Be My Texas Valentine (35 page)

“I ... um ... but my dress. I’ll need to change so no one sees my Valentine’s dress yet.”

“Oh, we can wait, can’t we, Dr. Powell?” JoEmma ignored the glare radiating from her sister’s green eyes. “He can help me set this tray on my lap so I can put the pots on it for better balance.”

When Noah turned to lift the tray JoEmma indicated, Angelina shook a fist at her sister, spun on her heels, and fled upstairs.

“I didn’t know your sister was so fond of birds.” Noah helped JoEmma arrange the pots on the tray.

“You never know what will strike her fancy. I’m just as surprised as you are that she’s offering to help take care of Gabby. She usually doesn’t like to get dirt under her nails, much less bird poop.”

Noah’s eyes met JoEmma’s.

Suddenly he found something utterly amusing in the prospect of what might lie ahead.

Chapter 5

“Good, it looks like nobody’s here yet,” Noah told Angelina, glancing at the waiting room parlor at his office and nodding toward the curved pole that stood in one corner of the room. “Just hang the birdcage on the hook and take off the cloth. They’ll settle down once they see that they’re home.”

Gabby and Amigo were full of chirps and squawks, clearly upset by the way they were being handled by their carrier. Angelina had huffed and puffed with each step as if the lovebirds and their cage had the weight of an anvil. She’d been quite vocal about how it would have been much wiser to have taken a carriage to his office. Not until he mentioned that the walk would allow him to stop at a couple of places he needed to visit before returning to work did she agree to walk instead of ride.

He almost wished he had listened to her and taken a buggy instead. She had made a point of stopping along the way and telling every woman she passed about where they were headed and that they were sharing parenting responsibilities concerning their pets. It was as if Angelina was making sure everyone knew that she would be spending time with him in days to come.

He had thought JoEmma Brown would be caring for the birds, not her sister. He suspected she would do so quietly and confidently, without trying to infiltrate his life with as much ado as Angelina.

If the elder of the two Browns was Hannah Lassiter’s choice for him, their housekeeper needed to remember that though he looked forward to bird chatter, he also liked covering the cage when he needed silence. Noah wasn’t so sure how he would feel about a too talkative bridal prospect. She might not take to a tablecloth over her head. He’d always considered talking was for sharing words that mattered, not just for the sake of rattling. At least, that’s pretty much what he’d learned from his father. He hoped Mrs. Lassiter would drop her efforts where Angelina was concerned.

And JoEmma?
The thought echoing through his mind surprised Noah. He hadn’t included both sisters in that hopeful wish, and he wasn’t sure why other than he looked forward to JoEmma joining them in a short while.

Maybe it was because he’d always enjoyed JoEmma’s company. Though she seldom stayed around him long enough to learn much about her, he found what little he had discovered about her to be interesting.

“I can’t reach the hook,” Angelina complained, half-heartedly attempting to moor the cage to its station. “Would you mind helping me?” she added in a soft plea.

She was a foot and a half taller than Mrs. Lassiter, and the housekeeper had managed to move the birdcage when needed. Angelina was playing coy. Noah set down the sunflower seed bag and guided her hand to the hook to show Angelina that she could actually do it if she tried.

“Thank you, Dr. Powell.” Her hand lingered a moment too long with his before her eyelashes dipped then opened to flash green with undeniable attraction. “You’re so wonderfully tall.”

“And you are flirting with me, Miss Brown.” Noah liked Angelina well enough as a person. As a boy, he had looked on her as a possible courting companion. She’d been every young boy’s vision of a beautiful girl. There was nothing mean or unflattering about her. He’d simply found her too competitive in collecting beaux, and she had never made him feel that he was anything special to her. Maybe it was nothing more than pure vanity, but he didn’t want to waste time being simply a name with many others on her dance card. “I’m very flattered.”

“Well, why shouldn’t I flirt with you, Dr. Powell?” Angelina swung in a half circle, setting her petticoats to rustling beneath her taffeta skirt. “You have a thriving practice. You’re well respected. You’re the most eligible bachelor in the territory. You haven’t been seen escorting anyone
anywhere
,” she stressed as if hinting that there were places he could escort her. “Why ... there’s many a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve for you.”

