The Doctor's Newfound Family (15 page)

“That’s part of it, yes. The property is rightfully theirs and Bein’s claim to it is not honorable, even if it may be legal.”

“That still don’t explain why you ain’t interested in courtin’ her. Does she like you?”

“Apparently. We get along fine. That’s not the problem. There’s simply no way a man in my position can adequately provide for her and her brothers.” He made a derisive noise in his throat. “I’m lucky to collect enough fees to keep my office rent paid, let alone establish a home and start a family.”

“You tell her that, did you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“In so many words?”

Taylor shrugged and arched his eyebrows. “I don’t recall exactly what I said. I do know that she mistakenly assumed I was hesitant because of her father’s tarnished reputation.”

“Were you?”

“Of course not! I hadn’t even considered that until she got upset and brought it up.”

Abe began to laugh. “Sounds to me like a couple of children squabbling over a toy.”

“I hardly consider affairs of the heart to be childish,” Taylor countered. “I truly do care for her. I just refuse to saddle her with a husband who cannot properly provide for her and her family.”

Sobering and getting a wistful look in his rheumy old eyes, Abe sighed audibly. “I had a gal once. A pretty one she was, too. Man, could she cook.”

“I didn’t know you’d ever been married.”

“I haven’t. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. I wanted to sow my wild oats before I settled down, so I put to sea for a couple of years. When I came back, she’d got tired of waitin’ and married another man.” He gestured at the cluttered, crowded saloon. “Since then, it’s been just me and this place and my menagerie.”

“Surely you’ve had other opportunities to find a wife. This city has far more men than women, but still…”

“Never wanted any other gal,” Abe said flatly. “Once you’ve tasted a rare steak, you don’t want to settle for a pot of cold mush.”

That analogy struck Taylor funny. He chuckled. “Believe me, I’m simply trying to do what’s best for Miss Reese and her family.”

“Then tell her so and let her make up her own mind. Because if you don’t, you may never find another woman who takes your fancy the way that one has.”

In his heart, Taylor knew Abe was right. His conscience, however, put up such a strong fight that he was at a loss as to which course to take.

Finally, he left the Cobweb Palace and stood on the boardwalk outside, listening to the foghorns in the distance and peering, unseeing, into the mist that was rolling in off the bay like waves of seawater at high tide.

The musty salt air smelled of all the sundry things that made the wharf a successful business enterprise, including the garbage from numerous restaurants and the offal from the fishing boats moored nearby.

There was blurred movement within the mist from time to time. Groups of men talked or laughed or cursed as they passed by. Some revelers were already so drunk they could hardly stand. Others were sneaking around as if waiting to lift purses from hapless sots and pitch their victims off the docks into the drink if they dared resist.

Taylor huffed. Half his patients would be suffering from combat wounds or hangovers after this weekend, not to mention the dangerous days to come. The worst was not over. Until the official law became trustworthy, no one would really be safe.

Suddenly, all he could think about was seeing Sara Beth again. Making sure she was all right. Telling her how he truly felt.

And if he bared his soul and she rejected him? Then he would consider her choice to be directed by the Heavenly Father they both worshipped and would stop dreaming of a happy time when they could be together.

Could he end those dreams by sheer force of will? He doubted it. Oh, he might be able to bid her a polite farewell and walk away, but his heart would be as scarred for life as old Abe Warner’s.

Taylor realized he was as smitten as a schoolboy with his first crush and as committed as an old man who had spent a lifetime devoted to the same woman. If he and Sara Beth did not somehow find the path to marital bliss, he did not know how he would survive. The more he thought about her, the more he came to realize that she was the only one for him.

He didn’t know how he could possibly toil any harder than he already was, but he would find a way.
He’d scrimp and save and hoard every spare penny until he was able to offer her a real home.

Would she wait? he wondered. Abe’s beloved had not done so, yet perhaps that was because Abe had gone to sea. Taylor intended to stay right here where he could keep an eye on Sara Beth. Keep her safe.

