A Bride in Store (40 page)

Will stepped closer. “Where’s the money you’ve stolen? If you turn that over to the sheriff, the judge might be lenient and you can see your mother again sooner than you think.” Not that Axel could live in this town again, but he’d not bother mentioning that detail.

Axel tried to shake his head. “Lousy gamblers . . . cornered me . . . took everything.”

So the thief got robbed? “Then what about the rest? If you told the judge where—”

“Don’t know. Not mine.” He reached for his mother’s hand. “Behind . . . post office . . . wagon. Supplies.” His head lolled. “Take them.”

He had a wagon parked out back? He’d been leaving? How would that have helped his mother? “What about Nan—” Will glanced at Eliza. “What about my grandmother’s ring?”

“Wagon. Just trying to get enough . . . to leave.” He coughed, then groaned with pain. “Sorry.”

“For the ring?” Will measured a strong dose of medicine. Axel might not want any, but the less pain he felt, the less wriggling he’d do. And right now, he needed him as still as possible—he didn’t look right.

“For being no good. You always believed me better.”

“But you can be good, Axel.” Fannie held out her hand for the laudanum and helped him drink. “You can start over.”

Axel worked hard to swallow. After his mother laid him back down, he peered over at Will with murky eyes. “Not your fault.”

“What’s not my fault?”

“Death.” Axel’s rattling voice set Will’s teeth on edge. Axel closed his eyes and lay quiet.

He jostled him.

Axel’s eyes struggled to lift, slammed shut, then widened again like a drunk’s trying to stay awake.

“You’re not going to die.” Will took in the man’s suddenly stricken face, then noted the blood seeping out on the counter below his torso. “Stop moving around so much.” He grabbed a handful of rags and butted them against the blood-soaked bandaging.

“I’m sorry, Ma.” The words slurred through his fast-graying lips.

“You’re forgiven. You’ll be all right.” She smiled at him and caressed his cheek, but the tears streaming down her cheeks belied her words.

Axel’s eyes stopped blinking. No. He couldn’t just wake up and then die!

Will searched for his pulse and exhaled. “His heartbeat’s weak, but it’s because of the bleeding. I need to stop the bleeding.” He scrambled to the back room and grabbed a jar of ground yarrow. Why hadn’t he packed the wound before wrapping him? He’d used carbolic acid, sure, but he should’ve used everything at his disposal. Prevented this from happening.

Returning to the counter, he pulled out a pair of scissors to cut through the strips tied tight around Axel’s torso.

Eliza’s hand gripped his. “Will?”

He tried to extract his hand, but she held on tight. The sad droop of her lips and languid, glistening eyes wouldn’t discourage him. “He’ll be fine.”

“Will.”

He looked at Axel. His eyes vacant. His labored breathing halted.

Fannie had placed her head on Axel’s chest. A wet spot grew across her son’s heart as she whimpered.

He slammed his fist on the counter. “No.” But the loud noise failed to rouse Axel.

And neither did the door bell. Jedidiah rushed in with Dr. Forsythe behind him. “I couldn’t find the sheriff, but I figured the doctor should come.”

Too late. Will sank against the counter. He should have never listened to Axel and Jedidiah—he should have carried him straight to Forsythe or Benning.

The doctor cleared his throat. “There’s nothing for me to do.”

“You could make sure that whatever Will did was—” Jedidiah halted, his eyes glued to his son’s face. A face unmistakably without pain.

“What did you do, son?” Dr. Forsythe’s voice sounded far away.

What had he done? “I killed him.”

“You did not,” Eliza spat. She turned to the doctor. “What
would you have done on a bullet wound that—” She turned to Will. “What all did it hit?”

“I don’t know. The bullet lodged somewhere in his intestines I think, but I got—”

“A gutshot with intestinal damage?” Dr. Forsythe shook his head. “Jedidiah, the boy was lost. The fact that Will tried anything is because he’s a saint. You didn’t need me.”

Mrs. Langston’s whimpering grew louder.

How many saints never performed a miracle? “I’m not a saint.”

