The Rightful Heir (19 page)

“I'll take you to your new office and your patients.” Dawson nodded to the doctor, scooped Mattie into his arms and strode across the street.

Isabelle followed Kate and Dr. Baker. She didn't mean to miss this opportunity to prove she was an ordinary, everyday, useful sort of woman. Would she ever truly know acceptance as such rather than as a rich woman? Yes, she'd been blessed with it and unfettered love when her parents lived. Her mother, especially, lavished it on her. Isabelle didn't doubt Cousin Augusta's affection was genuine. But apart from Kate, every other friendship had been tainted by the color of her money.

They crossed the rutted street and Isabelle had to concentrate on where she put her feet. It helped her avoid thinking of the fact that she meant to step into a doctor's office...something she'd managed to avoid since her parents' deaths. They entered a narrow room with benches on either side. A couple of dusty men sat clutching their hats and sprang to their feet as Dawson entered.

“He's here? The new doc?” one asked.

Dr. Baker stepped forward. “I'm the doctor. Where are the injured men?”

Two heads tipped in the direction of another door. Dr. Baker and Kate crossed toward it.

Isabelle followed. The wood of the place being new, there were no sickroom odors. Nothing to remind her of when her parents were ill.

She crossed the threshold into the other room, and after a fleeting glance at a mangled hand on one man and the blood-soaked rag around the head of a second, she averted her eyes from the third man stretched out on the examining table. Every muscle in her body tensed, just as they had back then. Perhaps if she concentrated on the supplies, she could manage to forget the sights and smells and fears she recalled from watching her parents die.

She went to Kate's side as her friend pried open one crate and quickly arranged an array of bottles and instruments on the shelves as Dr. Baker bent over the man on the examining table.

Isabelle didn't hear what the doctor said to Kate or if Kate knew what he needed without words. Kate uncorked a bottle and poured some liquid on a cloth and handed it to her father.

The odor assailed Isabelle with revolting familiarity. The smell of sickness and death.

The room tilted. Her stomach churned. Clasping a hand to her mouth, she fled back to the waiting room and sank to the nearest empty spot on a bench. She sucked in a deep breath to calm her stomach and slowly righted her head to meet the challenging look of Dawson Marshall. He'd removed his hat to reveal thick blond hair. A fine-looking man but one who—if she was to guess from the way his pale eyebrows knotted together—wondered at her sudden exit from the examining room.

Unable to explain herself, she lowered her gaze to Mattie, who offered her wide-eyed wonder and then a shy smile.

Isabelle armed herself with that sliver of a welcome.

There must be something useful she could do in this town that didn't require her presence in the doctor's office. Something to prove to herself and everyone else that she was more than a rich heiress.

A moan came from the doctor's office and she bolted out the door.

* * *

Dawson stared after the woman. Had she taken such a dislike to him she couldn't bear to be in the same room? He leaned his head back against the wall, ignoring the two miners who watched him, their eyes wide with curiosity. She had no right to scold him about Mattie's safety. He'd seen the wagon bearing down and would have died before he let his daughter be hurt. He'd gently admonished her to look both ways before she dashed across the street...exactly what a good parent should do.

Isabelle's criticism of him reminded him sharply of Violet. She, too, had picked holes in everything he did. His now-deceased wife, a city woman who thought to find adventure and satisfaction on the Marshall Five Ranch, had instead found boredom and disappointment. A fact she never ceased to bemoan, saying she should have remained in the city. He totally agreed.

Isabelle's clothes and manners screamed the fact she, too, was a city woman. Her words had accused him of being a blundering father. Violet had called him a bumbling cowboy. He guessed one was pretty much the same as the other.

“Papa, she sure is pretty but why is she afraid?”

He ground down on his molars. The last thing this town or Dawson Marshall or his daughter needed was another woman like Violet—a fancy city woman who couldn't or wouldn't accept the demands of life in the West. He should never have married Violet. But he'd been a dewy-eyed nineteen-year-old. When she learned life on a ranch was hard work, she'd sought excitement elsewhere and ended up dying in a reckless horse race against some cowboys from Wolf Hollow, the nearby mining town, leaving him with a three-year-old daughter to raise.