Pondering such things, he shivered and started to walk briskly toward Franklin Street. The urge to see and talk to her—to confess his love—was so intense, so demanding, he almost broke into a run.

T
he temblor began as Sara Beth was assembling her brothers in the otherwise empty parlor. It shook the sturdy house briefly, causing the teardrop crystal pendants on the kerosene lamp bases to sway in unison and the fringe on the silk piano scarf to ripple.

Already bouncing on Sara Beth’s knees, Josiah paid the shaking no mind, but both Mathias and Luke looked to their sister.

“It’s nothing,” she assured them. “I can’t count the number of earthquakes I’ve noticed in the nearly eighteen years I’ve lived around here. Pay it no mind.”

She continued bouncing the two-year-old on her lap and grinning at him while the older boys sat on the floor at her feet. “What I wanted to talk about is our plans for the future.”

To her delight, Mathias’s eyes widened expectantly. Luke, however, started to frown.

“Hear me out, please,” Sara Beth said firmly. “I have been writing to the newspapers in the hopes their editorials will embarrass Uncle William enough to make him do right by us.”

“He’d help us if you’d ask him nice and polite,” Luke muttered.

“No. He would not.” Sara Beth concentrated on her oldest brother while speaking to include them all. “William Bein has laid claim to Papa Robert’s estate by virtue of their business partnership and refuses to listen to reason. He wants it all. He has told me this directly to my face.”

Tears glistened in Mathias’s eyes. She reached down to pat him on the head. “Don’t worry, darling. As long as we have each other, we’ll be fine. And I promise I’ll keep us all together, somehow, no matter what I have to do.”

“That’s okay for you,” Luke countered in a squeaky, breaking voice. “I’m the one who’s gonna be pitched out into the streets any minute.”

“We can work something out to stop that from happening. I know we can,” she insisted. “All I’m asking is that you boys be patient and give me a chance. Mrs. McNeil has allowed us all to stay in spite of the rules against keeping boys once they’ve
reached Luke’s age. I don’t really qualify either, since I’m not your mama.”

“See?” Luke looked as if he was about to cry.

“Don’t fret. I know she’s not going to make us do anything else for a while.”

“Yeah, right.” Sniffling, the eleven-year-old scrambled to his feet and stormed out of the room.

Sara Beth chose to let him go and concentrate on her other siblings. She hugged the toddler close. “Don’t worry about him, boys. Luke is just having trouble adjusting to living here. He’ll get better as time passes.”

At least, I hope he will,
she added to herself. Luke’s attitude troubled her greatly. He had always been the willing one, the sensible brother. Mathias had been the imp. And Josiah? He was his usual, cheerful, cherubic self, ever ready to grin and always eager to be held and babied.

That would change with age, of course. Luke had been a wonderfully sweet babe. So had Mathias, when he wasn’t squalling for food or demanding more attention.

Thinking back on the boys’ childhoods, she was struck that she had often played the part of their mother while Mama was busy with other chores. There had been times when it had seemed burdensome to do so, but in retrospect it had been for the
best. She desperately needed her brothers to accept her authority.

Especially Luke.

Especially now.

Luke lit a candle and moved its flame across in front of the glass of a rear window. Then he waited.

The knock on the kitchen side door was so faint he would have missed hearing it if he had not been standing right there. His palms were clammy. He wiped first one, then the other on his pants before he held the candle high and reached for the latch.

“Who—who is it?”

“You know.”

He did. And he was prepared to do anything he had to in order to fit in with the older boys who held his shaky future in their hands. There was nothing left for him but a life on the streets and he knew it.

Easing open the door, he admitted the shabbily dressed young man, noting as he passed that there was a foul, dank odor about him.

Everything stunk in his life, including his friends, Luke mused, disgusted. Papa had always preached honesty and Mama cleanliness and Godliness. What good had that done them?

“Where is everybody?” the interloper asked.

“Mostly in bed. My sister was in the parlor with my brothers last time I saw her so you should probably start in one of the other rooms.”

“Start?”

“Stealing stuff,” Luke said, frowning with puzzlement.

