With Autumn's Return (Westward Winds Book #3): A Novel (18 page)

Harrison ran his hand through his hair again, his reluctance apparent. “I hate for you to go to all that extra effort. I know you’ll be busy, trying to help Elizabeth, so I’ll eat at one of the hotels. It won’t be as good, but I can’t burden you.”

“You’re not a burden,” Gwen assured him. “Rose and I have to eat, and I’m planning to take food to Elizabeth, so I’ll be cooking anyway.”

A smile brightened Harrison’s face. “In that case, I won’t turn down the offer. Your meals are the highlights of my days.”

They were pretty words, and they warmed Gwen’s heart. Still, she couldn’t help wishing Harrison had said that the time they spent together was the highlight of his days. It would be wonderful if he cared about her as well as her cooking. But he wouldn’t, not until she was as thin as Elizabeth. That was why she drank Lady Meecham’s tonic twice a day.

“I’m glad you enjoy the food,” she told Harrison, smiling into those eyes that were so much darker blue than her own. “It’s a pleasure to cook for a man again.” Elizabeth and Charlotte had appreciated Gwen’s meals, but there was nothing like a man’s hearty appetite to make a cook feel good.

“The pleasure is mine.” Harrison raised his voice slightly to be heard over the hammering. “I’m thirty-six years old, and you’ve given me the best meals of my life. I want to repay you.”

“Nonsense!” She didn’t want repayment. She wanted love. But she couldn’t admit that. No lady would. “You’re already paying for most of the food.” When Gwen had invited him to take meals with her and Elizabeth, Harrison had insisted on contributing to their food budget. The amount he’d suggested had staggered Gwen, but he’d claimed it was no more than he would have had to spend if he’d eaten in restaurants.

“At least let me take the meals to Elizabeth. That way you won’t have to worry about Rose while you’re gone. Besides,” he said, looking at the confusion that reigned inside the store, “I could use an occasional break from this.”

It was an attractive offer, made all the more appealing by the fact that it would give Gwen another opportunity to see Harrison. “All right, if you’re certain it won’t be inconvenient.”

“I’m certain.” He gave her a smile so tender that it made Gwen want to weep from happiness. A second later, his face returned to its normal genial expression.

What a fool she was! There she was, harboring secret dreams that Harrison would view her as a woman, not just a cook. When he’d given her that look, for a second she had thought he might touch her cheek, but then his gaze had moved downward, and everything had changed. He’d seen her waist.

Gwen was huffing by the time she reached the top of the stairs. She knew she was heavy, but, oh, how it had hurt to see Harrison’s expression sober when he’d seen the rolls of fat that even Charlotte’s clever needle hadn’t been able to hide. She had to—she absolutely had to—lose more weight.

Gwen hurried into the apartment and drew the blue bottle from the cabinet. She thought the bottles she had drunk of Lady Meecham’s Celebrated Vegetable Compound were working. Surely it wasn’t her imagination that her clothes felt looser, but even if that was true, it wasn’t enough. She had to try harder.

Pouring a larger than normal dose into a glass, Gwen looked at the bottle. The label advised taking it twice a day. She would do better. She would take a double amount three times a day. Just to be certain, she would ensure that she ate no more than Rose. That would work. It had to. And then, when she was as thin as Elizabeth, maybe Harrison would smile at her again.

“This isn’t good.” It was the first time Harrison had been inside Elizabeth’s office, and he was taking his time, looking
around. He’d brought the basket that Gwen had filled with dinner, carrying it to the small kitchen at the rear of the building. Now, unbidden, he’d walked into the adjoining infirmary and was staring at Jason.

“Illness is never good, and diphtheria is particularly dangerous.”

Harrison shook his head. “I wasn’t referring to that. It’s not good for you to be here alone with Jason.”

Elizabeth tried not to bristle as she wondered whether Gwen had shared her concerns with this man. “Jason is my patient.” A very ill patient.

“He’s also a single man, and you’re a single woman.”

Elizabeth led Harrison out of the room before she responded. While it was true that she didn’t want their voices to disturb Jason, she also needed to harness her temper. There was nothing to be gained by arguing with Harrison.

“Would you be having this conversation with Dr. Worland if he were treating me?” Elizabeth asked as calmly as she could.

“Of course not.” Harrison’s lip curled in scorn. “But this is different, and you know it.”

“What I know is that Jason needs my care.”

“That may be true, but people will talk. Back in Pennsylvania, the whole town would already know that he was in your infirmary.”

Elizabeth doubted that news had spread that quickly here. Jason had entered her office early enough this morning that there had been few people on the street, and she’d had no patients since then.

“Cheyenne isn’t a small town in Pennsylvania,” she told Harrison. “It’s a big city.”

“But people are the same everywhere.” Harrison’s expression grew grave. “I don’t want you hurt by gossip.”

“I’m not worried.” Nor was Jason. Though he’d warned her about malicious gossip when he advised her not to take Phoebe’s girls as patients, Jason had willingly come to her office. That must mean that he had no qualms. Or that he was too weak to walk the extra block and a half to Dr. Worland’s. Elizabeth tamped back that thought.

“Dr. Worland is not the best man to treat diphtheria.” Though it would be unprofessional to tell Harrison of the older doctor’s erroneous diagnosis of Miriam’s illness and the dangerous treatment he had proposed, Jason knew of her concerns. Elizabeth suspected that that rather than mere proximity had figured into his decision to seek her assistance.