Now a wiser twenty-six-year-old, he knew enough not to be blinded by a woman's beauty. Nor her gentle manner. Not even her concern for his daughter's safety.

Such a woman was not equipped to live out here.

“Come on, Papa.” Mattie tugged on his arm.

“Where are we going?”

“After her.”

“I expect she is about her own business.” He could only hope and pray that business, whatever it was, would not attract any more of Mattie's interest.

Mattie got up and tugged at Dawson.

He didn't budge as Mattie did her best to pull him to his feet. She tugged. She jerked. She turned her back to him and leaned into his outstretched arm like a stubborn mule, grunting under the strain.

He laughed at the accurate comparison. If Mattie set her mind to an idea, she would not easily give it up. His smile flattened. Reason enough to divert her attraction from the beautiful newcomer.

He curled his arm about his daughter's waist and drew her to his chest. “You know you will never be strong enough to move me.” He bussed a kiss on her neck.

She giggled. “There's more than one way to get you to move.”

“Really? Who told you that?”

“Aunt Annie.”

Yup, his sister would feel free to tell Mattie her opinion. His little sister was only nineteen but had been taking care of Mattie for three years now. And the rest of the family even longer. She'd developed some very strong notions about things.

Mattie gave a decisive nod. “And Grandfather. He knows everything.”

She, like everyone else, called the eldest Marshall Grandfather. Dawson's father was known to her as Grandpa Bud.

“Grandfather might not know everything. After all, he's just a man.” The words almost stuck to his tongue. No one, least of all Grandfather, would look kindly on such a statement. After all, Bella Creek had been built by the Marshall patriarch to provide a safe and pleasant alternative to the ramshackle collection of buildings in the wild mining town known as Wolf Hollow. Many of the businesses had been created by him. Before that, he'd started the ranch. It was Grandfather who'd insisted the Marshalls were responsible for rebuilding the section of town the fire had destroyed and seeing to the replacement of the doctor and teacher.

“I'd do it myself if I could.” Grandfather had slapped at his legs as if to remind them all he could barely walk, let alone ride or do carpentry work. A wreck with a horse had left him badly crippled. But it wasn't beneath him to use his regrettable condition to guilt them all into complying with his wishes.

For the most part, Dawson didn't object to helping rebuild the destroyed buildings. He hadn't known it would mean so many hours in town dealing with construction, finding materials and personnel. And why it had fallen to him to write out the advertisements for a new doctor and teacher and then sort through the applications, he could not say.

He smiled mockingly. Not that there'd been a lot of applicants. Not too many people cared to locate to the far northwest corner of Montana at the tail end of winter.

Mattie squirmed free of his grasp and grabbed both his hands. “Papa, she'll disappear if you don't stop her.”

“No one disappears.” Though he recalled the futility of trying to make a three-year-old believe that when her mother had ridden out of their lives and soon after died. As far as Mattie understood, her mother had disappeared. Thankfully, she was now old enough to understand a little better, though Dawson wondered if he would ever find words to adequately explain Violet's restless behavior.

“But what if she does?” Her voice dripped with concern. “I could tell she was really afraid.”

Likely already realizing this rural life was more than she'd anticipated.

Ignoring the curious miners listening to every word, he planted his hands on Mattie's shoulders to still her movements. “Listen to me, Mattie. She's not the sort of woman you should be getting too friendly with.” The moment Miss Isabelle Redfield had stepped from the coach in her fancy clothes, fine shoes and flimsy scarf, he'd recognized her as a city woman through and through. He knew enough to be cautious around city women. But Mattie didn't, and she'd eyed Miss Isabelle with far too much interest. “I doubt she'll be staying here long.”

The excitement in Mattie's eyes died, replaced with hurt. He wished he could change that but far better to be warned now than burned later.

One of the dusty miners shuffled his feet. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Marshall, but she looked to me to be exactly the sort of gal a man would do well to be friendly with. It's been a long time since I seen anyone half so classy looking.”