“Right. Stealing.” He shrugged. “Forgot to bring a sack. Think you can scrounge me one? Pillow-cases are good.”

“Sure. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” the would-be assassin said as the younger boy shielded the flickering candle with his cupped hand and left the kitchen. “Take all the time you need.”

He inched closer to the hallway Luke had entered. He wasn’t sure of the layout of the house, but he had a rough idea from talking to a few previous residents. That should suffice.

Pausing, he looked left, then right, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. He’d begin where Luke had last seen his sister. And if she wasn’t in the parlor, he’d come back to the kitchen and wait for her stupid brother to lead him straight to her. If luck was with him, he’d be finished and gone before anybody else even realized he’d been there.

He opened the small knife he had concealed in his hand and stepped forward.

Taylor had arrived on the grounds of the orphanage just as the moon was rising. Its reflection off the mist appeared to thicken the atmosphere until he could barely distinguish the house, let alone see well enough to tell what was going on inside.

He’d intended simply to knock on the front door and ask to speak with Sara Beth, but no lights continued to burn. That was a problem. Assuming the matron and her staff were already abed, his social call would seem quite odd.

Being thought inconsiderate was the last thing he wanted. If he hoped to eventually win over Sara Beth, he would need Mrs. McNeil’s support as well as the goodwill of sensible matrons like Clara and Mattie. Rousing the household after all the lights were out was not the way to make a favorable impression.

Hesitating, he tried to decide how best to proceed. It wasn’t that he believed that Sara Beth was in danger the way she had been earlier, he assured himself, yet there was a nagging insistence in the back of his mind that he must speak with her.
Tonight.
His mission would not wait till tomorrow. His heart would not let it.

The closer he got to the house, the more sinister and shadowy it appeared, giving him pause. That
was an unnerving, totally abnormal reaction, particularly considering all the times he’d been summoned to the bedside of a sick child during the night and had responded to that call without a twinge of apprehension.

“Guess I’m a lot more overwrought than I thought,” he whispered into the mist, mostly to hear his own voice.

“I’m also standing here babbling to myself,” he added, beginning to smile and shake his head. “What would my patients think if they could see me now?”

That I’m praying,
Taylor said, deciding easily that that was exactly what he should have been doing all along. When he momentarily closed his eyes and attempted to talk to God, all he was able to do was picture the love of his life and worry about her safety.

He managed a heartfelt, “Bless her and keep her, Father,” before he gave up entirely and moved on.

Slowly circling the house, he kept an eye open for any indication that someone was still up. A lighted candle moved near one of the rear windows. Perhaps a child had taken sick and Sara Beth was fetching a dose of tonic?

The same candle cast a sliver of light into the swirling fog as the door was opened. A shadowy
figure, not too large, passed in front of the flame and quickly slipped inside the building.

Taylor froze, his heart in his throat, his mouth suddenly dry. It wasn’t the presence of someone at the door, or the fact that they were being admitted that bothered him. It was the stealth of movement and the obvious sense that one or more people did not want to be seen entering.

His pulse pounded in his temples. Sara Beth was inside that house. And now, so was someone who most likely did not belong there.

That was enough for him. He jogged up to the same portal, intending to demand admittance. He didn’t have to. The door was not only unlocked, it stood ajar.

Taylor pushed it open and stepped inside.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Something was terribly wrong.

For Sara Beth, the evening had been nearly as tedious as the entire day. She was exhausted, yet she’d taken the time to walk Mathias back to his bed before returning sleepy Josiah to the nursery. Thankfully, both boys had behaved beautifully. She was not up to an argument after Luke’s tantrum. What bothered her most was the chance that his bad attitude might influence Mathias.

Well, that couldn’t be helped. Considering all the other boys who lived there, Luke’s problems were truly insignificant. Not to him, of course, but given the rigors of surviving on the streets or going to bed hungry night after night, Luke had led a blessedly easy life. If only she could make him realize it.

“Father, help me,” Sara Beth said as she lifted the kerosene lamp in one hand, her skirts in the other, and started up the staircase to bed.

