Ginny Aiken (9 page)

The cluster of women at the bordello door sang out their objection.

One then asked, “Who’s she?”

“Humph,” another answered. “Her’n her fine clothes ain’t no better’n us.”

“Uh-huh,” the third concurred. “An’ look how cozy the do-good newspaperman is with her.”

Letty’s face burned at their speculations. Especially in light
of the intense moment she and Eric had shared in her kitchen before Caroline showed up.

Behind her Eric stopped. His hand left her mouth and his arm slipped from her waist, but he stayed close. Letty felt safe and protected, if mortified.

His breath warmed her earlobe. “See why I told you to stay back with the children? You don’t belong among riffraff.”

Letty paid only partial attention to Eric’s words. Her focus flew between her awareness of his proximity and the scene before her. The young woman, still fighting her “client,” silently beseeched Letty for help, her hazel eyes filled with fear.

Letty’s size and the baby in her arms rendered her helpless. In desperation, the blonde raised her knee and aimed for the man’s groin.

He blocked her attempt with a beefy thigh. A bestial roar poured from his mouth. “I knows better’n that. Hey, Bessie, we’s got us a bill to settle.”

As he twisted to protect himself, his grip on the girl’s slender arm loosened enough for her to wrest herself free. Intent on escape, she didn’t see Slosh’s foot and tripped, landing on his prone body. After a scant pause, she resumed her fight for freedom.

Letty noticed the gash over the girl’s eyebrow. Her golden curls drooped forward, and her head, seemingly too heavy for her slender neck, followed.

“Here,” Letty said to Caroline. “Take your brother. She’s hurt. I must see to her.”

Letty ran to the girl and cautiously turned her head to better gauge the wound. It was deep and would require suturing. The girl’s general appearance and her unfocused gaze told Letty her new patient had sustained a concussion.

“C’mon back, Daisy,” said a woman at the brothel door. “Let’s git you fixed up again. Night’s jist startin’.”

“Yeah,” urged another. “Suggs already paid. You c’n git yourself another fella an’ make out real nice.”

A chorus of yesses followed.

Letty looked around and saw that Daisy’s “customer” had indeed left, but she could hardly believe the women expected the girl to return to “work” in her current condition.

“No,” she said, smoothing Daisy’s brow. The street fell silent. “She’s hurt. I’m taking her home.”

Slosh’s rude “hic!” broke the uneasy hush. “I’d sure ’nuff like to take ’er home wid me.”

Letty’s anger rose again, but before she could act, Eric swooped, grabbed a handful of filthy shirt, and shook Slosh. Letty took Daisy in her arms. She was dismayed by the girl’s slenderness.

She struggled to her feet, her movements unwieldy. Eric dropped Slosh and rushed to her side.

He reached for Daisy. “What are you doing? You can’t take her with you. If their comments shamed you, imagine what the respectable folks in town will say once they learn you took a tart home.”

“I don’t give one fig what they say. I care what God thinks. If I don’t tend to this child as I’ve been trained to do, I’ll be rejecting His call to serve His children. I won’t reject my Lord.”

She turned to Caroline. “You come with me, too, dear. Let’s hurry home. It’s late, and it’s getting colder.”

The painted women returned to their place of business, muttering among themselves. Two men who’d watched from the entry to a billiard hall went back inside. Slosh sang out a ditty interrupted by belches and hiccups.

“Hey, Ca’line,” he suddenly called, “don’ leave yore ol’ Pa here like this. Gi’ us a hand.”

Letty urged Caroline to help her get Daisy and Willy to her house. Eric’s hand fell on her shoulder. “I can carry Daisy.”

Slosh renewed his serenade.

“Your offer’s tempting,” Letty said to Eric, “but I can manage. Please see to Slosh. He can’t stay all night in the middle of the road.”

Indecision played on Eric’s face, and then he shrugged. “Have it your way, but as soon as I’m done with him, I’ll come help.”

Letty studied him with shrewd calculation. “Yes, Eric, do come after you’re done with Slosh. I’ll have the children settled, and we can have a long-overdue conversation. Don’t think for a second you can escape this moment of truth.”

A sheepish smile lifted the brown fringe over his mouth. “I guess I’m about to get a dose of Dr. Morgan’s doctoring.”

“I daresay you are. I need to treat your tendency to evade pertinent issues.”

“Then I’d better hurry with Slosh. I wouldn’t want to evade the pertinent chat.”

“Indeed, Mr. Wagner.”

“Indeed, Dr. Morgan.”

After Letty settled Caroline and Willy in her bed, she returned to Daisy, whose forehead now sported a row of stitches.

Letty woke her to check the dilation of her pupils. “How do you feel?”

Daisy groaned. Her unusual yellow-hazel eyes rolled and then fixed on Letty.

“Can you handle a cup of tea?” Letty asked.

“Sounds good.” Daisy tried to sit.

Letty caught her. “Not so fast, young lady. That’s too much moving for your head. I’ll bring the tea and help you sit.”

She hurried to fetch the beverage, her heart aching for the child in Daisy, a child forced to grow up inappropriately and too soon. Daisy should still be studying her lessons, embroidering to fill a hope chest, dreaming of a first suitor, not meeting the basest needs of the basest of men.

Letty sighed. What could she do?

As she helped the girl with the tea, Letty chatted, trying to draw her out. Daisy soon told her how no one took her in after
her parents died. Bessie, Slosh’s enterprising friend, had offered shelter and the means to earn her keep. Scared, not knowing where else to turn, Daisy accepted the older woman’s offer.

Sobs wracked the girl’s thin shoulders. Something had to be done. This child could not—would not—return to the brothel.

