A Bride in the Bargain Part 28

"If your stomach keeps it down, then you can try some potatoes once I mash them."

He looked at the stove and pastry table. "What about all that?"

"That's for the men."

"I'll have what they're having."

"You'll have the broth and, later, perhaps some potatoes."

"I'll have what they're having."

"You'll have what I give you."

He took a sip of the broth. When he was done, if she didn't give him what he wanted, he'd get out of bed and get it himself-he didn't care how much it hurt his head. He needed to get out of bed anyway.

He was just finishing the soup when he heard the men approaching the yard.

Anna hurried to the door. "What on earth? Supper's not for two more hours."

She barely had time to open the door before they poured into the house, all talking at once.

"Ronny!" she exclaimed. "Are you all right?"

The boy's exuberant eyes connected with Joe's. "I made it to town in the rain and pitch black!"

Joe lifted his brows. "You did?"

"I did!"

Anna touched Ronny's sleeve. "Are you all right?"

He nodded. "I'm fine. And Shakespeare is, too."

"He's lucky he didn't break his neck."

Joe quickly found the owner of the amused voice. Doc Maynard. He topped most of the crew by an inch or so, though he didn't have the breadth the other men did. Joe figured it was his accomplishments that made him seem bigger than he was.

Maynard had named Seattle. He'd brought the first residents to town, established the first store, the first restaurant, first hotel, first saloon, and first wh.o.r.ehouse. And that last bit had endeared him to most every man in the territory.

"Hear you jumped in front of a falling tree," Doc said.

"Something like that. I'm all right now, though."

Doc nodded, then moved his gaze to Anna.

"This is our cook, Miss Anna Ivey," Joe said. "One of Mercer's girls."

"So I heard. How do you do, miss? I'm Doc Maynard."

She bobbed a curtsey. "Thank you for coming. Can I offer you some lemonade?"

"With pleasure." He shooed the other men toward the door. "You can tell Joe about your ride to town later, Ronny. For now, you and the boys leave me with my patient."

Anna slipped into the milk room.

"I don't need a doctor."

"Of course you don't. But after coming all this way, I'd at least like to sit awhile and visit." He opened the door and stood beside it, looking at the men expectantly. They filed out. Thirsty pilfered a pastry off the table before making his exit.

Joe threw off his covers and swung his legs over the bed. The room whirled. The soup threatened to come back up. He kept it where it belonged by force of will.

The doc wasn't fooled. "No need to put up a front," he said, closing the door. "Miss Ivey's out chipping ice for my drink."

Joe scowled. "You shouldn't have come."

"Where does it hurt?"

"Nowhere."

Anna came around the corner, then handed Doc a gla.s.s of lemonade. "He has a huge lump behind his left ear. The light hurts his eyes. He's tossed up the contents of his stomach and he's weak as a babe."

Joe gritted his teeth. "Would you excuse us, Miss Ivey?"

"Not just yet," the doc said. "I'd appreciate the a.s.sistance."

He smiled at Anna. "That is, if you don't mind?"

"Of course not."

He raised his gla.s.s to her, drank deeply, then set it down. "How long's he been like this?"

The two discussed his accident and ailments as if he were a child.

"I can answer my own questions," Joe growled.

The doc didn't so much as acknowledge him. Scowling, Joe stood up. The sheet twisted around his legs. Whipping it away, he tossed it on the bed and moved toward the door.

The room went from normal to dark, then back to normal. Almost. Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, he lengthened his stride. He would not black out. If he could make it to a chair on the porch, no one would be the wiser.

He made it as far as the door before the room spun like a whirling dervish. Doc caught him around the waist and wedged his shoulder under Joe's. Without saying a word, he guided Joe back toward the bed, but Joe wasn't sure he'd make it that far. And once he blacked out, no telling what the blasted man would do to him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The war had changed many things in Anna's life, not the least of which was that social conventions about ladies-particularly unmarried ladies-being present during the examination of a man had loosened. She hadn't realized the practice had reached clear out here, though.

Yet the doctor didn't hesitate to recruit her help, seemingly unaware of Joe's state of undress. She'd seen him shirtless many times, of course, and it never failed to disconcert her. But his unconsciousness and the doctor's presence made it worse somehow. Much worse.

Tan lines duplicating the exact placement of Joe's suspenders testified to how often he worked without his shirt. The pale stripes of skin contrasted sharply with the deep golden hue of the rest of him.

