Love Inspired Historical December 2013 Bundle: Mail-Order Mistletoe Brides\The Wife Campaign\A Hero for Christmas\Return of the Cowboy Doctor (87 page)

It was regret.

Chapter Seventeen

H
ow had he let himself get talked into this?

Slightly nauseous and sweating through the Sunday shirt, coat and tie that his brothers had insisted he wear, Maxwell paced behind the small Bear Creek café, where tonight's poetry reading would be held.

He was thankful only Oscar and Sam would be here to witness him humbling himself in front of a passel of people. Oscar had ordered the rest of the brothers to stay home and threatened to tell Penny if they showed up anyway.

That wasn't really what Maxwell was worried about.

He was worried about putting his heart on the line for anyone who showed up to hear.

It might be embarrassing, but he was determined that he would do whatever he could—whatever he had to—to win Hattie.

She was worth it, even if it meant expressing his feelings in front of the whole town. Or, at least, anyone who showed up for the poetry reading.

“Any sign of her?” he said, startling Sam, who stood in the partially open doorway, looking inside the rapidly filling room. Light spilled outward, illuminating his friend but leaving Maxwell in the gathering darkness.

Maybe it would hide the heat that scorched his face, neck and chest just thinking about what he was about to do.

Hattie was worth it. She was worth it.

He just needed to keep repeating that to himself.

“Not yet,” came Sam's reply. “Emily isn't back, either.”

Sarah and Emily had been included in the plans by necessity. The fact that the two women had approved had made Maxwell feel better. Marginally.

He'd been so nervous earlier that Sam had sent Emily to retrieve Hattie, on the pretext of walking to the poetry reading with her friend. Maxwell sure wasn't going to make a fool of himself if Hattie didn't show up.

“Full crowd in there!” Oscar said, coming around the side of the building and clapping his brother on the shoulder.

“Oscar,” Sam growled.

Maxwell just moaned. His stomach threatened to heave, but he hadn't eaten any supper, so there wasn't much danger he'd make a mess of himself.

“You'll do fine,” his older brother assured him.

But the delay was doing nothing for Maxwell's confidence. What if she didn't come, after all their planning?

* * *

“Hattie! You're not dressed!”

Emily's stunned and dismayed cry when Hattie had come to the front door was a bit much.

“Yes, I am,” Hattie said, looking down at the serviceable dress she'd worn at the clinic that day.

“Oh, I guess it doesn't matter, but you're already late!”

To the poetry-club meeting. That Hattie had decided not to attend. She smiled as best she could at her friend.

“I'm not going.”

“But you
have
to go.” Emily nearly wailed the words. She flailed her hands, looking more upset than she had a right to be over a social event.

“I hardly ever go,” Hattie reminded her friend. “I'm tired. I've worked all day.” And she couldn't bear to see Maxwell smiling down at Annabelle, or anyone else for that matter.

“Shouldn't she go, Mrs. Powell?”

Hattie's mama sniffed a bit haughtily. “Hattie doesn't listen to my wishes on courtship or marriage.”

Not all of the ruffled feathers from the medical-school decision had been soothed. Likely wouldn't be until Hattie got married. If that ever happened.

Emily turned from one Powell woman to the other, then back again. Her agitation seemed out of proportion with the level of distress that Hattie missing the event actually called for. “Oh,
please
come along, Hattie.”

Hattie narrowed her eyes at her friend, suspicions rising. “Is something going on? And where's Sam, anyway?”

“He's already at the café,” Emily hedged. “And...”

“Spit it out.”

“...you don't want to miss the reading tonight. That's all I can say.”

“Does this have anything to do with Maxwell?” Hattie pressed her friend anyway.

Emily's expression softened. She bit her lip but shrugged her shoulders. Hattie didn't want her friend to break a confidence.

But Hattie was a smart girl, and her mind was already flying forward. Maxwell. Poetry.

Would he make some kind of statement to Hattie at the poetry reading? Emily's insistence that she go was more than unusual for her friend.