Daisy soon slept. Letty’s thoughts churned up possibilities. She discarded most, since the viable ones required help and folks who’d have to be contacted, whose cooperation had to be obtained.

Mid-deliberations, someone knocked. Expecting Eric, Letty went to let him in, but it wasn’t him after all. Bessie stood in the shadows cast by the lamp at Letty’s left. “How is she, Doc?”

“She’s hurt, but she’ll be fine if she gets enough rest. She can’t go back . . . go back to—”

“No, Doc,” Bessie cut in with a smirk. “She cain’t go back to
work.
”

Letty blushed. “Yes, Bessie,” she said. “I hate and object to the sin-filled life you lead. As for Daisy, she can stay here to recover—”

“Nah. I’ll take ’er with me. I got an extra bed these days, an’ she can rest there. I’ll keep an eye out for ’er.”

Letty wanted to argue, but she saw Bessie’s determined jaw and her disdain. She surrendered with grace.

Still concerned, however, she offered detailed instructions. “Please keep her from rising too rapidly. Daisy’s concussed, and her head can’t handle abrupt changes in position. If she has any problems, do send for me. I want to help her—”

“Ya’ve helped enough already,” Bessie said, eyes narrowed. “I’ll take care of ’er now. How much I owes ya?”

Letty met Bessie’s gaze. “Not a penny. I did this—”

“Yeah, yeah. Outta the kindness of yer heart. I knows yer kind. A harlot’s money’s not good enough for ya.”

“I
never
said or thought that. I never would, either. I just want to help an injured child, that’s all.”

Bessie stared. After a moment she lifted a shoulder, dislodging her pea-green shawl. A generous portion of white flesh bulged at the neckline of her blue and black lace dress. The exposure embarrassed Letty, yet it bothered Bessie not one bit.

“Mebbe,” Bessie said, “mebbe not. A gentleman friend brung me in ’is carriage. I’ll take Daisy home with us.”

“Very well.” Letty counted pellets into two small envelopes, sealed and labeled them, and gave them to Bessie. “Here. Arnica’s for shock, and she’ll need it for a while yet. The other one, Ruta Graveolens, is for bruised bones. Make sure she takes it tomorrow.”

“How much I owes ya?” Bessie asked again.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

With another careless shrug, Bessie took the remedies, slipped them into a green silk reticule, and then shook the sleeping Daisy. The girl’s eyes fluttered open, widening with what looked to Letty like fear. Daisy bit her lower lip.

“G’bye, Doc,” Bessie said, leading Daisy away.

The urge to stop the woman knotted Letty’s middle, but any effort would be futile. Her concern for the injured child grew. With nerves stretched to violin-string tension, she neatened the clinic as she sought the Lord in prayer.

Capping the Arnica made her think of Eric. The memory of the intense moment that evening rushed to her mind. Her hands grew clammy. How had she let herself wind up in such a risqué position?

She blushed and acknowledged that her curiosity, that vexing urge to learn, to know more, had again joined forces with her other bête noire, her impulsiveness.

The remedy jar cap slipped from her fingers. Glancing down to where it landed, Letty noted it hadn’t shattered.

But
she
was on the verge of shattering. She had never experienced sensations such as those Eric evoked. They surpassed
her wildest imaginations, especially since she’d surrendered all dreams of a loving spouse and children, a family. She’d focused instead on developing her God-given gift to heal, and on becoming self-sufficient and needing no one but herself and the heavenly Father.

Men saw her as less than the womanly ideal they sought for wife and mother, and she never pretended to look like anything other than what she was—a doctor. Then she met Eric Wagner. Could this man be interested in her?
Her?

She puzzled over Eric’s intensity after so many days of aloof behavior. Why had he come so close, looked at her with such fervor? Inexperienced she was; ignorant she wasn’t. Something had burned in Eric’s gaze. It had singed her. She didn’t understand why it had happened. Especially since every time they’d met after the first typewriting lesson, he’d been distant and polite, even off-putting, his manner cool.

The man who’d tangled hands with her was anything but cool. That man cared and shared her interest. Today that interest had blazed to attraction. The most intriguing man Letty knew was interested in her.

Perhaps she
was
womanly enough to attract a man.

Perhaps God had heard her girlish prayers. Eric was alone. Although he obviously still grieved the loss of his wife, maybe his interest revealed his readiness to seek another love. Dare she aspire to that? Would Eric want a woman doctor?

Perhaps. In any case, those were matters best left where they belonged: in God’s hands.

Letty dozed awhile until a knock came at her door. The sight of Eric reminded her of her earlier thoughts, and she blushed, incapable of even the briefest greeting. She hastened to the kitchen. The chair she pulled out scraped against the floor, and she collapsed in it.

Dear Lord, what did I set myself up for?

As Eric followed Letty to the kitchen, dreading their “pertinent chat,” a chick peeped from the comfort of its box.

Letty’s cheeks showed a hint of rose, and Eric feared her discomfiture matched his now that they found themselves alone in her kitchen again. The troublesome typewriter sat at the far end of the table. The memory it evoked was almost enough to send him back out for a dose of wintry air.

He needed to clear his thoughts, to chill his attraction to the doctor. He had to prevent a similar episode in the future.

Hoping to forget, wondering if he could, Eric brought up the other matter he would have rather avoided. “I took Slosh home. Amelia and Steven were preparing a meal. I made certain Slosh had a cup of coffee and some bread.”

Without looking away from her knotted hands, Letty’s head bobbed up and down.

Her awkwardness confirmed Eric’s earlier fear. Clearly, Letty was uncomfortable with the memory of that moment. Why shouldn’t she be? Why would a lovely, capable young woman like Letty need, or want, the attentions of an older widower? Particularly one who bore guilt in his wife’s death. Any number of younger men would be more suitable.