The Brides of Chance Collection (78 page)

Dabbing the pencil tip on her tongue, Lovejoy frowned at the paper. She struck out yet another line with the moistened pencil lead. Many of the herbs she needed didn’t grow here, or if they did, it was the wrong time to harvest them. White’s Mercantile didn’t carry a supply of compressed dried herbal cakes, so she was sending a telegram back home.

At three dollars for ten words, she struggled to compose the briefest message possible. No matter how she tried, what she needed couldn’t be phrased in ten words.
I never noticed how many herbs have two-word names
. Red raspberry, black sampson, and lady slipper alone took up a total of six precious words. Was Virginia bugle-weed two words or three? She tapped the pencil on the page and sighed. Up to nine words at that point. Then came bethroot, false unicorn, peach bark, and yellow dock.
Delilah has fennel growing in her garden. Blessed thistle, too. But I’ll need marshmallow. Cain’t use rye ergot on Alisa, but I might need it for Delilah…
.

“Lovejoy?”

She jumped and turned around. “Dan’l! Does Alisa need me?”

“No, Titus is with her. I’ve never seen you scowl. What’s wrong?”

“Miriam tole me to write up a telegram so’s I cain have Widow Hendricks send essentials. I’m parin’ it down best as I cain. White oak bark’s available here. So’s butcher’s broom, dandelion, and rose hips.”

“Hold on.” He took the paper from her and joined her on the bench. Their arms brushed.

Lovejoy didn’t want to scoot away. Since the day he’d found her crying and lent her his warmth and strength, she’d sensed a profound shift in him. He wasn’t so caught up in his sorrows that he was oblivious to anyone else. Papa never was one to pay any mind to a female’s feelings, and Vern—well, Vern never cared one bit how she was. Plenty of times she’d seen other men support their womenfolk; she wasn’t Daniel’s, but he’d cupped her head to his sturdy chest, and suddenly the burdens she’d been carrying didn’t feel half so heavy.

And here he was again.

He studied the paper, took the pencil, and circled all the things she’d struck out. “Stop fussing and order everything you need. Ask for plenty. With Delilah also in the family way, you ought to have a generous supply.”

“This is already nineteen words!”

He shrugged. “Make it forty—even sixty. I don’t care about the cost; I want my brothers’ wives well. Money in the bank’s no good without loved ones to share it with.” With that, he handed back the paper and smiled at her—smiled!

He walked off, and Lovejoy was glad he did. She didn’t think she could hide her amazement.
Why, Dan smilin’ is nigh unto bein’ a genuine miracle!

In the end her telegram ended up being thirty words—a nine-dollar, thirty-word telegram. No one in Salt Lick would believe such extravagance. “Lord, if Thou art of a mind to bestow miracles, Dan’s perkin’ outta his sorrow is right fine. Might be Ye did that jist to keep from listenin’ to me yammer on ’bout him, but I been burdened for him. Whilst Thou art at that miracle business, if ’n Thou wouldst protect Alisa and her babe, that’d be wondrous fine.”

God listened. They took things one day at a time. Things remained touch and go, but Alisa didn’t worsen. Casting a quick look back at Alisa as she napped, Lovejoy prayed the herbs would arrive the next day.
Widow Hendricks’ll either figure Alisa’s in grave condition or that I’ve gone ’round the bend, but either way, I hope it makes her shake a leg and send the stuff
.

Delilah quietly tacked Polly and Ginny Mae’s latest drawings up on the wall for Alisa to appreciate. “How much longer before the medicines come?”

“Best I cain guess, the packet ought to arrive next day or so,” Lovejoy said in a low tone. “Train from back home to San Francisco took five days. Stage to here took another day.”

“Paul sent the telegram the day you wrote it, so I guess it just depends on how long it takes your Widow Hendricks to gather up what’s needed.”

Lovejoy nodded. She still couldn’t believe the telegram she’d sent. She drew closer to take a gander at the girls’ colorful pictures. “You got them having a right fine time with those fancy Farber colored pencils. Drawin’ alongside you is a dreadful treat for them.”