Maynard placed a foot-long wooden cylinder against that burly chest and listened, then moved it lower where the sun-bleached hair on Joe's body trickled down into a V. She pulled her gaze to the doctor's, but her peripheral vision didn't miss a thing, and the lower the stethoscope went, the tighter Anna's own stomach clenched.

Maynard's curly salt-and-pepper hair tumbled over a broad forehead. His china blue eyes narrowed in concentration. "Heart and lungs sound good. Stomach is very noisy."

"Is that bad?"

"No, no. He's just hungry."

She let out a sigh of relief. "He'll be all right, then?"

Straightening, Maynard unscrewed his stethoscope and placed it back in his medical bag. "It's hard to say. My examination will give me some basic information, but I might not be able to detect subtle damages that often occur."

"You mean like his dizziness?"

He lifted Joe's left eyelid, then did the same to his right. "No, I was referring more to confusion, loss of memory, an inability to concentrate, difficulty completing tasks he used to do, that kind of thing."

Anna sucked in her breath, her attention darting back to Joe. He lay still and helpless on his back.

"When will we know if he's been . . . afflicted?" she asked.

"When he wakes up, I'll be able to do a more thorough a.s.sessment, but from what you've told me, he was originally unconscious for quite some time. That never bodes well, and neither do these fainting spells."

She clasped her hands in front of her. "Will his ability to continue lumberjacking be at risk?"

Maynard turned Joe's head to the side and poked more aggressively at the lump behind his ear. "Never can tell with these things."

Her throat closed, hindering her ability to draw a normal breath.

Maynard rummaged through his bag, then removed a wooden box. It contained over fifty corked vials wedged into circular slots. "This will help with the pain," he said, removing one. He paused in the midst of handing it to her. "Are you all right? What's the matter?"

The concern in his eyes, the gentleness of his tone undid her. She didn't deserve it. Was unworthy of it, in fact. He should be condemning her, not extending sympathy.

Joe might not be dead, but if he lost his ability to lumberjack, she instinctively knew it would be a living death for him. Never to log again. Never to swing up a tree with nothing more than an ax and a springboard. Never to give voice to the sharp, arresting cry of "Timber-r-r-r-r."

"It's all my fault," she choked.

Maynard frowned. "What is?"

"The accident," she said, waving a hand to indicate Joe's limp body. "His injury. His predicament. Everything."

The doctor moved her to a chair, then settled down next to her. "Tell me."

He listened as she explained the events leading up to the accident, then the accident itself-though she was careful not to mention what she'd done to make Joe angry, only that she had.

Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, Maynard handed it to her. "And?"

She blotted her eyes. "So you see? If it hadn't been for me, none of this would have happened."

He leaned back in his chair. "You are G.o.d, then?"

She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Well, I was under the impression G.o.d was in control of the universe. But if I am mistaken and it is you, I will have to readjust my theology."

His blue eyes held no sense of jesting, no censure, no irritation. Merely polite curiosity.

"Of course I'm not G.o.d. How could you suggest such a thing?"

"It is not me who is suggesting it. It is you. Were you the one in control of the tree when it fell?"

"He would never have chopped the chestnut down if it weren't for me."

"Ah, that's right." Doc Maynard stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. "You made Joe angry."

"Yes."

"And once you made him angry, you told him to go chop down the tree?"

"Well, no. I'd asked him to do that earlier."

"Then why didn't he do it earlier?"

She hesitated, not wanting to reveal the sentimental value of the tree. "He didn't want to."

"But he did after you made him angry?"

"Yes."

"And you, somehow, orchestrated that event, along with the nature in which the tree fell?"

She sighed. If he couldn't see the obvious, she wasn't going to explain it further. It was her fault. Clear and simple.

"Tell me, Miss Ivey, where were you when G.o.d laid the foundations of the earth? Who determined its measurements? Who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened?"

He didn't give her an opportunity to respond but continued to refer to Job 38. He asked her who shut in the sea with doors, who caused it to rain, from whose womb came the ice? Could she bind the cl.u.s.ter of Pleiades or loose the belt of Orion? Could she send out lightning? Did the eagle mount up at her command?

When he finally finished, a heavy silence fell upon the room. A dark-crested blue jay landed on the windowsill, announcing its presence to the occupants of the kitchen with a raucous shack-shack- shack.

Anna studied the bird, its feathers looking almost black until the sun touched its wings and tail, revealing a rich, velvety blue. So different from the blue jays at home, yet similar enough to identify.

And G.o.d in His infinite creativity had fashioned not only this species of bird, but this exact bird that was desperately trying to balance its big feet on her window. In that instant, the height and depth and breadth of G.o.d overwhelmed her.