“That you bothered with him tells me you really ought to be a doctor. But one day you’ll tire of it.” Dr. Forsythe yawned. “If you ever decide to get off your duff and go to school, I’ll write you a recommendation. Maybe get you a good doctor to work under after lectures.”

School? He didn’t dare dream of that any longer. “I’ll never get to school, sir.”

“Humpf. Well, I know you don’t want to work with me again, and Benning doesn’t want to take on anyone for a while—I’ve asked—so . . .” He rubbed one of his eyes with a fist. “I know a few army surgeons from the war. If you want to sign on at a fort, I’ll write to a few post surgeons and see if one could take you on as an assistant contract surgeon.”

“Really?” Could he make that happen?

He shrugged. “Why not? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed. I got in late. Some woman’s birthing just went on and on for hours.” He rolled his eyes and yawned again. “Will can take care of his own dead patients.”

Dr. Forsythe trudged out the door without a word to the grieving parents. Fannie’s crying turned into unabashed wailing. Jedidiah sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

Leaving them to grieve without an audience would probably be best. He beckoned for Eliza to follow him outside.

At the store’s porch railing, he slumped against a post. The
orange hues of a new day imbued the horizon, erasing the evidence of Axel’s last night.

“Are you all right?” Eliza moved closer and placed a heavy hand on his arm.

He swallowed but could only shake his head. Another loss, but a compliment from Forsythe, regardless.

“Are you going to go?”

“Go?”

“Since Axel’s gone, you could sell the store and probably pocket a profit after giving the Langstons their share.”

“You think so?” She wanted him to go? But he’d thought . . . He rubbed at the ache in his temples.

She stared at the darker horizon. “An apprenticeship at a fort would allow you to keep the profit from the sale for the thin times.”

Back to business. How he wished he didn’t have to think about the store anymore—how he wished she didn’t care. “Someone still has to buy it.” But why stay any longer? Did he trust God to provide or not?

“I don’t have enough.”

“I didn’t mean to ask you to buy it.” He’d rather ask her to join him, wherever he went, but a woman thinking of buying him out was not a woman in love. And only a woman desperately in love would follow him west with no guarantee he could provide for her adequately.

She hugged a porch column, still staring off into the distance. “That’s what I was doing when I fell asleep—calculating my ability to buy you out. But I couldn’t figure a way to do it anytime soon without huge risk.”

He rubbed a hand across his brows. What was sadder? Another death on his hands or the woman he loved trying to find a way to help him leave faster? She didn’t need to know he probably couldn’t have sold it to her before today anyway. “Thanks, but I could just give you the store.”

She gave him that look—the scrunched eyes and the twisted lip—that indicated he’d said something she couldn’t fathom. “Giving me your store doesn’t help you buy supplies.”

“I can take stuff from the store.”

“You need money too. You’ll find a buyer, I’m sure.” Eliza stepped off the sidewalk and into the street, her arms tight around her middle. “Walk me back?”

Before he made it off the porch, she’d walked away. Striding to catch up, he ignored the pull to touch her. He might beg her to ask him to stay if he did.

She glanced toward him. The tears in her eyes caught him up short.

“Are you all right?”

“No.” She wiped at her eyes furiously. “I just realized someone’s son and friend died, and all I’m thinking about is how that affects
me
.” Her voice broke on the last word. “When did I become so selfish?”

But she wasn’t selfish. “You left the safety of your store armed with only an iron to help an unknown victim.”

She glanced at her empty hand. He’d return the implement to her tomorrow.

“You gave Mrs. Langston a deal selling clothing. You helped me with the Men’s Emporium the day you arrived without complaining and without any pay.”

“No, Will. I did none of those things out of goodness.” She walked up the exterior glass hallway of her store and opened her door. “I’ve done fairly well for myself, haven’t I?”

Why had she changed topics? “Who wouldn’t have expected you to do well? You’re good at business.”

She huffed a laugh. “I certainly got what I wanted.” She swiped at a tear wandering down her cheek and swung the door wide open. “Alone with everything I ever wanted.”

