Scattered Petals (17 page)

The swing creaked under the Ranger’s weight. “I’m mighty glad to see you looking so well.”

Though he seemed reluctant to meet her gaze, he had obviously glanced at her. Priscilla was thankful he hadn’t come in the early morning, for she hadn’t looked well then. “I feel much better than the last time you saw me.” She had been battered and bruised then, and the intense fear that had shocked her by its reappearance today had been her constant companion on the trip to the Bar C.

A flush stained the Ranger’s face. “Well . . . um . . . about that . . .” He rolled his hat brim as he spoke. “I’m sorry to say I haven’t caught Jake and Chet yet.”

He hadn’t? Then why was he here? As an involuntary gasp escaped her lips, the Ranger’s flush deepened. “I assure you I will catch them. Those two will pay for their crimes.” Fear snaked up Priscilla’s spine. Though she knew she wasn’t meant to overhear it, she’d heard Zach and Clay discussing the Ranger’s worry that the Dunkler brothers might seek to avenge Zeke’s death by killing her. “Do you think they’ve come this way?” That must be why the Ranger was in Ladreville.

He shook his head. “No. All indications are they holed up for a few days, then headed north.”

“But Ladreville isn’t north.”

“And you’re wondering why I’m here.” He stopped fussing with his hat and looked directly at her, his expression solemn. “It’s true I wanted to assure myself you were all right, but I have another reason. It appears a young man named Jean-Michel Ladre stole a good sum of money from the empresario he was working for and ran away. Since he used to live in Ladreville, I thought he might have headed back here.”

Though Priscilla had been told the story of Jean-Michel’s earlier misdeeds and his banishment, she thought he was still in Houston. “I don’t go into town very often, so I can’t say whether he’s returned. You’ll have to ask Zach. My husband.” Priscilla added the explanation.

The Ranger stared into the distance, as if he were once again unwilling to meet her gaze. Perhaps it had not been her imagination that something about her marriage had disturbed him. “If you don’t mind my saying, ma’am, I was surprised to hear you married so quickly.”

Priscilla bit her lip, debating what to tell him. Though certain things were not mentioned in polite company, the Ranger knew what had happened to her. Why not admit the truth? “It was because of the baby.”

The flush which had faded returned to his face. “Oh.”

“I heard you had a visitor today.” To Zach’s relief, his voice did not reflect the jolt of something—surely it could not be jealousy—he’d felt when Miguel had told him Lawrence Wood had returned to Ladreville.

“The Ranger came.” Though he watched carefully, Zach saw no sign of discomfort on his wife’s face. Priscilla pulled the pan of biscuits out of the oven, carefully placing them on a plate. Only when she’d covered the plate with a towel did she add, “He wanted to tell me he still hasn’t caught the bandits.” She might have been discussing the weather for all the emotion she displayed. Evidently Lawrence Wood’s visit had not been an important part of her day. That was good news.

“I see.” A progress report. That was the first time Zach had heard of a Ranger reporting to anyone other than his captain. Normally, folks simply assumed the lawmen would do their job, and eventually the stories of how justice was meted out filtered back to them. Lawrence Wood, it appeared, had a different approach. A more personal approach. It certainly wasn’t jealousy, but Zach couldn’t say that he approved, particularly since coming here took time away from what the Ranger was supposed to be doing: hunting the Dunkler brothers.

As Priscilla placed the last bowl on the table, Zach pulled out her chair, taking care not to touch her. Someday, he hoped, she would not shy from a casual touch, but that day had not arrived.

When they’d given thanks for their food and started to eat, Priscilla looked up, a question in her eyes. “Did you know that Jean-Michel Ladre has run away from Houston or Galveston or wherever it is he’s supposed to be?”

The question took him aback, for Zach couldn’t imagine why she was asking about a man she’d never met. Before he could say anything, she continued, “That’s why the Ranger was in Ladreville. He said Jean-Michel had stolen some money and ran away. He thought he might have come here.”

Relief washed over Zach. He’d been mistaken, thinking Lawrence Wood had come to Ladreville specifically to see Priscilla. Apparently she was nothing more than an afterthought. Good. Excellent. As he looked at Priscilla, admiring the way her hair seemed to bring light to the whole room, Zach said, “I hadn’t heard of Jean-Michel’s escape, but I wondered why I hadn’t seen Michel around town recently.” At the time, Zach had thought the mayor was spending more time with his wife in an attempt to prove that she was as important to him as the town. It appeared that Zach was wrong. “If he got word of his son’s latest crimes, Michel is probably ashamed to be seen in public.”

Priscilla took a biscuit, then passed the plate to Zach. Tonight’s supper was some kind of thick soup—barley, he guessed—with biscuits. Other than the one time when they’d been almost as black as his horse, her biscuits had been delicious, proving what Zach had suspected: his wife learned very quickly.

Right now that wife was frowning. “But the Ladres didn’t do anything wrong.”

Zach buttered another biscuit as he searched for the right words. If only he hadn’t opened the Pandora’s Box of rumors and condemnation, but he had. “Folks might claim they didn’t raise Jean-Michel properly. My ma used to tell me that the reason I had to behave was so the neighbors wouldn’t think she was a poor mother.” Though Zach tried to make light of it, he could see that Priscilla was concerned.

“That might be true of small children, but once a person’s an adult, he’s responsible for his own behavior.” The way Priscilla toyed with her spoon told Zach she was more concerned with the townspeople’s possible shunning of the mayor than with eating. Did she fear that she would be subjected to the same shunning when her baby was born less than nine months after their wedding?

