Mail Order Bride Collection (A Timeless Romance Anthology Book 16) Read online

No. If she didn’t know yet, she would, soon enough. He must be the one to tell her.

  The conversation must take place.

  Even if she left him.

  Finally, he neared the clinic, perspiration trickling down his back. The oppressive, dry heat had worsened throughout the afternoon until he thought he’d go mad. He needed a drink. A tall glass of cold well water—

  Two people ran for the clinic’s entrance, threw open the door, and charged inside.

  Raised voices within.

  Trouble.

  He ran.

  Joe took in the flurry of action within their clinic in one sweep.

  The town’s new attorney, Eduard Sperry, lay on the table, his shirt ripped open and blood seeping from a shoulder injury. His right arm lay at a most awkward angle, the humerus fractured, the skin torn and bleeding with the bone stabbing through.

  Neighboring shopkeepers darted between Joe and the unconscious attorney, heeding orders from Naomi.

  Who had shot the attorney?

  “Wash your hands, Mrs. Drescher,” Naomi ordered, “and bring a tray from that cabinet, top right-hand side.” In her element. Powerful. Beautiful. A vision.

  Blood had splattered her pale blue blouse and ran down the right sleeve.

  Abigail Drescher blocked his view of his wife.

  “Doc Naomi.” The preacher stuck his head in the entrance. “The men have the other wounded fellow. Where do you want him?”

  Another wounded? Joe shook his head to clear it, dropped the offending mail on top of the glass-fronted surgical cabinet, and took charge of their second patient.

  One quick scan of this one— likely a miner in his middle years— revealed an apparent gunshot wound to the right thigh, bleeding profusely. Thank God the poor sot had lost consciousness. His clothing, rank with sweat and dust, carried the distinct odor of sour mash.

  “What happened?” Joe demanded of the two shopkeepers helping his wife.

  Naomi met his gaze. “They found you. Good.”

  Somehow she’d caught a bleeder— the left sleeve of her new blouse now soaked with blood.

  A hole in that sleeve caught his eye, like it might have—

  He left his patient and grabbed his wife by her uninjured arm.

  She flinched. “Help me set the bone. Take his shoulder.”

  He tested the hole with a fingertip. “You’ve been shot.” Nausea crested, threatening to turn his stomach inside out. “Naomi. What happened?”

  “I’m fine.” Steel lined her voice. “On the count of three.”

  He barely secured the joint, provided adequate counter pressure while she twisted. The maneuver required exactness, precision, and somehow she had the control. Perhaps she hadn’t been shot.

  He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t think straight, much less give his patient adequate attention, until he knew Naomi was unscathed.

  He grabbed a scalpel from the surgical tray in his dominant hand and the sleeve of her ruined blouse in the other. With one careful slice, he cut away the saturated cotton, tearing the last bit.

  The sleeve fell away, revealing an oozing wound.

  The bottom of his stomach dropped out.

  His knees nearly telescoped.

  Sheriff Lloyd Preston chose that moment to charge through the doorway, issuing orders.

  Joe ignored the lawman, focusing his attention on the entrance wound marring his bride’s delicate skin. A bullet had lodged in her biceps brachii. No exit wound. She’d been facing her attacker. If the strike had come just a few inches to the left—

  She’d just set a broken bone with a slug buried in her muscle. The wound bled, but not as profusely as it had when fresh.

  All that blood— hers.

  “Where else are you hit?” he shouted above the cacophony. He searched her person, conducted a hasty examination. No further sign of injury. But her dark skirt, bustle, and petticoats could hide much. “What happened?”

  “I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She cupped his face, forced him to look her in the eye. “Joseph, I’m fine. Help me with these two. They’re far worse off than me.”

  She pulled away and returned to work.

  He stood immobile, terror rendering him useless. Time slowed, stretching and distorting.

  “Sheriff,” she ordered, “get out of my surgery. Out. You’re in the way and preventing us from doing what we must. Everyone but Doc Joe and Mrs. Drescher, out.”