“You don’t want to be alone?” Was the store not enough for her anymore?

She swallowed hard. “I deserve to be.” Leaving him without a good-bye, she marched inside.

He laid a hand on the knob for a second but let it slide off.

She didn’t have to be alone, but she couldn’t have both him and the Five and Dime. And if he asked her to give it up . . . No. He couldn’t do that. She’d worked too hard for it, had wanted it for too long. Maybe she would say yes if he proposed. Maybe, just maybe, she’d pick him over her beloved store, but for how long could he make her happy? How many days and weeks and months would it take of her living in an army fort before she grew tired of . . .

He couldn’t ask her to marry him. He didn’t need to add the memory of her turning him down to take with him out west.

In time, some other man would win her heart without requiring her to give up the Five and Dime.

As Will strode toward the Hampdens’ store, Jonesey waved at him from across the street. His jolly, clear face was at least something sunshiny this week. Storm clouds had rolled in within hours of Axel’s death and lingered for days. No rain had fallen since he’d awoken, but the sky appeared grayer than normal for five in the afternoon.

“Think the rain will stay away for the Millers’ charity dance?” Jonesey bounded up onto the sidewalk.

“Clouds seem to be breaking up out east.” He didn’t care if the rain stayed away or not. Watching Eliza glide in and out of the arms of eligible men would be nothing short of torture. He wasn’t going to the dance.

“I’m sorry about Axel.” Jonesey looked to the Hampdens’ second-story windows. “And the baby.”

What could he say? Sympathy for him wasn’t necessary.

“I hear you’re leaving soon?”

Will nodded.

“Then I’m glad I caught you before you left.” Jonesey shoved his hands into his back pockets. “I wanted to tell you that you were right.”

He snorted. “Now, that would make my mother’s day, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The medicine and God stuff. I’ll be going to church on Sunday.”

“Good.” He slapped Jonesey on the back. “Hope you keep going.”

“I’ll find someone to drag me in if I don’t.” He scuffed his boot on the wooden planks. “I didn’t want to admit my failures to you, let alone God. I blamed Lucinda for everything without repenting of my own sins. Stupid, eh?”

Will only smiled. Jonesey didn’t need to hear his answer.

“Just wish I hadn’t taken so long to admit medicine wouldn’t fix my soul.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Will jiggled his shoulder. “You figured things out.”

“Everyone else in my life has turned their back on me, except you.” Jonesey’s shoulders slacked. “You worked a miracle, so I thought I’d ask you to pray for another.”

“I’m obviously not responsible for miracles, but I can pray.”

Jonesey swallowed but looked away. “I want my wife back.”

“That would be a miracle.” Hadn’t Jonesey said he didn’t know where Lucinda was? She’d been gone for six years. She could be dead and he’d never know.

“At least I want her to write me, so I can ask her forgiveness, but if she refuses to forgive me, can you pray I don’t retreat from life again?” Jonesey scratched at the hair behind his ear. “If you hadn’t checked on me every now and then over these past six years . . . I might’ve ended everything.”

He’d been suicidal? How had he missed that? He should have paid more attention. “I’m relieved you didn’t.”

“I didn’t because I knew you’d care.” Jonesey cleared his throat.
“The other doctors abandoned me once they realized the problems were all in my head.” He glanced at the store’s upstairs apartment again. “I bet you’re the only one checking on Mrs. Hampden.”

Will shrugged. A doctor ought to follow up on his patients.

“God knows the Hampdens need you, as much as I needed you.” He smiled. “Just wanted to tell you thanks.”

“You’re welcome, and I’ll certainly pray for you.”

“Good luck out west.” Jonesey shook his hand, then whistled as he walked away.

Will stared at his retreating back. Something he’d done had saved a life? Maybe not in the normal doctor way, but saving someone from suicide had to count for something. He looked at the windows above the Hampdens’ store. Was that why he felt compelled to come here daily despite having nothing medically worth checking on—was Kathleen feeling that low?