“They miss you.” Delilah gave her shoulder a nudge. “I’ll stay here. You can go on outside for a while. You can play with them or go have a little time to yourself.”

Stepping outside Alisa’s cabin, Lovejoy heard children’s laughter. Miriam was hanging clothes on the line, and the girls were chasing chickens about the yard. The instant they spied Lovejoy, they cried her name and ran to her.

Nothing ever felt half as precious as the way Daniel’s daughters flung themselves into her arms as she knelt down.

“Howdy, Daniel Chance.”

“Mrs. MacPherson.” He nodded at Tempy. In hopes that the things Lovejoy ordered might have arrived, he’d mounted Cooper and was heading toward town.

Her eyes lit at him calling her by her married name. Atop the sorrel mare he’d seen Lovejoy use, Tempy tilted her chin up the road toward Chance Ranch. “I aim to go pay a call on my sister.”

“She went off on a walk with my girls.”

Tempy smiled. “You sure are nice to share your lassies with her. Fills in some of the ache in her heart.”

“Because she misses her husband?”

Tempy let out a mirthless laugh. “Vern Spencer wasn’t worth the cost of the copper pipe he paid Pa for her.”

“Your father sold her?”

Tempy folded her arms across the pommel as pain flickered across her features. “Yes, he did.”

Daniel frowned as Lovejoy’s words echoed in his mind.
Them girls don’t know how lucky they are to have a daddy who holds ’em close in his arms and in his heart
. He couldn’t fathom what Tempy had just admitted. “What was your father thinking?”

Tempy paled and got a stricken look on her face. “Forget I said anything.”

Daniel regretted his outburst. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault.”

Her jaw lifted. “It’s over and done with, and it’s none of your business.”

If he hadn’t seen the tears sparkling in her eyes, he would have mistaken her resolve for stubbornness. Daniel couldn’t let it go. “I’m making it my business.”

“Nothing but hurt will come from you digging into my sister’s past, Daniel Chance. Best you leave things alone. She’s built herself a life again, and I won’t let anyone hurt her.”

He sat there and weighed his words carefully. “Your sister matters to me. I wouldn’t hurt her—ever. It tears me apart to think your father treated her that way.”

“What do you mean, Lovejoy matters to you?”

“I care for her.” He paused. “A lot.” The admission didn’t come easily, but he knew from the guarded look on her face that he had to be more forthcoming. “I care enough that I’ve discussed it privately with one of my brothers.”

Tempy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

Daniel smiled wryly. “I’m not sure who’s more surprised—you at the news or me for confessing it.”

“Are you declaring your love and intentions, Daniel Chance?”

“It’s not like when I fell in love with my Hannah, so I can’t say it’s true love.” He let out a long, slow breath. “Time will tell, but I can tell you this much: I hold a deep tenderness and respect for her.”

“Better you’re honest about that and taking time to be sure than that she gets her heart broke.” She studied him at length. “Lovejoy hasn’t told you a thing about her husband, has she?”

“No.”

“I’m going to trust you, Daniel. I’m not sure why.”

“It’s because you want your sister to have the same happiness you’ve found.” He relaxed his grip on his reins.

She nodded. “That would be a grand miracle.”

“So tell me.” He fought to keep an angry edge from his voice as he bade, “Start with why your father sold her.”

Chapter 18

P
a needed the copper and sugar. Lovejoy was sixteen, so he reckoned he could get a bride price and not have to feed her anymore.”

Aghast, Dan stared at Lovejoy’s sister.

“Pa ran—runs—a bootleg still. It broke down, and he needed the copper tubing to make it work again. That and four pounds of sugar. He traded his firstborn daughter for them.”

Daniel dreaded asking, but he had to. “Did her husband treat her any better?”

“Worse. After she lost the babe—”

His mind reeled. Daniel held up a hand and blurted out, “Lovejoy had a child? She’s never said—”

“No.” Tempy stayed silent for a moment then sighed. “Almost seven moons into the carrying, Lovejoy came down sick, and Vern was off somewhere. He’d take off for weeks at a time. She was all by herself when she lost the babe.” Tears choked her voice. “It was an awful time.”