Ahh, she was hinting about the upcoming Valentine’s dance. He’d heard that names would be drawn out of a bowl to match couples up at the dance. Each would choose a heart with a name on it and pin it on their sleeve. Whoever’s heart you drew was your partner for the evening. Everyone knew the name choosing wasn’t always on the fair side of right, but too many women in town liked to play matchmaker. And so far, no man he knew had ever offered to prepare the hearts for any Valentine’s celebration.

Though he appreciated her frankness in why he appealed to her, he knew if he didn’t encourage Angelina to spend her time on better prospects than him, she would waste what little time there was left between now and the party. She would lose her opportunity to snag a man of prestige who would be flattered by her interest.

“I hear the preparations for Belle Whitaker’s dance are well under way.” Noah grabbed the feed sack and started moving out of the parlor and down the hall toward the kitchen. “If you’ll come this way, I’ll show you where I keep the bird food and fresh trays.”

“Is that your bedroom?” The rustle of her petticoats sped up as she moved close enough to get a glimpse at the mess of bedcovers he’d left on the floor.

Noah dropped the sack again, this time just long enough to take a couple of steps to shut the door to his bedroom. “Sorry, I got up in a hurry this morning and didn’t make my bed.”

“But I thought Hannah did your housework,” she said from behind him.

He turned, blocking any further view of his private quarters. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but she might use whatever she saw there as something to gossip about with her friends. Maybe he ought to take back that last thought. He didn’t let anyone near his quarters or in his private life. “I clean my own bedroom. She takes care of everything else.”

Noah grabbed the sunflower seeds again and finally deposited the sack where it truly belonged in the kitchen. Next time he would wait to tote a sack around town until he knew exactly what would be done with it. Admiration for the freight haulers who had to lift such cargo day after day filled him with renewed respect.

“You’ll find the trays in the lower cabinet of the hutch. I keep plenty of eggs, not for the eggs themselves, but because Amigo likes to chew on the shells to sharpen his beak. I give the egg whites and yolks to the stray cat that pays me a morning visit around daylight, if I happen to be up. I usually try to be.”

He didn’t know why he was telling her all this. She’d probably never be around to feed the cat that early, but at least she might save the eggs for him till he could feed his visitor.

“Dr. Powell? Are you home?” called a female voice from the front parlor.

Angelina nearly busted her bustle flying out of the kitchen ahead of him as he answered, “I’ll be right there.”

“No-ah-Pow. No-ah-Pow. Smch-smch-smch,” Gabby trilled from the cage as he and Angelina rounded the corner and came face-to-face with a red-haired woman who had her look-alike son in tow.

“Mrs. Rawlston. How are you? Is Roy Lee feeling any better?” Noah eyed his ten-year-old patient. “Have his bowel movements shown any indication of improvement in the past week or so?”

“Yes.” She nodded briskly, setting her feathered hat into motion. “I must say, I didn’t believe you at all but the frog actually came out, as you said it would.”

Angelina looked on in horror. “You mean he—”

“Pooped a frog. Yes, he did. I told him to quit putting strange things in his mouth, but he refused to believe me. He took a dare to see how many frogs he could fit in his mouth and swallowed one.” She grabbed her son by the ear as the boy poked his finger into the birdcage. “Just like he’s about to get his finger pecked off if he doesn’t keep his hands where they belong. Roy Lee, leave those birds alone.”

“Says-a-me. Says-a-me. Open up.” Gabby rattled the latch. Her bill seemed to be waiting for another poke of the tiny finger.

“Oww, Mama, that hurts!”

“I’m going to make something else hurt if you don’t start minding your manners, young man. Now tell Dr. Powell what you did this morning so I can decide whether I need to make you an appointment with the undertaker.”

Roy Lee’s chin dipped to his chest as he mumbled, “I put some crawdad eyes in Beth Ann’s sandwich when she wasn’t looking, and she got so mad she wrestled me and poured some of her daddy’s chaw down my throat. I got to spitting it out quick but plenty of it went down and made me spiteful sick. It was all black and gooey and it looked like big ol’ lumps mixed with the flapjacks I ate this morning.”

Angelina paled noticeably. “I need to sit down.”