Was it possible Hattie
hadn't
ruined things beyond repair? Heart racing, she reached for her shawl with shaking hands. She wanted this, wanted to be with Maxwell, if he would still accept her.

What did the night have in store?

* * *

Hearting pounding, Hattie didn't know what to expect when she stepped into the café. Everything appeared the same as it had at the last meeting, people filling the chairs and a few stragglers conversing in whispers near the food tables at the rear.

The meeting had already begun, with Annabelle presiding, making some announcement about the next meeting time and place.

Hattie moved to slip into one of the empty seats in the back, not wanting to draw undue attention until she had her bearings, but Emily grasped her arm with a surprisingly tight hold and ushered her to the second row of seats—where no one sat, either in the second or first rows.

Emily moved past her into the row, and Sam moved toward them from the other side, relief on his face. Hattie wanted to back up, go somewhere a little more unobtrusive, but suddenly Sarah and Oscar were crowding behind her, forcing her into the center of the row of seats.

Seeing no way out of it, she plopped down, Sarah and Emily on either side. Where was Maxwell? She surreptitiously glanced around the room, attempting to locate him. Instead, she met several pairs of curious eyes, all trained on her. Her palms started to sweat. Nervous anticipation tickled her spine.

She blinked and looked forward, wanting to escape from prying eyes, but Annabelle's smile twinkled from the podium up front—right at Hattie, and her stomach clutched up. What was going on?

“Everyone, tonight we have a special treat.” Annabelle's face seemed to glow with pleasure as she spoke. “One of our very own residents is an aspiring poet...”

A buzz trickled through the crowd. Hattie heard several names whispered in conjecture.

“...and wants to share one of his poems...”

“His?” came a hiss from behind Hattie. “Who—”

“...with a special dedication.” Annabelle finished with a rap of her knuckles on the podium, and the group went silent.

Noise roared in Hattie's ears.

“Without further ado, Mr. Maxwell White.”

Annabelle left the podium to a smattering of applause and more whispers.

He strode to the front of the room without looking in her direction. Without looking at anyone, head tilted down so that his Stetson hid his eyes.

Once behind the podium, he removed his hat, then didn't seem to know what to do with it. Hattie was directly in front of him and close enough to see his hand shaking slightly as he first set the hat on the podium, then seemed to realize it would be in his way. He picked it up and hung it by his side, awkwardly.

Oscar stood from his place next to Sarah and reached out one long arm to his brother, who handed over the hat with a half relieved, half strangled look on his face.

Maxwell shoved one hand through his dark curls, face pink. “Sorry, I'm—sorry. Nervous,” he explained.

No one laughed. Not even one giggle from the crowd escaped. It was as if everyone waited to see what he would do, or say, next. Most of the crowd had probably seen Maxwell and Hattie sit together in Sunday services two weeks ago. If she knew anything about the gossip mill in Bear Creek, no doubt they all waited anxiously to see what would unfold.

He took a small leather-bound book from his breast pocket, beneath his jacket. The same one Hattie had seen him writing in at the church late at night. He opened it to the page where a small ribbon marked his place and smoothed the pages beneath his long, elegant fingers.

Then his green gaze flicked up and landed directly on Hattie. She could read his intensity, his earnestness, his nervousness. All of it—for her?

He cleared his throat. “There's...someone special to me. I've tried to tell her my feelings twice before, but I think I'm not...not saying it right, so I want to read one of the poems I wrote about her.”

Hattie tried to form a smile, encourage him in some way, let him know that she welcomed his words, but her own nervousness made her lips tremble.

He looked back down at the book in front of him, face going even redder, if that was possible. “I've never shared any of my poetry with anyone else, so...bear with me.”

He cleared his throat again, once, twice. Didn't look up from the podium.

He began reading, his voice low at first, slowly gaining volume until everyone in the café would be able to hear.

Flushed with embarrassment at being singled out and overwhelmed with emotion that he would do this for her, Hattie didn't hear every word. She caught phrases in snatches, certain words searing into her brain. “‘I saw her beauty first in eyes of summer blue sky, Next in her hands so fixed and sure...'”

