Love Inspired Historical December 2013 Bundle: Mail-Order Mistletoe Brides\The Wife Campaign\A Hero for Christmas\Return of the Cowboy Doctor (69 page)

Intense relief spilled through Hattie as Sam and Mr. White deposited the injured man on her father's operating table in the rear of his clinic. She retained her position at the side of the table, continuing to put pressure on Mr. Spencer's wound as the other two men moved away. Sam went out the door, and Hattie heard the murmur of her father's voice.

Mr. White hesitated. “Do you need—”

She ignored him. Kept pressure on the wound with one hand while attempting to unbutton the victim's shirt with the other. Her father would want it removed before he could start the surgery to save this man's life.

“I can help—”

She hadn't realized Mr. White had come closer, but then he was beside her and their fingers tangled as he attempted the same button that troubled her. Sparks zinged up her forearm as the warm, callused digits enclosed her fingers momentarily.

“I've got it,” she insisted. And then promptly wished her voice hadn't sounded so breathless. What was it about this man that discombobulated her so?

Papa shuffled into the room, moving to pump water from the sink in the back corner and scrub his hands. Many of his colleagues sneered at his penchant for using running water, but her papa believed it helped prevent infection.

“Thank you for your help today, young man,” Papa said. With his back turned, he didn't see how Mr. White had ignored her and was quickly removing the man's shirt, gently edging it out from beneath him now while Hattie maintained pressure on the wound. “We'll get together soon to discuss things.”

It was an obvious dismissal. With the victim's shirt gone, Maxwell flicked one last glance at Hattie and stepped back. “Thank you, sir.”

Papa didn't even seem to hear him as he approached the operating table, he was so intent on the injured man. The same as always. Focused on a patient to the exclusion of everything else. Hattie heard distinctive boot steps retreating out of the sickroom and toward the waiting room out front.

“Now, let's see if we can't remove the bullet and save this man,” her father said as he joined her at the table. “Administer the ether.”

They fell into the easy routine they'd achieved after years of working together, when Hattie's condition allowed. At age twelve she'd helped him stitch up a little girl's nasty cut, using the sewing skills her mother had worked hard to instill. Hattie's aid in dispensing medicines and calming young children had evolved into helping Papa set broken bones, and by age fourteen she'd assisted in her first surgery.

Medicine had become her passion. She'd avidly followed Elizabeth Blackwell's career and scoured newspapers for articles about women doctors. She wanted to be a doctor more than anything. And if her plans worked out this summer,
if
she could convince her parents, then she would be headed to medical school in the fall.

If Maxwell White didn't interfere.

* * *

Hours later, after they'd closed up the gunshot wound and her papa had snuck out the clinic's back door, Hattie finished tidying the room and setting the instruments back in their proper places.

Mrs. Spencer sat at her husband's side, holding his hand. Hattie would go home and rest for a while, then come back and spell the other woman during the night hours. It wouldn't be the first time she'd slept on a cot in the clinic, watching over a patient.

It was one of the arguments she planned to use when she spoke to Papa about her dreams of medical school later this summer—her papa's trust that she could take care of his patients.

She knew there was a chance he would refuse to consider Hattie's wishes; her mother had taken an adamant stance against Hattie receiving further education in medicine since Hattie had brought it up several years ago. She'd been fifteen when she'd overheard her parents' hushed conversation about Hattie helping her father in his practice. Her father had argued that if Hattie had been born a boy, her mother would have had no issue with furthering Hattie's education. To which Hattie's mother had responded that Hattie had
not
been born a boy, no matter how much Papa had wanted a son. And that wasn't even including Hattie's medical condition—something her mother used as a further argument to keep Hattie at home.

Before that day, Hattie hadn't realized that her father had wanted someone to carry on his medical practice. She didn't see why she couldn't be the partner he desired. The medical field wasn't particularly open to female doctors; however, there were now schools that admitted women. Hattie knew she could be one of them. Her father had promised to listen; now she needed to ease him into keeping his promise. She was getting older. There was a chance her condition could worsen as she aged. She couldn't waste what might be her only good years to practice. She needed her papa to agree now, this year.

Hattie's condition did not have an official diagnosis. It had symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis, where she would occasionally lose nerve function and have weakness in her extremities. But her condition was not as severe as the cases of multiple sclerosis her papa had studied. And he'd studied plenty over the years since her symptoms had first started manifesting as a young girl. She felt she could manage it, enough to attend medical school, enough to practice as a physician. But she also didn't want to waste time if there was a chance her condition could worsen. She wanted to make a difference in people's lives now.

Leaving the woman praying over her husband, Hattie slipped into the small waiting room to ensure that the outer door was secured. Movement from one of the chairs startled her and she whirled, one hand at her neck.

“S-sorry, miss. Didn't mean to scare ya.”