Mattie nodded vigorously. “That's what I thought, too.”

Dawson chewed his lips. The precise reason he knew she wouldn't stay. Life here was rough and challenging. Not what well-heeled city ladies cared for. Like the miner said, there weren't many like that around here.

Mattie's voice grew dreamy. “She's a real lady. Her scarf is as smooth as a kitten's fur.” She rubbed her thumb and fingertip together as if still feeling the fabric. “Just like her voice and smile.” Mattie rubbed her arm. Dawson knew it was where Isabelle had touched her. “She was so kind.”

If only the woman would leave before his innocent little daughter grew any more interested in the fine lady and her silky scarf. “We need to get back to the ranch.” Hand in hand they left the doctor's house.

“Dawson, over here.” Grandfather beckoned from in front of the hotel.

Dawson and Mattie crossed the street to join the older man.

“I'll get the wagon and take you home,” Dawson said.

“No need. Annie's coming.” Indeed, his sister drove the wagon toward them.

“When did you get to town?” he asked when she drew up beside them.

“Thought I'd have a look at the newcomers but I've missed them. Grandfather has fixed that by inviting them to the ranch for supper.”

“I haven't had a chance to extend the invitation. Dawson, you can look after it,” Grandfather said.

“Me? I thought I was done here and could go find my cows.” He'd purchased his own herd last fall. They'd barely been moved to Marshall Five Ranch before snow fell. He'd checked on them periodically, hoping they wouldn't wander off to more familiar pastures. Several times he'd had to herd them back from the boundaries of the ranch.

“The others can take care of it.” Pa and Dawson's brothers had gone out to check on the cattle. But they meant to go north to where they expected to find the main bunch and Dawson's cows always headed south.

Dawson opened his mouth to protest but Grandfather shook a cane at him. “Annie is going to make a meal for Doc and the ladies. You will bring them out.”

Dawson shut his mouth. There was no arguing with his grandfather when he was in one of these moods. Not for the first time, and likely not for the last, Dawson wished he had not been the one selected to greet the newcomers and get them settled. But his grandfather had insisted he was the eldest of the three brothers and so should be on the welcoming committee, and then he'd insisted he would ride along. And now it had come to this...inviting them out for supper. Doc, his daughter and the schoolteacher, he didn't mind. But the fancy city gal? He wanted to keep Mattie as far from her as possible.

“That Miss Isabelle is a fine-looking woman.” Seemed Grandfather wasn't about to let Dawson forget his opinion.

It was useless to dispute the matter. Besides, she was more than fine looking. She was beautiful. He'd noted so the first glance he had of her. Black hair tucked beneath a bonnet that matched her sapphire-blue coat, ebony eyes that gave a sweeping glance to those gathered to welcome the newcomers and ivory skin that would likely melt beneath the Montana sun.

“Puts me in mind of my own Annabelle. Even their names are alike.” Grandfather's eyes grew watery.

Dawson figured it best to ignore the comparison. Probably the only way Isabelle was like his grandmother was the similarity in names. Nothing more.

Grandfather cleared his throat and brought his piercing gaze to Dawson. “A man would be fortunate to win the heart of such a gal.”

Dawson snorted softly, not wishing to offend the old man. “Don't you think I've learned my lesson about city women?” A woman such as that would be forever restless on the ranch.

“Mattie needs a mother.” Both Dawson and Grandfather glanced over their shoulders to where Mattie kicked a hardened clump of dirt, oblivious to the conversation between the two men.

“I've no interest in marrying again.”

“It's high time you got over Violet. Besides, it's not fair to judge every woman by Violet's actions.”

Dawson thought it was completely fair. And not just because of Violet. He could name half a dozen other instances where a family or community had been upset by the discontent of a city woman. One especially came to mind. Violet's friend had come to town, turning upside down the life of one of Dawson's good friends, Johnny, and then she'd moved on. Leaving his friend flat broke and emotionally shattered. In fact, he could think of no city woman who had adjusted to life on a ranch. But he kept his opinion to himself. No point in wasting words when he knew Grandfather wouldn't listen.