  Most complied, but Sheriff Preston muttered loudly about securing the troublemakers’ weapons. He made a nuisance of himself, searching holsters, boots, pockets—

  Joe glanced at the bloody shirtsleeve in his hand. Naomi’s blood. He turned away, fighting bile and nausea.

  Compassion redoubled. For every person who’d ever stood in his shoes, emasculated, guts in terror’s clutches because his wife, his daughter, or his son lay on the surgery table, bleeding.

  Love hurt.

  Life, fragile and impotent.

  Love for Naomi— true, pure, and alive— throbbed like a thumb smashed between hammer and nail. She could have died this afternoon, having never heard the words. Because he’d been afraid of pushing her too far, too fast.

  He’d had hundreds of opportunities to tell her so, but it had taken ’til now to realize just how deep the emotion ran.

  Until faced with her leaving him, forever.

  “Joe!” Naomi’s clear voice.

  His head snapped up. His gaze locked on his wife.

  Stay. Stay with me. He wanted to beg, plead with her, promise her anything—

  “I need you.” Her stripped right arm bled in a trickle. “Now.”

  He nodded, turning to the sink to wash his hands. “I’m here. I’m with you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Much later, when their two gunshot victims were stabilized, bones set and splintered, sutured, medicated, and lying in recovery, Naomi finally allowed Joe to treat her arm.

  He hated the pain he caused, rooting with forceps to finally snag and remove the lead buried too near bone. He prayed she wouldn’t suffer nerve damage.

  A surgeon needed sensation and control.

  She winced as he pulled the ball free. It thudded onto the floor.

  He fought to relax his jaw and stop grinding his molars. Exhaustion dragged. He didn’t know when he’d last been so emotionally exhausted.

  He couldn’t wait another moment to address the news he’d learned at the post office. He glanced at the newspapers and periodicals he’d tossed onto the cabinet. She’d want to read the articles, certainly, and weigh her options.

  Though he already knew she’d return to the city.

  He swallowed a sharp lump of grief.

  With her uninjured arm, she gently cupped his face. Her slender, magnificently talented fingers curved about his jaw, and he leaned into her touch. Oh, how he’d miss her.

  He’d fallen in love with his wife.

  They’d shared a marriage bed for more than a week, and he’d likely been in love with her from the first. He wanted to rail at her, inform her of his love in a fit of anger, ensure she knew she’d caused his pain. He wanted to stack the odds in his favor, prey upon her humanity.

  But he couldn’t do that to the woman he loved.

  He wouldn’t complicate her decision. He would not beg her to stay.

  If she stayed, it had to be her own choosing.

  But no one with Naomi’s uncommon capacity would choose rural Evanston when her legacy, the fine hospital in New York that bore her name, awaited her return. She had property there, money, prestige. A place to reclaim.

  She wouldn’t stay.

  The good people of Evanston relied on him. He couldn’t go.

  “I don’t know the miner,” he heard himself say, “but I know the new attorney, Eduard Sperry.” Stalling. This wasn’t like him. He’d never had trouble getting to the point, saying what must be said.

  Another casualty of losing his heart.

  “The miner drew o
n Sperry in the street.”

  Had she been there? Witnessed it? Who had shot her? Lawyer or miner? For the first time, he wanted to see a patient suffer.

  But not Naomi.

  He’d bet she felt the pain now, in spades, if she hadn’t before.

  He glanced up from his work, met her gaze for the slightest of seconds. Pain seared through the vicinity of his heart. He fought to draw a deep breath.

  He struggled against tears that threatened to fill and overflow. He couldn’t let that nonsense start. So he blotted oozing blood from the stitches as he set them.

  She covered his hand with hers. So warm, so Naomi.

  His gut seized, even as the tightness in his chest ebbed. He needed this woman. Needed her more than he could believe.

  He thought he’d been lonely before she’d arrived. He figured he didn’t yet comprehend what lonely meant. Once she read the two articles and returned to her life in New York, he’d truly understand loneliness.