The cowboy-turned-medical-student. Maxwell White.

Her shoulders came down, but adrenaline still rushed through her system, making her heart thud loudly in her ears. The combination of a long day of surgery and the burst of energy left her trembling, and based on her past experience, Hattie knew she needed some quiet time to regroup before her nerves rendered her useless to anyone.

He rose from the chair where he'd been sitting, clutching a battered Stetson against his thigh. Once again, she realized just how tall he was.

“What do you want?” The stress of the day and her fading energy made her words sharper than the situation warranted.

“I just wanted to see— Is he all right?”

He stumbled over his words, and she almost felt sorry for him. Until she remembered that his very presence in Bear Creek might upset her carefully laid plans.

“He's alive.” She couldn't keep the pride from her voice. Her father, with her assisting, had saved the man's life, stopped the bleeding and stitched him up. “No doubt you know that infection is the next stage of the battle. If he can survive the next few days, he should recover.”

The cowboy moved to the door and passed through a late-afternoon shaft of sunlight from one of the windows. As he did, Hattie clearly saw the dark stain on the midsection of his white shirt. From the little her papa had said, she knew the man had just arrived in town. Had he sat here all afternoon waiting for word on the man's recovery? Put off his homecoming with his family just to find out?

He must've sensed her appraisal, or perhaps he was just nervous, because he looked down at himself self-consciously.

“You've got blood on your shirt,” she said.

He nodded, then glanced up and their eyes connected. “I'm sure I've got some chloride of lime stashed in my luggage. It won't be the first time I've had to launder something like this....”

She was surprised that he would admit to doing something that could be construed as a woman's task. When made into a solution with water, the chloride of lime would help bleach out the stain and could remove any infectious bacteria as needed. She had often laundered her soiled aprons, wanting to spare her mother's sensibilities. But to hear this cowboy admit that he did the same changed how she thought about him—unlocked a tenuous connection between them.

She severed it by briskly opening the door for him, heart pounding.

“Thank you for...telling me the man made it,” he said.

He stuffed his hat on his head and rushed out the door. Hattie shoved it closed and leaned against it. She needed to get home but also needed a moment to compose herself.

Though the cowboy was awkward, part of him was endearing. He'd obviously cared enough to see if the injured man had survived the surgery. For a moment, and only a moment, she'd entertained the thought that he had stayed to impress her father. But his very manner struck the thought from her head. He was too sincere.

Yes, she could see him being a distraction. One she desperately didn't need.

Chapter Two

“C
ome back here, you rascal!”

Maxwell chased the small white dog around the corner of the doctor's two-story home on the outskirts of Bear Creek, but the animal evaded his grasp and slipped beneath a porch spanning the back of the structure. Maxwell kicked a booted foot through the dirt, frustrated.

Taking off the white dress Stetson he usually wore to church on Sundays, he slapped it against his leg. Running his other hand through the curls matted to his head, he blew out a long breath.

His frustration didn't entirely stem from his sister Breanna's ornery dog, who'd followed him into town this evening. It had been two days since he'd helped carry the gunshot man to the doctor's office, and he still couldn't forget the doctor's beautiful daughter. The nurse.

Since childhood, he'd never been particularly good at talking to ladies. Until Penny had got hold of him as a teen and coached him on what to do. Her help had resulted in his lasting friendship with Emily, but events during college had shaken his temporary ease with the opposite sex. And it seemed his innate shyness and discomfort increased exponentially when he found a woman attractive. Like Miss Hattie Powell, whose name he'd managed to finagle from Sam.

Apparently, the Powells had moved to Bear Creek less than two years ago, and Doc Powell had taken over the practice from old Doc Calloway. Maxwell hadn't known her before he'd left Bear Creek for university, and since his confidence with females was next to nil, it would be tough finding his feet in a conversation with her.

No woman will have you
came the insidious whisper of his birth mother's voice. How many times had she said those words to him?

When the doctor had extended an invitation for supper with his family, sort of an unofficial interview before accepting Maxwell to help out in the man's medical practice, Maxwell hadn't been able to refuse. But if Miss Powell was at the table with them, Maxwell could be tongue-tied and awkward. And he desperately wanted the chance to further his education with hands-on practice, if he couldn't be back at medical school yet.

He would just have to find a way to bear Miss Powell's presence. And try not to humiliate himself in the meantime.

“Dog!” he called, bending to see beneath the porch steps, where the dog had squirmed into a small space. With evening coming on, Maxwell couldn't make out any movement in the shadows. Had the animal found another way out? “Come out, you little fur ball. I don't have time to hunt for you....”

He rounded the corner of the porch, eyes on the ground, looking for any place the animal might've escaped.