Harrison was silent for a moment, but though Elizabeth hoped he agreed with her, his frown said otherwise. “Regardless of Doc Worland’s skills, you should be worried about your reputation. Once it’s destroyed, you’ll never be able to restore it.” Harrison’s expression softened. “Now, before you protest, let me tell you that I won’t allow you to refuse what I’m going to offer. I’ve already told Gwen that I’ll bring your meals to you. As long as I’m going to be here, I’ll take that time to help Jason with his . . .” Harrison paused for a second, evidently searching for a word. “Shall we say his personal needs. That’ll be one less reason for people to gossip.”

Elizabeth couldn’t disagree. “Thank you, Harrison. You’re a good man.”

He wasn’t getting any better. As much as she hated to admit it, Elizabeth knew that was the case. Jason’s fever had
increased. That was alarming enough. Even worse was the condition of his throat. Though she had swabbed it with iodine six times a day and forced Jason to gargle with hydrogen peroxide almost as often, the diphtheric membrane continued to thicken. It was gray, slimy, and dangerous. While some doctors believed that diphtheria’s fever caused its high mortality rate, Elizabeth had been taught that an enlarged membrane was even more deadly. If it continued to swell, the membrane would block Jason’s throat so much that breathing would be impaired. It might even cause him to stop breathing. She couldn’t let that happen. Jason had trusted her with his life. She could not fail him.

It had been four days since he had stumbled into her office, four days when Elizabeth had had little sleep. Though Harrison had offered to spell her, she had remained in the infirmary, sleeping fitfully while she sat in a hard-backed chair close to Jason. The comfortable chair that she had believed would be so useful had been moved to the corner of the infirmary when Elizabeth realized that it was far too easy to fall asleep in it. She dared not do that for fear of missing a change in her patient’s condition. But she did need more sleep than the chair afforded, and so she had accepted Harrison’s help. While she would not allow him to stay for extended periods lest there be problems at the store, during the two hours each day when he sat with Jason, Elizabeth was able to stretch out on the examining table in her office and sleep. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.

Elizabeth managed a small smile as she realized that this was the first time she’d been grateful for not having patients. She was still smiling when she heard Jason stirring.

“How many days now?” It was the same question he asked
each time he opened his eyes. Though her medical books hadn’t mentioned it, she suspected that the high fever somehow scrambled his brain, making him forgetful. Or perhaps it was only that the pain of his swollen throat kept him from focusing on anything else.

“Four,” she said, trying to keep her expression calm.

Jason touched his throat and winced. “I’m not getting better, am I?” It was a measure of the disease that his voice was little more than a rasp.

She wouldn’t lie. “Sometimes diphtheria takes this course.”

“And then the patient dies.” He completed the sentence.

Shaking her head, she positioned her stethoscope on Jason’s chest. “I won’t let you die,” Elizabeth said when she’d assured herself that his heartbeat was still regular. “You can’t die.” With a forced lightness, she added, “If you did, who’d share Mr. Ellis’s cakes with me? You know that even the smallest ones are too much for one person.”

Though she’d thought he might laugh or at least smile, Jason’s expression remained somber. “I’m not ready to die,” he said. “There are so many things I still want to do.”

“Like what?” She laid her stethoscope aside but did not reach for the iodine and swabs. They could wait. If there was one thing she had learned while studying to become a physician, it was that a focus on the future had therapeutic benefits. Patients with a strong will to live sometimes overcame what appeared to be insurmountable obstacles, while others with lesser ailments succumbed, simply because they gave up. Fortunately, Jason did not appear close to surrender. He was, however, very ill.

Jason looked at her, his eyes dull with pain. “I always thought I’d marry and have half a dozen children. That was
the one promise the reverend extracted from me. He would have preferred that I follow in his footsteps and become a minister, but eventually he understood that that was not my calling, and he stopped trying to dissuade me. But even to the very end, he was adamant that the Nordling name had to continue, so I promised that I’d marry and do my best to sire the grandchildren he’d never see.”

That was the longest speech Jason had made since entering her infirmary, and Elizabeth was certain it had taxed his throat and vocal cords. She ought to advise him to rest his throat, and yet she did not, for he’d piqued her curiosity.

“Why haven’t you?” She was certain it wasn’t for a lack of interested women. With his good looks and financial prospects, Jason must have had every single woman in Cheyenne vying for his attention when he first moved here.

“I never met a woman who . . .” He grimaced and touched his throat. “It hurts too much to talk.”

It was silly to wonder what he had meant to say. She was Jason’s physician and his friend, not a prospective bride.

“That’s all right,” she told him as she reached for the covered bowl that she’d placed on the table behind her. “There’ll be time to talk later.” Once the crisis passed. She had heard that some patients were filled with energy right before it occurred. Perhaps that was why Jason had been able to say so much. “Try drinking some of this broth,” she urged him. “You need to keep your strength up.”

Elizabeth held the bowl while Jason spooned some of the still-warm liquid into his mouth. Wincing as it slid down his inflamed throat, he shook his head. “Hurts too much.”

Within minutes, Jason was once again asleep, but this time he seemed more restless than before, tossing from side to side,
muttering in his sleep. The crisis was approaching. Elizabeth knew it, and with that knowledge came the realization that Jason might die, and that if he did, her life would be irrevocably changed. It wasn’t just that he would be the first of her patients to die. That would be painful enough. But it would be even worse because she had violated one of the first precepts she had been taught: she had let her emotions become involved. Jason wasn’t simply a patient. He was . . . Elizabeth paused, searching for the correct word, finally settling on
friend
. A very dear friend, and one who might die. She had exhausted her knowledge. There was nothing more she could do, nothing but ask for help from the One who gave life.