Two Brides Too Many (23 page)

“The Sinclair sisters are determined.”

“Stubborn.”

Judson chuckled. “Steadfast.”

“Bullheaded.”

“Strong.”

It was Morgan’s turn again when a knock on the door interrupted their list. He was about to add
irresistible
. It was good that he didn’t. That would have no doubt taken the conversation in a different direction.

“Dr. Cutshaw?” It was the reverend mother’s voice.

“Excuse me.” When Judson gave him a nod, Morgan opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. “Sister Coleman, is there an emergency?”

“No, Doctor. Pardon my intrusion, but Mr. Goeke and his sister
stopped by. He said it was important that you have this.” She handed Morgan an envelope. “I wanted to attend to it before I got distracted.”

“Thank you.” Morgan glanced back at Judson, who was setting a cowboy hat on his head. “Sister, Judson Archer is going home today. Could you find the paperwork I need to sign for him?”

“I will, and I’ll bring it right in.” She walked away, and Morgan stepped back into Judson’s room.

“I heard her mention Goeke.”

Morgan nodded.

“I talked to him this morning. Lost his leg in an explosion. His cabin burned too.”

“I’m the one who did the surgery. The reverend mother and I, that is. Ethan’s sister came out from Philadelphia to help him get home. They’re leaving on the four o’clock train.” Morgan tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket. It was probably a thank-you letter.

“That’s horrible. My sufferings seem so small compared to what he’s been through. What so many here have been through the past couple of weeks.” The compassion in Judson’s eyes showed an impressive depth to the man. “My vantage point on the back of Boney’s mule yesterday wasn’t the best, but I saw enough to know that a lot of people around here are homeless. That some lost loved ones. I’ve heard some staggering stories in here this morning.”

“The little girl Kat is taking care of lost her mother because of the fire on the twenty-ninth,” Morgan said. “That’s just one of many stories of hardship and grace. It makes me want to make the most of every day.”

“What does that mean, Doc?” The sly smile on Judson’s face said he knew exactly what it meant.

T
HIRTY

I
t wasn’t a ray of sunlight that woke Nell Saturday morning. Rosita’s whimpers stirred her long before the sun would rise behind a veil of gray clouds. She went to the pallet on the floor and pulled the thrashing child onto her lap, easing her out of another bad dream. Even after she had calmed the little girl and Rosita crawled into the bed and drifted off to sleep, Nell lay awake thinking and praying, and whimpering some herself.

According to the news from Boney, Rosita’s grandmother and uncle would board the train in Santa Fe this morning. Day after tomorrow, the little one would no longer need her or Kat. She’d be reunited with her blood family. It’s what they’d prayed for. But lying there, listening to Rosita’s soft snores and breathing in the light scent of lilac, Nell mourned losing the child and the comfort she’d brought into her life.

As her tears dampened the pillow, she prayed for Judson—for his healing and for his love. She still hadn’t heard from him, and this was
moving day. She, Kat, and Rosita would leave the comforts of Hattie’s home for what Dr. Cutshaw had referred to as an abandoned shanty out where proper women would never live.

She stayed in bed until the sun started to stain the clouds with a palette of gray-blues, and then Nell rose and moved through her morning routine. She fought the urge to tell Kat they should stay with Hattie. But when she remembered her sister’s indignation over the doctor’s concerns, Nell decided to save her breath.

Rosita woke and went downstairs to Hattie, and Nell and Kat slogged through packing and cleaning their room in silence.

Nell pulled a set of clean bed linens from the cupboard at the end of the hallway. Music from the phonograph drifted up the stairs, along with the sounds of shuffling feet, and she guessed Hattie and Rosita were doing a little dancing before breakfast. Carrying the sheets back down the hallway to the bedchamber, Nell wondered if perhaps she and Kat shouldn’t stop their work and join them. Hattie had told Dr. Cutshaw that music feeds the soul, and hers was surely feeling hunger pangs this morning.

Kat was bundling the sheets they’d taken off the bed when she walked in. “Once we finish with the bed, we’re done with our cleaning.” she said. Leaving their quarters clean was the least they could do for the woman who had so graciously and generously given them reduced room and board for their household assistance.

Nodding, Nell laid the fresh linens on the chair atop the quilt. She could hear the sound of hammers at work close by. This town was beginning to bulge at the seams as construction workers poured in to help rebuild, and reporters came from all over to report on the much improved brick-and-stone face of Cripple Creek. Most of the men had
been sharing tents, but Nell knew of three who had sent for their wives and let Hattie’s vacant rooms. Those couples would reunite at the depot today and move into the boardinghouse in time for lunch.

Kat set the bundle of soiled linens near the door and peered out. “I may miss Hattie’s parlor and the phonograph, but I’m sure I won’t miss hearing those same three songs over and over. I heard them in my sleep last night.” A hint of a smile widened her face.

“But the piano.” Nell carried a sheet to the bed. “I’ll miss the piano.”

“I’m sure the doctor will soon move into a proper house and take his fancy grand with him.” Sarcasm dripped from Kat’s every word.

Nell flipped the sheet toward Kat’s side of the mattress, ignoring her sharp comment. “And the bed. I’ll miss the bed.”

“I’m going to miss this place too,” Kat said, sliding the sheet over a corner of the mattress.

“I don’t know what we would’ve done without Hattie. She’s been so good to us.” Nell tugged on another corner. “I’ll miss our sing-alongs and her chitchat.”