“Where are you, you flea-bitten—”

A softly cleared throat stopped him in midsentence and midstep. His eyes flicked to the porch, where Miss Powell sat in a chair. With a small white bit of fluff on her lap.

“Er, Miss Powell.” Slight panic threw every thought from his mind. “How do you do this evening?”

The dog considered Maxwell from its perch and panted happily, its mouth stretched in what almost seemed a smile. It must've slipped out from beneath the other side of the porch and gone to her.

“Mr. White. I suppose this creature belongs to you?” She scratched its head, and the traitor arched up into her palm. Her chin dipped as she looked down on the dog, giving Maxwell a good view of her profile, the sweep of her golden lashes against her cheekbones.
Sweep, sweep away the tears that rest where my lips want to rest. Hide, hide from view the answer to your test. Would I be welcome there?
The unbidden line of poetry fell into his brain, unsettling him further.

He cleared his throat. Tried to remember what she'd asked about. The dog. “My sister, actually.”

One of her brows arched above her deep blue eyes, as if she didn't believe him, and heat boiled into his neck, creeping up his jaw and into his cheeks.

“I'm usually in lectures all day—at university—or attending laboratory. Or catching up on reading assigned texts. I wouldn't have time to keep a pet, even if the boardinghouse where I stay—I mean,
stayed—
had allowed for them—” He cut himself off, knowing he was rambling.

Miss Powell looked down at the dog now curled in her lap, a slight smile turning up the corners of her mouth. Was she laughing at him? If it wouldn't have been considered rude, he'd have mashed his hat back on his head to hide his flaming face. The best he could hope for was that the pinkish light cast by the setting sun would cover his blush.

“Breanna loves animals and attracts all kinds of critters. That rascal—” Maxwell pointed to the dog, who appeared completely at ease in Miss Powell's lap “—followed me around the homestead all day and then into town this evening.”

“Hmm.” She didn't speak further.

He wished he knew whether he should join her on the porch on one of the several rocking chairs spread across the wide enclosure or if he should return around the front of the home and knock on the door. Maybe if he'd spent a bit less time studying and a bit more time courting, he would know, but after Elizabeth had broken up with him during his second year of college, he'd thrown himself into his studies as a way of forgetting.

Now he settled for propping his booted foot on the first porch step and looking up at Miss Powell. The fading light turned her fair skin golden and burnished highlights in her upswept chestnut hair.

He swallowed hard.

“How is the gunshot patient?” he asked when she didn't carry the conversation forward.

“Much recovered. He is in a lot of pain and had some fever yesterday, but it appears Papa stopped the internal bleeding.”

“Was his spleen hit?” The words were out before Maxwell thought perhaps it was inappropriate to discuss a man's insides with a lady like Miss Powell, even if she was a nurse.

But her face lit up. “It was nicked, but Papa thinks he was able to remove all the damaged tissue. So far, there has been no internal swelling that we can tell....”

Warming to the topic, Maxwell barely noticed when his feet carried him up two stairs so that his head and shoulders were level with hers where she sat. “One of my professors had a patient with damage to his internal organs—”

“Hattie, you'd better come inside. Mr. White should be here any moment.” A woman's voice preceded an older version of Miss Powell as she peeked out the door that Maxwell guessed must lead to their kitchen.

“Mr. White has already arrived,” Miss Powell said. “With a guest.”

Mrs. Powell's drawn brows showed her confusion until she noticed the dog in her daughter's lap. Her noise wrinkled, and she smiled in the same way Maxwell had seen his professors do many times when faced with a student who tried their patience. “I suppose it can stay in a box in the kitchen.”

“He can find his way home,” Maxwell hurried to say. The ornery dog had better not ruin his chances of working with Doc Powell.

“It's fine,” Miss Powell reassured him, sharing a smile that was decidedly warmer than when he had first arrived. “We've already got a basket inside for the house cat.”

He thought she would urge the pet to scamper down off her lap, but she reached down to release a lever and then began to turn the two large wheels at her side, turning the chair itself.

And that was when he realized she wasn't sitting in an ordinary chair at all. It was an invalid's rolling chair, similar to those he'd seen at the hospital back in Denver.

* * *

Hattie knew the exact moment when Mr. White realized she was confined to the wheeled chair. It was barely discernible, but there was a definite shift in his expression.

She hated it.

Hated feeling like an invalid. Hated that the easy conversation they'd shared had instantly disappeared.

She wasn't a convalescent. Between being on her feet for the extended surgery two days ago and the long hours spent watching over the patient until her papa had sent him home today, her nerves had been taxed. The wheeled chair served mostly as a precaution. The sudden weakness overtook her most often in the evenings and had caused many a bump and bruise when she wasn't expecting it and resulted in a fall. The medical condition was Mama's biggest argument against Hattie working with her papa.

Only a few close friends, including Emily Castlerock, knew that Hattie was occasionally bound to the chair. She typically didn't go about in public when her nerves were weak.