Daniel wiped his hand down his face as if it would clear the horror from his mind. Lovejoy loved babies. She’d been alone and lost her very own.

“When Widow Hendricks said Lovejoy couldn’t have more children, Vern tried to sell her back to Pa.”

“He didn’t deserve Lovejoy or any of her children.”

“I agree. Might be wicked of me to say, but I thought about dancing on that man’s grave for what he did.”

His grave. Lovejoy was a widow, and that fact took on a whole new significance. Daniel felt a small spurt of satisfaction and relief. “He died. When?”

“Four years back.”

Daniel’s brow furrowed. “She got married at sixteen.”

Tempy didn’t make him ask. “My sister’s twenty-four. She put up with Vern Spencer for four long years.”

Four years of a horrible marriage. The thought staggered him. Scrambling to reassure himself things had gotten better, Dan nodded. “So after he died, Lovejoy apprenticed herself to a midwife?”

Tempy clamped her lips together.

His heart wrenched. Lovejoy had endured so much, yet Daniel sensed there was more bad news.

“Lovejoy didn’t wait that long. Once she buried her own babe, she went to Widow Hendricks and learned her healing ways in order to be there for other women so they wouldn’t be alone in their times of need.” After a pause, she added on quietly, “Even when those women were having babes Vern Spencer fathered.”

What was a man to say in response to such a revelation? Dan wanted to bellow in anger that Lovejoy had endured so much.

Uneasily shifting in the saddle, Tempy wiped away tears. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It was wrong of me.”

“No, Tempy. I needed to know.”

“Lovejoy never talks of it. Please don’t say anything to her.”

“Everything you’ve said was in confidence. You have my word.”

“Don’t even tell her you saw me.” Tempy gulped in a noisy breath. “I’ll just go visit another day.” He no more than nodded, and she turned the mare and raced back toward the MacPherson spread.

Lovejoy. Daniel kneed Cooper toward town. What an incredible woman. Life battered her, but she’d come through with a sunny attitude and an open heart. Admiration for her filled him.

The first time they met, she’d been singing. Since then she’d had a kind word for everyone.

And she wasn’t one just to talk. The woman jumped in with both feet and helped in countless ways, always with a cheerful heart. Just last week Bryce remarked that if she was any busier, she’d have to be twins.

The thought of Lovejoy patiently tending Alisa took on a whole new significance. She alone knew the loss Alisa might face, yet she kept her own experience a secret so Alisa wouldn’t have more cause to worry. Lovejoy bore the burden of that worry in complete silence. Her courage humbled Dan.

Suddenly, the words he’d said to Lovejoy as she did laundry weeks ago shot through his mind.
If all it took to make your grief go away was a couple of prayers, then you must not have loved your husband the way I loved my wife
.

He groaned aloud at the memory of those words. What kind of man would be uncaring and unfaithful to his bride? Instead of being cherished, she’d been treated like chattel. Her marriage was a nightmare, not a dream.

How could I have known? Lovejoy always finds the good in people and appreciates everything around her. She never acts as if she ever walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Every hope a woman held dear was taken from her—the babe she carried, the ability to ever bear another one, the love of a mate, the simple dignity of being treated with respect…
.

Beneath her practical, capable exterior, Dan knew Lovejoy had the tenderest of hearts. How could she deliver other women of her own husband’s children? How did she stand seeing them day in and day out? Marriage brought her nothing but humiliation and heartbreak, yet she’d overcome it.

The truth hit him.
I’ve been so caught up in my sorrow, I kept looking at my loss
.
I never stopped to thank God for the blessings I had
.

“Lord, You gave Hannah and me three happy years of loving one another. The girls, Father—You gave me two daughters to cherish. I’ve been lost in grief, but it never occurred to me that the very depth of that sorrow showed how deeply You’d blessed me. Lovejoy talks about rainbows, and all I saw was the rain. Help me to look up.”

Cooper whinnied and cantered by a clump of yellow flowers. Mustard, one of the many plants Lovejoy used to heal others. She was like those flowers—sunny and turning her face toward heaven all the day long. What was that verse? The one about mustard seed…faith just the size of a mustard seed was enough to move a mountain.