Priscilla took a sip of coffee, then looked directly at Zach, her green eyes filled with pain. When she spoke, her words surprised him. “Do you suppose some people are born evil?”

She wasn’t speaking of Jean-Michel. Zach was certain of that, for when she’d asked the question, Priscilla had placed her hand on her abdomen. Her worry was for her unborn child. This was, Zach guessed, a new fear and, in all likelihood, one that troubled her far more than the prospect of being shunned. “No, I don’t.” Zach spoke forcefully, willing her to believe him. “I believe everyone has the potential to be either good or evil. We all make choices, and some of us make the wrong ones.”

“Like the bandits.”

“And Jean-Michel.”

To Zach’s surprise, his words appeared to have restored Priscilla’s appetite, for she took a spoonful of soup and followed it with a bite of biscuit. When she looked up, some of the pain in her eyes seemed to have receded. “Do you ever wish you’d made different choices?”

Zach had no intention of admitting how one bad decision had affected his life. Instead he said simply, “Yes.”

To his relief, Priscilla did not ask him to elaborate. She nodded slowly as she said, “So do I.”

“What would you change?” Several times she’d mentioned wishing she hadn’t come to Texas, for she believed that if she hadn’t insisted on attending Clay’s wedding, her parents would still be alive and she would not be carrying a bandit’s child.

A small smile curved the corners of Priscilla’s mouth, as if she knew what Zach expected but had no intention of repeating the same story. He didn’t care what she said. What mattered was that she seemed to have recovered from her earlier distress.

“I wish I hadn’t listened to my parents.” Zach tried but failed to mask his surprise. Priscilla struck him as a dutiful daughter, and from what she and Clay had said, it was difficult to picture her parents making unreasonable demands. Rather than speak, he raised an eyebrow and waited for her to explain. “I wanted to be a doctor, and they discouraged me.”

“You wanted to be a doctor?” His voice rose in disbelief. It was the wrong reaction, for Priscilla’s smile disappeared.

“You sound like my parents—shocked by the very idea. Why can’t a woman be a doctor?”

Zach could think of a dozen reasons, starting with the fact that patients would not accept a woman in that role any more than they’d accept a woman standing at the pulpit on Sunday morning. But he knew Priscilla didn’t want to hear that, and so he said, “It’s not impossible, but it’s always difficult to be the first to do anything. Trailblazers have a hard time.”

“I wouldn’t have been the first. A woman named Elizabeth Blackwell is a doctor, and I heard that her sister is too. Papa considered it a bit of a scandal, but they’re planning to open an infirmary for women and children in New York City.”

Zach didn’t care about Dr. Blackwell; he cared about the woman who was now his wife. Though the decision had been made some time in the past, her dream and the fact that it was unrealized had helped shape the woman Priscilla was today. “What made you want to travel such a difficult road?”

When she met his gaze, Zach saw a sparkle of enthusiasm in her eyes. “I loved helping my father with his patients. I saw how he made a difference in their lives, and I wanted to do the same.”

It was an admirable goal and one Zach shared. He liked thinking that he was helping Clay and his father. That was why he spent time each day teaching Robert to walk again. But surely Priscilla realized that practicing medicine was not the only way to help others. “Women make differences too.” He nodded when she held up the coffeepot and waited until she’d refilled his cup before he continued. “Women do things that only they can do. They create a home and raise children.”

Priscilla took another sip of coffee. “I worried I’d never marry.”

Though he’d been startled by the idea that Priscilla longed to be a physician, that shock paled compared to the one he’d just received. “Why on earth not? You must have had suitors by the score.”

She shrugged. “There were none I wanted to marry. I knew not one of them was the man God had chosen for me.”

Zach swallowed deeply at the realization that he wasn’t either, and yet she’d married him. Zeke Dunkler’s attack and its aftermath had left her no choice. Zach couldn’t change that, but perhaps there was a way to help Priscilla achieve her dream. “Have you talked to Clay? Now that Dr. Adler can’t practice, he’s complained about being too busy.” When the town’s sole doctor began to lose his sight, Clay had taken over his responsibilities. That was one of the reasons he’d hired Zach to manage the Bar C.

Priscilla shook her head. “Even if he might have considered it before—and I doubt that—there’s no chance now that there’s a baby on the way. Clay was very protective of Patience when she was in my condition. He told her women needed to care for their babies, both before and after they were born.”

Zach couldn’t disagree. He knew how unpredictable a doctor’s schedule was and could not imagine how a woman with children could handle it. The bandits, it seemed, had destroyed more than one of Priscilla’s dreams.

“I don’t mean to complain,” she said as she placed a piece of apple pie before him, “but the days go slowly.”

“It’ll be different after the baby comes.”

Though Priscilla nodded, her eyes darkened with regret. “That’s still a long time away.”

Zach had no answer for her.

The next morning Priscilla was still thinking about her conversation with Zach. She wasn’t surprised that he’d been surprised, even shocked, by the fact that she’d once dreamt of becoming a doctor. Her parents had had even stronger reactions. Papa had told her it was impossible, that no school would accept her and that, even if one did, she would never be able to attract patients. “Ladies aren’t doctors,” he’d told her firmly. “I was wrong to take you with me.” And from that day forward, he’d refused to let her accompany him on his rounds.

Mama had simply cried, demanding to know how she’d failed in her duty as a parent, for she must have failed if Priscilla, who could have her choice of eligible husbands, would even consider such an unwomanly occupation. Only Patience had offered sympathy, but she, too, had discouraged her sister from pursuing the idea, admitting that she wouldn’t allow a woman physician to treat her, even if that woman was her sister.