  She squeezed his hand, preventing him from focusing on the final stitches. “I shouldn’t have stepped between them.”

  Fear lanced, sharp and hot. “You stepped between two feuding men?” He heard himself yell, hated himself for raising his voice. But terror had him by the throat. “Two inches, Naomi. Two inches off, and he could have killed you.”

  “I won’t do it again.” She released his hand but wrapped smooth, cool fingers about his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “Men carry guns in New York City too. I’ve seen plenty of men draw on one another. I’ve treated victims countless times.”

  “Things are very different here.”

  He must’ve yelled again because she arched one brow and withdrew the warmth of her touch.

  He scowled. Hard. And focused on the remaining stitches.

  He wrapped the wound in a fresh bandage, tied it off, and wished he could hide the reminder of her injury beneath a sleeve.

  “Joe?” She searched his face, no doubt witnessed his agony. “You’re scaring me.”

  No easy way to say this, no simple way to disclose what he’d learned.

  He couldn’t hide the rending pain tearing through his heart, his mind, his soul. His beloved wife deserved to make her own choice, to do what she needed to do. This was her life, her career in medicine, her future.

  How would he survive saying goodbye?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Joe?” Naomi repeated, palpitations inducing lightheadedness. Something far greater than a little gunshot wound had him troubled.

  She’d glimpsed a stack of newspapers and mail he’d tossed on top of the surgery cabinet. Unless she was badly mistaken, her past had come calling.

  By the look in his eyes— betrayal, anger, pain—

  He knew.

  All of it, at least as far as the newspaper’s far-flung accusations went.

  He deserved to know of her innocence.

  Did you anticipate a reprieve, Naomi? Ernie’s taunts echoed. He’d escaped from the drawer she’d mostly managed to lock him in over the past week. You’re stupid to think he wouldn’t learn of your treachery.

  Eight days.

  Not nearly long enough.

  The honeymoon had come to an abrupt halt.

  All she could do was survive the interrogation, pray he listened to her side of the story, and try to explain. She wasn’t guilty.

  Joe had proved a fair-minded man. Honest. Caring. He’d never said the words, but she’d seen the proof: he loved her. But that love was newly born. It wouldn’t take much to uproot it, and like a tender plant, their love would wither and die in the harsh sun of reality.

  Slowly, he gathered the scattered newspapers and mail from the top of the tall surgical cabinet, sorted the envelopes and medical journals from the newsprint.

  Right there, in full-color, the New York World, June twenty-second. The edition she’d sought, twelve hours after fleeing the brownstone, and verified Dr. Krenn’s threats.

  She knew precisely all she’d been wrongly accused of… and now, so did Joe.

  Her husband’s gaze burned into her face, and she had to summon every ounce of strength to meet his glare.

  “I’m innocent of all charges.”

  His expression remained stoic.

  At least he hadn’t shut her out or marched her to the sheriff’s office.

  While he listened, she’d better say all she intended to.

  “My former husband wanted me out of the way, and I told you why.”

  She’d grieve later. Right now, she must defend herself.

  “Dr. Krenn is director at Fairchild Memorial. He worked in conjunction with my husband, my former husband—”

  Joe held up a hand, insisting she stop.

  The words poured out. He must hear her.

  “I don’t know why he’d accuse me of such horrible, dastardly deeds, but I didn’t do it. I never met the mayor, never—”

  Joe shuffled through the newspapers. He’d stopped listening.

  If she could summon an ounce of comportment, she’d cease prattling. She knew how a man’s mind worked. Joe had decided. That was that.

  The thought of him believing such drivel, believing she’d done all they’d accused her of— she couldn’t bear it.

  She slashed at the tears streaking down her cheeks, angry at her loss of control. She’d come close but never lost control around Ernie or Krenn. She’d never been able to contain feminine, tender emotions around Joe, not from the beginning. The inability had worsened since she’d fallen in love.