“Here, dear, let me help you.” Mrs. Rawlston let go of her son and helped Angelina to the settee. The boy moved closer to Noah, just to keep out of swatting range of his mother’s arms. “Wait till you have a boy of your own. None of this will affect you in the least. Why, by the time you change his first dirty diaper—”

“You ladies enjoy your talk.” Noah rustled Roy Lee’s red hair. “We’ll go see how much his belly’s grumbling and be right back.”

He gladly escaped with the ten-year-old and took him to the bedroom he used as an operating room. He lifted the boy up on the examination table. “So Beth Ann’s pretty upset with you, is she?”

“Naww, she likes me. She told me so.”

“Is that why you put crawdad eyes in her sandwich?”

“Yep. I figured I’d see if she was dumb enough to eat them.”

“So you’d know if she was the girl for you?”

“Yep. I don’t want no dumb girl liking me.”

“She didn’t eat them, did she?”

“Nope.” Respect filled his voice. “She found ’um right off. Said she suspected me right from the get-go.” Brown eyes stared up at Noah. “What’s a get-go, doc?”

“Don’t know for certain, but I think only smart girls can spot one.”

“That’s what I figure. ’Cause whatever it is, it made sure she knew about them eyeballs and she didn’t eat ’um. I still ain’t certain how come she had her daddy’s chaw so close by, but she used it quicker than I could tell her I was real sorry. Phew! I won’t never do that again.”

Noah held back a laugh. It sounded like Beth Ann was a lot smarter than even Roy Lee knew. She’d obviously come prepared for possibilities. “So you plan on telling her she’s your girl now?”

“On Valentine’s Day.” Roy Lee rubbed his tummy. “I figure that’ll give me enough time to get out of trouble with Ma so I can ask Beth Ann to the dance with me.”

“Sounds like a good plan, but I’d like to offer a piece of advice.”

“Yeah?” The boy looked at him askance.

“Tell Beth Ann you’re sorry before Valentine’s Day. She might go with some other boy if you wait.”

Noah examined the young Romeo, listening to his belly and breathing, checking to see if he had any temperature. “Have you eaten anything since you lost your flapjacks?”

“Yeah. Some of Ma’s blueberry pie.”

“You’ll live then.” He set the boy on his feet and would have given him the usual peppermint stick he offered his other youthful patients but decided to give the kid’s stomach a rest. “No need for the undertaker.”

“I told her I was tough.” Roy Lee strutted down the hall to the waiting room.

When they returned to the women, they found that others had joined Angelina and Mrs. Rawlston. In fact, it looked like a meeting of the Ladies’ Church Auxiliary Club had been called. Noah greeted his patients, none looking particularly ill. He focused his attention on Roy Lee’s mother.

“My diagnosis is that you need to keep his mouth closed for a while,” Noah informed her, “and insist that he only put things in it that are supposed to go in it.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Dr. Powell.” She rose from her seat next to Angelina. “Well, ladies, it’s been good talking with you. I hope you all start feeling better. Must be an epidemic going around.”

Angelina was the only one of the group who looked even remotely in need of his attention. But he wasn’t sure if she was still reacting to the visual Roy Lee had given of losing his breakfast or if she was upset. She looked more like she was pouting.

“I’m next, Dr. Powell.” Carrie Sanders stood, lifting her double chins to a determined angle and daring the other women to contradict her claim. “I came in just as you took Roy Lee in to be examined.”

“What can I do to help you, Miss Sanders?”

An hour later he had seen all of the women and found none of them to be suffering from anything but a sudden need for attention. Each of them had mentioned the dance and hinted that they were still available. He decided he ought to just escort Angelina to the party and be done with it. If every female in the territory was going to visit him in the next few days to let him know of her availability, he would get nothing done.

To his surprise, Angelina was alone waiting in the parlor when he finished with his last patient. He expected her sister to have joined them by now. “I’m sorry, Miss Brown. I never dreamed I would be that busy. I was hoping to show you and your sister where everything is that I use for the birds, then to see you both home.”

“Something’s kept JoEmma. I’m getting concerned about her. She should have been here long before now.” Angelina looked almost mad, not just concerned. “I wanted us both to be informed of your preferences for Amigo’s care.”

He suspected she was frustrated by the other women’s appearance at his office today, but there was still a sense of sincerity in her concern over her younger sister and his expectations concerning his pet. “How about I close up for a while and find out what’s kept her? You can go along with me or I’ll see that she gets home as soon as possible.”