“Believe me.” Kat regarded her with a creased brow. “I wish the cabin was a house, and that it wasn’t, well, where it is.” She reached for the last edge of the sheet. “I know it would be easier to stay here with Hattie.”

“Why can’t you do the easy thing just this once?”

“And what?” Kat jerked the sheet over the corner of the bed. “I’m not like you, Nell.”

“I know.” Her eyelid twitching, Nell straightened. “I know…you wouldn’t wait around, pining over a man.”

“I came here for a man, remember? That’s not gone so well, has it?” Kat grabbed the quilt off the rocker and plopped it onto the bed.

“I remember.” Nell sighed, reaching for an edge of the quilt. There was little chance that she or anyone else would soon forget that Patrick Maloney had wronged Kat.

“But now I’m on my own and I don’t need rescuing.” Kat tugged the quilt out of Nell’s hand. “I’m not going to hide away in Hattie’s comfortable boardinghouse. I’m not helpless.”

“And you’re saying I am?”

“You’ve certainly been acting like it. Judson will either come to his senses or he won’t. But it’s not the end of the world if he doesn’t.”

“There’s a difference between waiting around doing nothing and having a little patience.” And as Nell drew in a deep breath, trying to calm herself, she knew she could use a big helping of it about now. “I care deeply about Judson, and he cares for me. We’re going to be married.”

Please, Lord, let it be so
.

“I know you’re going through your own trial, Kat, and I might be a little too accommodating to suit you, but it’s as if you’ve set out to prove to God and everyone else that you don’t need anyone.”

Kat huffed and jerked the top of the quilt straight.

With both hands on the quilt Nell tugged her side smooth. “Not every man is Patrick Maloney, Kat.”

“I didn’t say Judson is like Paddy.”

“I’m not talking about Judson.”

Kat stilled, not looking up. “I don’t want to talk about him, either.” She slid a pillow into an embroidered case. “I’m not keen on the idea of trading an electric light for a lantern or an indoor lavatory for an outhouse either, but I have to do this.”

“I know you do.”

“You don’t have to go with me.” When Kat lifted her head, the firestorm had faded from her eyes. “You can stay here.”

Nell shimmied the second pillow into a case, knowing full well that she wasn’t about to let her sister move up the hillside alone. No doubt there would be plenty to get used to up there, but they’d do it together. Straightening her posture and squaring her shoulders, she spoke in falsetto. “Whither thou goest, I will go.”

Kat giggled, which only encouraged her.

“Thy people shall be my people.” Nell barely got the words out before she and Kat were cackling hard and dropping onto the bed.

Once they’d both exhausted their laughter and returned to their feet, Kat pulled the quilt straight again. “Nell, I’m serious. You don’t have to move with me. You’re not Ruth, and I’m not Naomi.”

“But we did journey together to a foreign land, and if you’re moving into the cabin, I am too.”

“Thank you.” Kat glanced at the two trunks that sat under the window. “Those are next, then.”

Nell thought better of mentioning that men had carried them up. When Kat grabbed a handle on the first trunk, nearest the door, Nell gripped the handle at the other end.

On the count of three, they lifted the trunk. Kat shuffled backward through the doorway then out into the hallway. “We’ll stop at the top of the stairs,” she said, each word a grunt.

If I make it to the top of the stairs
. With each heavy step, Nell wondered about Ruth and Naomi. When Naomi decided to move, the inside of her home in Moab was probably one level, and she wasn’t headed for the side of a mountain or someplace as shoddy as Paddy’s place. It had to be easier to start a new life with a daughter-in-law than
it was with a sister. And if Nell could catch her breath, she would tell Kat so. She couldn’t help but wonder if the main reason God made men was for heavy lifting. Moving trunks and wooing women.

“Let’s set it down on the count of three.”

On three, they both set their ends down. Their toes were safe, but the thud rattled the staircase and the phonograph suddenly ceased to play. Hattie stepped out of the parlor and looked to the top of the staircase, her eyes the size of buttermilk biscuits. “How did that trunk get there?”

“We moved it.” Kat said it in a confident tone, as though the act was effortless.

“Well, don’t do it again.” Huffing, Hattie wiped her brow as if she’d been the one doing the lifting. “I have two men coming over from the depot at 9:00 a.m. to help us with such things. In the meantime, let’s stir up some breakfast.” Hattie shook her head, ambling off, still talking. “Strength and wisdom are
not
the same thing. A wise woman knows her limits.”

That was music to Nell’s ears. From the moment she stepped off the train and didn’t see Judson there, she was sure she wasn’t strong enough to make it here in Cripple Creek. But Hattie was right. It wasn’t strength she needed the most. While others in this camp dug for gold, she would mine wisdom.

Morgan carried his meal tray into the hospital dining room. Five nuns huddled at one end of the table, including the reverend mother, Sister Coleman. The sisters were deep in conversation, leaning toward
one another, heads down, which suited him just fine. He needed time to himself to think, so he took his breakfast to the empty end of the long, narrow table. For the most part, the basement afforded him privacy, but the drab walls, the stored medical equipment, and the rattling pipes hardly allowed for relaxed reflections.

He took a healthy gulp of coffee, enjoying its savory warmth on his tongue, and as it slid down his dry throat, he gazed up at the crucifix on the wall. He knew the image was supposed to remind him of Christ victoriously conquering death, but this morning, he could more easily envision Jesus the Good Shepherd, His scarred hand outstretched to Morgan, leading him through a wilderness He’d already passed through.

Thank You, Lord. Now, if You’d just help me see my way through it
.