A sudden shimmying of the pendants drew her attention to the lamp. The liquid fuel inside the glass base was trembling as if she had just shaken it. Only she had not.

She released her skirt and grabbed the banister for balance. There was a low, sustained rumble, as if the house was protesting being disturbed.

Waiting, she listened. In seconds, the noise of a few whimpering, frightened children was all she could hear. The earthquake was over quickly, as usual.

This spate of shaking had seemed harder and a bit more sustained, yet she doubted that there was anything to worry about. After all, the city experienced so many earthquakes that only the worst were even mentioned in the newspapers, and then only if there was no other interesting news to print that same day.

The last big temblor of any note had caused a few fires, however, so Sara Beth doused her lamp for safety. Better to eliminate the chance of a catastrophe than to accidentally drop the glass lamp and perhaps set the whole orphanage ablaze.

That thought gave her the shivers. So did being alone in the dark. Her vision adjusted slowly. She could discern little more than fuzzy shadows of the stairway and its newel posts. That was enough to allow her to proceed.

She took each step with caution, hiking a bit of skirt in the same hand as the dark lamp, leaving her other hand free to grasp the banister in case she lost her footing. The path up the stairs was as recognizable to her as the rest of the enormous house, yet she still took her time, slowly counting each step.

“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,” she murmured, coming to the landing. Something made her pause there. Listen. Tense. “Luke? Is that you?”

Silence and darkness enveloped her. The atmosphere seemed suddenly dank, as if the whole house was in desperate need of airing. “Luke?”

When she held her breath and waited for a reply, she thought she heard someone else breathing. Panting. The stairs below her gave a familiar creak. Which riser always did that? Number four or five, if she remembered correctly. That meant that
whoever was sneaking up behind her still had a ways to go. If she fled…

Whirling, Sara Beth raced up the last tier of the stairway as though she could see clearly. She tripped, regained her footing and continued. As soon as she reached the second floor she thrust the unlit lamp into a corner to keep it safe from an accidental spill, grabbed her skirt in both hands and ran for all she was worth.

She rushed past the rooms where others slept, thinking of sleeping innocents within. Instead of taking immediate refuge, she headed straight for the door leading to the old servants’ quarters at the end of the hall. Her hand closed on the brass knob. It turned!

The narrow door gave with a noisy squeak of its hinges. “Unlocked. Thank You, God,” she whispered, jerking it all the way open and pivoting through so she could slam and lock it behind her.

It wouldn’t close tight! Sara Beth panicked and slammed it again. The bang of the wood smacking the door frame echoed hollowly, sounding muted as if…

A tug on her skirt told her all she needed to know. She eased her grip enough to extricate her clothing from the space and jerked the door closed again, just as someone crashed into it from the opposite side.

Sara Beth staggered. “No!” she screeched. “No.”

Her heels were hard against the hidden stairway that led to the servants’ quarters. She gripped the inside knob with both hands and pulled as hard as she could.

She felt the tarnished brass orb start to turn, then stop. Was she safe? Had it really been that easy?

Moments later she realized that whoever had been outside the door had ceased trying to gain entrance to her hiding place. Nevertheless, she continued to hold tight to the knob, waiting for another attempt.

None came. Quiet descended. All she could hear was the sound of her own heavy breathing and the pounding of her heart.

This was too easy. Too unbelievable. Perhaps her imagination had simply been working overtime and no one was actually out there. Or maybe Luke was playing a very unfunny joke to get even for whatever supposed slights she had committed.

She relaxed enough to press her ear to the door. “Luke? Is that you? Because if it is, I am not amused.”

Someone chuckled. Someone whose voice was unfamiliar.

Although Sara Beth recoiled, she kept her hands on the knob. She didn’t know how long her strength
would prevail, but she was not going to let go and simply give a stranger the upper hand. No, sir. Not her. She had been through enough in the past weeks to prove her mettle, at least to her own satisfaction, and she was not a quitter.

On the other side of the door the soft, snide laughing continued. It would fade for a few seconds, then return. Something hard banged against the door, startling her.