And it galled her to be such when her papa had invited Maxwell White to supper. If only he'd come around to the front like a polite visitor, she would've had time to transfer to the dining room chair before he'd seen her. Her pride had demanded she take her supper alone in her room—not join the gathering—but she didn't want her weakness to seem pronounced, not if it would give her papa any reason to deny her when she finally spoke to him about attending medical school. She should talk to Papa soon, but not when she was weak.

She needed to be at her best until Papa agreed. And while Mr. White might prove helpful to Papa while she was away at school, she didn't want Papa distracted by his new colleague, either. She had two months to prove her value before the interview with the scholarship committee. Two months to convince her father she could be a doctor herself, someone he would want to bring on as a partner. She'd taken a chance and applied to her chosen school, even put herself forward for a special scholarship offered by a committee of women doctors, with the assumption she could talk her papa into seeing things her way.

She didn't need Mr. White around to confuse things.

“Should I give you a push or just...”

A sharp glance over her shoulder silenced him midsentence. “I'm perfectly capable.” And she was.

In the kitchen, she maneuvered around the work counter with the familiarity born of repetition. She was intensely aware of Mr. White's gaze on her as she reached down and settled the little dog in the cat's basket near the stove, with a ham bone to keep him occupied.

Her pride pinched at the thought that perhaps he pitied her now. Papa crossed the threshold to the dining room as Hattie moved her chair inside. He appeared preoccupied, twirling one side of his mustache with a far-off gaze.

“What's wrong, Papa?”

“Oh.” He looked up, eyes focusing. “Hattie, dear. Just a phone call from a physician over in Pear Grove. A consultation. He may have a case of cholera on his hands.”

Mama paused just behind Mr. White on the threshold between the kitchen and dining room with a steaming bowl in her hands. Hattie saw the immediate tremor go through her. Both women knew how quickly a case of that particular disease could result in an entire town being subject to it. And how very dangerous it was. They could only pray it stayed in Pear Grove.

Papa didn't register their pause or their concern, instead focusing on their guest. “Ah, Maxwell. You made it.”

“Doctor Powell.” The younger man reached out to meet her father's handshake, his dark suit coat stretching over his shoulders and reminding Hattie of the strength she'd inadvertently felt in them. Even dressed in Sunday clothes, he looked more like a cowboy than anything else.

“After your help the other day, I think we're past formalities. It's Matt or Doc,” Papa said.

Hattie wheeled herself up to the only place at the table without a dining chair. The men waited for Mama to seat herself before they joined the ladies at the table. Her father bowed his head, signaling the mealtime prayer. Hattie followed suit, only to freeze as a warm, callused hand enclosed hers. For once, every nerve ending seemed to be in perfect working order—buzzing with energy in response to the man next to her.

She didn't hear a word her papa said until Maxwell released her hand at the final amen.

Why did she have to be so attracted to this particular man?

With shaking hands, she tucked her napkin into her lap and pretended that it was any other meal shared with her parents.

“So, Maxwell,” Papa began as he passed a full plate to Hattie. “We relocated to Bear Creek about a year and a half ago, and I'm afraid I still confuse the names of your siblings. And I must confess, I had forgotten you were away at medical school until your father mentioned it.”

“Keeping us straight isn't easy” came the quiet answer from the man kitty-corner to her. “We're a big bunch. Getting bigger soon.”

“Ah, yes, your mother is expecting her...?”

“Third. Walt is six now and Ida four.”

“Your stepmother must have unlimited patience to have married into a family with so many children,” Hattie said softly. With so much time spent in her father's clinic, she socialized less than her mother would have liked. She'd never actually met them all but knew the White family took up an entire pew in church. “Not that I don't like children,” she amended, realizing her words might've sounded unkind. “I imagine they can be a lot of work! How long after your father's first wife passed did they meet?”

She was acutely aware when Maxwell shifted in his seat. “Penny is my pa's only wife. Jonas adopted all seven of us boys after he'd left Philadelphia with his daughter Breanna.”

“How interesting,” Papa said. “You were all orphans?”

Maxwell nodded, shifting his legs beneath the table once again. His expression had closed off. Almost as if the topic was one he wasn't entirely comfortable discussing.

“And your father was willing to take on so many children?”

The cowboy spoke to his plate. “No one else wanted us.”

The words were said simply, but Hattie felt there must be more behind them.

Knowing her papa, he would question the man until he'd unearthed Maxwell's entire life history. Whether Maxwell wanted to tell it or not. Perhaps she should intervene.

“How did you become interested in the medical field?” Hattie asked. It was a daring question, because she wanted the conversation to stay away from him helping her father at the clinic, but she well knew her father's tendencies to push, even when speaking of something made people uncomfortable.