Hattie couldn't help glancing down at the very appendages he spoke of. Her hands weren't anything special; they were callused from washing up so often, not soft or pretty. But he was right, they
had
saved lives. And he'd noticed.

“‘Her determination to overcome...'”

Her head came up. She'd been searching all her life—without even knowing it—for a man who admired her ambitions. And Maxwell did.

His eyes hadn't left the journal in front of him, but she willed him to know her heart was open, that she returned his sentiments.

“‘Can a cowboy deserve her...?'”

Perhaps not just any cowboy, but she knew one she couldn't live without...

“‘When she is weak, then she is most strong...'”

Now he had to be speaking of her affliction, though he didn't say the words specifically. He really thought she was
strong
when she needed to ask for help?

Heart overflowing, tears brimmed in her eyes.

“‘Saying this makes me shake like a newborn foal, For this woman of valor, my love knows no end.'”

Hattie's breath caught. He'd actually admitted that he loved her, in front of this room full of people. She didn't know whether to jump up and go to him or wait to see what he would do next.

He finished reading, and the room was silent around them.

By that time, tears were overflowing in Hattie's eyes—she hadn't lost him. Whatever he'd been doing with Annabelle and Corrine on the boardwalk—planning for tonight's event, perhaps?—he hadn't stopped loving her.

Applause roared around them, started first by his brother, but Hattie barely heard it.

When Maxwell looked up, looked straight at her, she easily read the vulnerability in his face. Her tears spilled over. She shook her head slightly, unable to find words, unsure she wanted to speak in front of everybody.

He went perfectly still. Watched her for a moment that stretched long. Then nodded almost imperceptibly and began to turn away.

With noise, voices speaking, all around, she couldn't understand as he scooped up his book from the podium and turned away—had he somehow misread her expression? She stood to go to him, but the row of chairs was too tight, and she couldn't get past Sarah, their skirts tangling together. Behind Sarah, the aisle was filling with other people.

“Maxwell, wait!”

Someone grabbed her arm from behind and she turned to find Corrine there with a half amused, half chagrined smile on her face. “That was certainly romantic, wasn't it?” the girl asked.

“Not now,” Hattie said. By the time she'd turned back, Maxwell had disappeared. Into the crowd or outside?

She looked around frantically. “I need to talk to him—”

“Here.” Sam came to her rescue, pushing the two chairs in front of Hattie out of the way so she could get through. “He went through the side door.”

Heart sure this time, she went after him.

* * *

He'd made her cry.

Heart ripping inside his chest, Maxwell slammed out of the café, into the darkness, completely forgetting his hat, only wanting to escape.

He'd done it. He'd read his poem in front of nearly all their peers. Somehow he'd gotten the words out of a mouth that felt as if it was filled with cotton gauze, face flaming so hot he probably could've sterilized surgical equipment all on his own.

And Hattie had cried and shaken her head—as though she'd wanted to let him down easy. Well, at least he knew. At least he wouldn't regret trying everything to win the woman he loved. Not that it was much comfort when he felt so alone....

“Maxwell—”

He ducked to the side of the set of three stairs as her voice rang out in the darkness. He didn't know if he could face her again—ever. How mortifying to make a fool over yourself for the same woman—three times. He'd have to find a way to let the doc down easy, couldn't even stomach facing her in the clinic.

She paused on the steps, probably to let her eyes adjust to the darkness after being in the lamplit room.

He shifted his feet, wondering if he should just dart around the corner of the café and find his horse.

She must've heard the slight noise of his boot against the packed dirt, because she turned in his direction. “Maxwell?”

He was breathing hard, as if he'd run a race. He didn't know if he could speak.

“Maxwell, I'm so...humbled by what you wrote about me.”

He didn't want to hear about her being humbled. The only thing he wanted to hear—could bear to hear—was that she loved him back, after he'd laid bare his feelings like he had. “You don't have to let me down easy,” he said, hating how gruff his voice sounded.