is she? A kid? My God but you’re a cold one.” “Let’s see . . . 1925. That would make her about nine years old.”

“You left a nine-year-old kid down there in the car by herself? I can’t believe anyone would be so stupid. My God! What was Doc thinking of when he hired you?”

“He was thinking that he had gotten the best nurse to come out of St. Luke’s Nursing School.”

“A nurse is supposed to have a little horse sense! Who is with her?”

“Nobody, unless someone came along.”

“Don’t eat all the stew. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” “Daisy will be all right until morning. If I couldn’t drive her out of that mudhole, you sure can’t.”

Joe turned at the door. His eyes honed in on her and narrowed. She lifted her brows in a silent reply and raised her empty bowl at the same time.

“May I have some more of your sister’s delicious stew . . . please?”

“There’s not a woman or a kid down there? Daisy ...is your car?”

“The sweetest little Ford Runabout you ever did see. I’m crazy about her.”

“I ought to strangle you.” He began taking off his slicker and kicking out of his mud boots.

“But you won’t. The Jones family are pillars of the community. You told me so yourself.”

“Well, I lied. The Joneses are blood brothers to Al Capone.” He bared his teeth. “We’re also cousins to Pretty Boy Floyd and Bugs Moran. My great-great-great-grandpappy was Benedict Arnold’s best friend.”

“Hmmm. That does change things. You are a bad lot. I’ve not known Dr. Forbes to make such a mistake in judgment. It makes me seriously doubt his medical ability.”

“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve been told that my intelligence is above average. Let this be a lesson to you, Mr. Jones. Know the facts before you jump to conclusions.”

“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” he said again, enjoying bantering with her.

“I don’t even have to think about it.”

“Well, think about this—I’ve got one horse. I can let you ride with me, or I can make you walk along behind carrying a load like an Indian squaw.”

“I’m not worried. The Joneses would not want their reputation tarnished by such a dastardly deed. I must ask your sister for the recipe for this stew.”

“You wouldn’t want the recipe if you knew what was in it,” he growled. “Worms, grasshoppers—”

“Oh, I love worms. Have you ever had them dipped in chocolate?”

Joe lifted his eyes to her smiling face and couldn’t look away.

By damn! She was something else.

Chapter 2

T
HE NIGHT WAS DARK
, foggy and utterly quiet except for the labored breathing of the horse and the whisper of leaves in the treetops as the wind passed through them.

“I hope you know where you’re going. It’s darker than the bottom of a well out here.”

“How many times have you been in the bottom of a well?” “Are you never serious?” she asked with an exasperated sigh.

Joe chuckled. “The horse knows where we’re going.” “Thank goodness for that.” April tried to sit up straight and not lean back against him. “How much farther?”

“Not much. Cold?”

“No.”

“Then sit still or I’ll not be able to keep the slicker around you. You’re the most mule-headed woman I ever met.” His voice was close to her ear. “You’d not admit you were cold if you were freezing to death.”

“You’ve only known me for a few hours, Mr. Jones. How do you know how stubborn I am?”

“I can read you like a book, Miss April. You’re cold. You’re wishing you’d stayed an extra day with Jesse’s kin down in Kearney and missed the rain. And you’re wondering what my pa is going to say about me riding in this time of night with a pretty woman dressed in my old work clothes.” When he laughed, his breath was warm on her ear. “Since my pa married my stepmother, he’s been a churchgoin’ man. He might get out the shotgun and make me marry you.”

“Oh, no! I can’t let that happen. Dozens of women will commit suicide, and I’ll carry the guilt to my grave.”

His arms pulled her tightly against him, and she could feel the movement of his chest when he chuckled.

Lord. She was rare. He’d not had so much fun since he’d stood by and watched a fat girl chasing his friend Thad Taylor down a street in Oklahoma. If not for the fact the creek might be flooding the road, he’d take her on to town just to prolong his time with her.

“We’re almost there. Old Sam’s picked up speed. He’s thinking about that nice dry barn ahead and a bucket of oats.”

No doubt about it, Joe Jones was a charmer. Every single woman in Fertile, Missouri, must be after him. April vowed not to be among them. When she met the right man and settled down, it would
not
be with a handsome man. Her father had been one, and, according to her grandmother, her mother had not had an easy time with him.

They rode into the yard of the Jones farm and right up to the back porch. Joe slid off the horse and reached up to lift her down. She was surprised that her legs were stiff and numb, and she had to lean against him for a minute, during which time the back door opened, letting a ribbon of light flow out across the porch.

“Jack, is that you?”

“No. It’s me, Pa. I’ve brought a lady who was stranded down the road.”

“I thought you were Jack.”

April blinked until her eyes became accustomed to the light. Then she saw a stocky man, not as tall as his son. His hair was dark with wings of gray at the temple. She held out her hand.

“April Asbury, Mr. Jones. I’m sorry to impose on you at this hour, but my car’s stuck, and I walked to your son’s house.”

“She’s Todd’s new nurse, Pa.”

The big hand that engulfed hers was warm and callused. “Come in. My wife is upstairs putting our son to bed. She’ll be down shortly.”