  How could she feign indifference even as he passed judgment that destroyed his affection for her?

  Joe may be nothing like Ernest Walter Thornton, the-pompous-Third, but he was a man. And men made up their minds, she knew from sorry experience, often without listening to reason. Certainly without listening to her.

  She should save her breath.

  But love for this man, her husband, wouldn’t allow her to quit easily.

  The brush of newsprint against her hands, clutched tightly at her waist, opened her eyes to the newspaper Joe offered.

  He’d clenched his jaw.

  His pain sliced sharp and deep, tearing her heart from its moorings.

  Her throat closed. Either focus on the paper he wanted her to see— maybe, if she were lucky, wanted her to explain— or witness his agony.

  Like a coward, she focused on the paper.

  Tears blurred her vision. She reached for the hankie in her sleeve, remembered Joe had cut the garment away, tried her pocket, came up empty.

  Joe pushed a clean handkerchief into her hand.

  His considerate nature, midst suffering, stole her breath.

  Loneliness yawned bleak and stark before her. She’d miss him, ever so much more than she’d thought to miss Ernie.

  Joe’s warmth, his love and acceptance and equity should have been hers forever.

  He tapped the headline with a blunt forefinger. No anger, no righteous indignation. Her gaze flicked to his face, but the torment registered still as pungent. She wanted to put her arms around him to offer comfort.

  Fear of rejection kept her from reaching for him. Two wounded men recovering in separate rooms, in case one regained consciousness before the other and attempted murder— again— prevented her from suggesting they discuss this at home, in private.

  At last she read the headline. THORNTON, KRENN IMPLICATED IN MAYOR’S DEATH! FAIRCHILD EXONERATED.

  Shock struck her heart, kicking the already overtaxed organ into triple-time. Perspiration trickled down her back, dampening her combination, corset, and blouse.

  Implicated.

  Exonerated.

  When had this paper released? Not The World, The Sun.

  July first.

  She’d been on her westbound journey to Doc Joe when this paper had hit the streets of New York City. News had traveled quickly, reaching Joe with his many subscriptions to medical journals and newspapers.

  Evanston, apparently, wasn’t far enough from New Y
ork.

  The lead story’s headline stood a full four inches tall, obviously important. The article ran well below the fold. Later, she’d read it in detail.

  All that mattered now was rescuing her marriage.

  She let the newspaper slide to the floor. Overwhelming relief nearly stole her balance. “I’m innocent.”

  Joe nodded. “I know.” He stood statue-still.

  “Joe. This is good news.”

  Realization hit her with the force of a left hook. She hadn’t told him about the accusations or the whole nightmare in New York. Yes, the mistress and coming child, Ernie throwing her out— all reason enough to leave. Yet she would have stayed in the city if not for the threat of imprisonment or incarceration in the madhouse.

  That, she’d withheld.

  The New York World had filled him in on all the sordid details.

  Joe’s acute pain made ever so much more sense, now: she hadn’t trusted him.

  The day of her arrival, he’d emphasized how vital openness and honesty was. A dozen moments paraded through her memory— recent opportunities when she might have easily confided secrets.

  She did trust him and yet committed an enormous lie of omission, heaped upon others and stacked atop a stretched bit of truth.

  No one needed Joe’s understanding more than she, and no one deserved him less.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’m sorry.” She’d never been sorrier in her life. “I should have—”

  He managed a shrug. A half step away from her turned his sturdy frame to an angle.

  “Yeah,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear. “You should have.”

  “I didn’t know you then.” Fresh tears filled her eyes. “Look at me.”

  Pride or anger or maleness wedged itself between them, and he refused.

  “Look at me.” She forced her voice to remain soft, gentle, persuasive.

  Seconds ticked past. His wonderful, tender, lovely hazel eyes finally met hers.

  I love you, she wanted to say.

  He knew, of course, just as she knew he loved her. His posture telegraphed now was not the time to say it for the first time.

  She’d have to meet him logic for logic, in language a male could comprehend.