“Is Jack here?”

“No. He went to town this afternoon when it started to rain again.”

“I’ll put Sam in the barn. In the morning I’ll get Jack to go with me to pull her car out of the mudhole. Here are your clothes, Miss April.” He shoved the flour sack containing the damp clothing into her hand.

April entered a warm, homey kitchen filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread. The teakettle on the big cook-stove emitted a thin plume of steam. A bowl of shiny apples sat on the blue-flowered oilcloth that covered the table.

“Hello.” A pleasant-faced woman with soft blond hair came into the room and closed the door leading to the stairway. “Oh, my. You got caught in the rain.”

“I certainly did.” April held out her arms, showing the large shirt she was wearing. “Mr. Jones was kind enough to lend me something dry.”

“I’m Eudora Jones.”

April held out her hand. “April Asbury. I’ve come to work with Dr. Forbes.”

“How nice to meet you.” Eudora smiled and her husband smiled watching her. “Sit down and I’ll make us a cup of tea. You do drink tea?”

“Hot in the winter, cold in the summer.”

“It’s not quite winter, but the air is cold and damp.” April liked Eudora Jones immediately. She was somewhat younger than her husband, certainly not old enough to be Joe’s mother. Dr. Forbes had told her that Jethro Jones’s first wife had died and Julie, his oldest daughter, who was sixteen at the time, had stepped in, run the house and taken care of her siblings.

Later, after Eudora had hung April’s wet clothes on a line that stretched over the cookstove, she poured hot tea. The four of them sat at the kitchen table.

“Dr. Forbes has been without a nurse since his last one got married and moved to St. Joseph. I thought for a while we might have a nurse in the family.” Eudora’s teasing eyes went to Joe.

“There was no danger of that,” he commented dryly. “Unless Jack would get caught in her net. She was too old for Jason.”

Jethro chuckled, then said seriously, “I wish Jack would patch it up with Ruby. I’m thinking it’s going to take that to settle him down.”

There was a long silence that prompted April to think there was more to the story of Jack not being “settled down” and they didn’t want to discuss it in front of her.

“Have you heard from Jason?” Joe asked.

“Yesterday.” Eudora’s eyes met her husband’s before she turned to April. “Our Jason is going to school in St. Louis. Charles Lindbergh is his hero. He has this burning desire to be an airplane pilot. When he can, he wants to take flying lessons. We’re very proud of him.”

“He’s had the flying bug since a barnstorming friend of Julie’s husband, Evan, stopped here a few years ago on his way to an air show,” Jethro explained. “Jason has read and studied everything he could get his hands on about airplanes since then. When he turned twelve, Evan took him to Kansas City so he could go up in a plane.”

“I’m eager to meet Julie. Dr. Forbes spoke highly of her.” April felt a tinge of regret that she had never had brothers or sisters. She knew from the tone of Joe’s voice and the look on his face when he spoke of his siblings that they meant a lot to him.

“Jill looks like she swallowed a watermelon.” The teasing look suddenly spread over Joe’s face. “Thad says she’s getting as ornery as a cat with a knot in its tail.”

“Jill is a small girl,” Eudora explained to April. “She’s carrying around quite a load right now.”

“Thad’s afraid to go to the field. Someone told him that first babies come early. He’ll be a wreck by the time it gets here,” Joe said.

“She’s got a couple of weeks to go. Julie’s been going over every day.”

“I hope this is the last of the rain. Thad’s already worried how he’ll get to Julie if the creek is up. He has it all planned: He goes first to get Julie, then you, Eudora, then he’s off to town to get Doc. If the roads are bad, he’ll go on horseback and take an extra horse for the doc.”

“Jill said that she just might stay pregnant permanently. Thad waits on her hand and foot. He’ll hardly let her lift a glass of water. He has tended to the garden this summer and even helped her can beans and tomatoes.”

“He’s spoilin’ her, is what he’s doin’,” Joe said.

“She was already spoiled.” Jethro was grinning. “You and Jack spoiled her, then Thad took over the job.”

“Did Jack take the car to town?”

“No. He walked.”

“Maybe I should mosey on into town and come back with him. I’ll stop by and let Doc know his nurse is here.”

“Suit yourself.” Jethro got to his feet. “Better take your slicker. It’ll probably rain off and on all night.”

Joe tied his horse to the fence in front of Dr. Forbes’s clinic, then followed the walk to the porch and around to the doctor’s private quarters. When he knocked on the door, it was opened immediately.

“That was quick. Are you expectin’ one of your adorin’ ladies? Sorry to disappoint you.” Joe’s grin said that he was not sorry at all.

“You s-sick, I hope,” Doc grunted.

“Nope. I’m fit as a fiddle.”

“Well, c-come in anyway.”

Dr. Forbes was a rough-looking man with heavy shoulders and chest. He looked more like a lumberjack or a stevedore than a doctor. A few years older than Joe, he had come to town right out of medical school about nine years earlier and had taken over old Dr. Curtis’s practice. He had a quick wit besides being an excellent doctor. He also had a slight stutter in his speech, which, for some unknown reason, endeared him to the ladies.