A Touch of Flame Read online

  Ben shook his head. “I’ve got her, Clay. And she’s latched on.”

  “Stuck to you is more like it,” said Clay. “She was makin’ a jam sandwich when you knocked.”

  “Ah.” He licked his lips after Lizzie made a swipe at his mouth. “Blackberry.” He smiled at Lizzie while watching Lily from the corner of his eye. She had settled back on the sofa and now even her left eye was closed. “How old is she?” he asked Clay, giving Lizzie a little bounce in his arms.

  Clay said, “You can ask her. She likes to tell people.”

  Ben did, and Lizzie announced she was three. “Where’s Ham?”

  “Still workin’ on his jam sandwich, I expect. There’s not much that comes between Ham and food.”

  “Maybe you should check on him while I speak to your mother. Lizzie can stay if you don’t want to take her.”

  Clay’s mouth thinned momentarily. “I know what you’re doin’.” He held out his arms for his sister, and Ben managed to dislodge her without too much fussing.

  “Thank you, Clay.”

  Clay took a deep breath to puff his thin chest and regarded Ben with defiant eyes. “She’s gonna tell me what you say.”

  “I’m sure she will, you being the man of the family and all, but I have to say it to her first.” It was clear to Ben that Clay did not like that answer, but the boy accepted it just the same. When he was gone, Ben pulled a chair close to the sofa and sat. He leaned forward so he could rest his forearms on his knees and regarded Lily frankly. “How bad is it?”

  She raised the compress only long enough to show him that all of the color in her face framed her swollen eye.

  Ben shook his head. Lily Salt had attended school most of the same years that he had. She’d been Lily Bryant back then, and he remembered her as one of the prettiest girls in the room. Her attendance had been sporadic because she was needed at home to tend to a mother who always seemed to be ill, but he’d been in awe that she always knew the answers to everything when she was there.

  When Ben accepted the position as Jackson Brewer’s deputy and left the Twin Star Ranch to make his home full time in Frost Falls, he’d been unsettled by his first encounter with Lily Salt. In all the years that he’d been back and forth between the ranch and town, he’d never run into her and, in truth, never had a thought of her, and he hoped that he had not revealed his surprise on the occasion of their first meeting. He reckoned that she was three years his senior and looked as if she had a decade on him.

  “What else is wrong, Lily? You don’t have to show me. Just tell me.”

  “My shoulder’s out of joint. The right one. I tried putting it back, but I couldn’t set it on my own. Nothing’s broken. At least I don’t think it is. Got some pain in my abdomen, some bruising. I am probably going to lose the baby.”

  “Oh, jeez, Lily. You’re pregnant?”

  She smiled wanly. “Not for long.”

  “Is that what set Jeremiah off?”

  “I don’t think he even knows. I haven’t told him.” She chuckled humorlessly. “He’s never needed a reason.”

  “I’ve still got him in a cell. I can keep him maybe another night if you don’t swear out a complaint, a lot longer if you do.”

  She started to shake her head, winced, and then held herself still. “I can’t do that, Ben. For better or worse, he’s my husband.”

  Ben knew she was going to say that, same as she always did, but he was still disappointed each time he heard it. “You’ve got some family,” he said. “Do you ever think about sheltering with one of them for a while?”

  “My brother’s living over in Harmony—the town, not the state of mind—and he’s got five young’uns of his own. Anyway, I’m not sure he treats his wife any better than Jeremiah treats me.”

  “What about your mother? I hear she’s in Denver.”

  “Living with her sister. I can’t go there; she won’t have me. She says I abandoned her when I married Jeremiah. I don’t suppose she’s wrong. I couldn’t tell her that Jeremiah didn’t like me visiting her, or that he thought she was never as ill as she made out to be. I don’t suppose he was wrong either.”

  “What about the church? There are people there that would help.”

  “I don’t have much left but my pride, Ben. Let me keep that.”

  “He’s going to kill you.” Ben thought she might flinch at his plain speaking. She didn’t.

  “Probably,” she said. “You’ll get him then.”

  “Lily!”

  He waited for her to say something. She didn’t, but he observed a tear leak out from beneath the compress. He sighed. “He doesn’t touch the children?”

  “No. Never.”

  Ben nodded. “All right.” He sat back and then stood. “Do you have anything to take for the pain?”

  “Clay wheedled some laudanum from Mickey Mangold. A few other things as well. Clay’s clever that way.”

  While that was certainly true, Ben thought, it was also true that the druggist knew what was going on in the Salt home. Mickey might not give anything to Buzz Winegarten for his aching toe, but he’d give Clay laudanum for Lily.

  “I’ll be back later to check on you,” said Ben. “Tell Clay to expect me and not give me a hard time at the door.”

  Lily’s weak smile appeared again. “I’ll tell him,” she said softly, and in no time at all she was asleep.

  Chapter Four

  It was dusk by the time Ben returned to the doctor’s home. He had promised to arrive before dark and he considered his promise mostly kept. In another minute or so, it wouldn’t have been.

  He stood on the porch, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his trousers above his gun belt. His jacket was unbuttoned but not spread so wide that the tin star on his vest was visible. As far as he knew, Dr. Woodhouse had never spied it.

  Ben was occupied contemplating the exact color of the good doctor’s hair when the door finally opened. Deep in contemplation as he was, it startled him some to come face-to-face with Dr. E. Ridley Woodhouse again, and for a few moments he simply stared at her, but mostly at her hair. Chestnut? he wondered. She had removed the navy blue straw hat with the extravagant pink bow. To his way of thinking, the fussy hat was an intriguing but incongruent accessory if her intention was to be taken seriously, and he very much believed that was her intention. And just that quick, his mind lurched back to his conversation with Amanda Springer. Without preamble, he said, “You’ve been invited to tea with the Presbyterian Ladies Giving Circle.”

  “Have I?” she said, surprised. “Already?”

  “Friendly town.”

  “I see. Perhaps you better come and tell me all of it because I think it’s quite likely that the invitation wasn’t meant for me.”

  Ben took off his hat as he stepped into the house but he didn’t put it up or set it down. He noticed right off that there were no longer any books on the stairs. The vestibule was also clear of the valises and the pair of small trunks. She had managed to drag the brassbound trunk into the parlor and now it rested in front of the sofa as a utilitarian coffee table.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said. He pointed overhead to where the bedrooms were. “Unpacked?”

  “Mostly. I stopped to answer the door. Would you like a cup of tea? I was going to make a pot.”

  His eyebrows climbed his forehead. “You got that old stove fired up?”

  “No. I haven’t tried, but do you recall me telling you that I have no problem asking for help?” When he nodded, she went on. “I’m asking for help.”

  Ben was disappointed that he couldn’t oblige. “It will have to wait, I’m afraid. I have a patient waiting for you. City doctors make house calls, don’t they?”

  “Of course, but you’re not really serious.”

  Ben kept his gaze locked on hers un
til she’d had her fill of his sober and unsmiling features.

  “You are serious.”

  “Yes, ma’am . . . Dr. Woodhouse.”

  “All right. Let me get my coat and bag. I’ll only be a minute.”

  He called after her, “Leave the hat. It won’t open any doors for you where we’re going.”

  She reappeared with her coat over one shoulder and her medical bag in hand. The hat was nowhere to be seen. Ben took the bag while she shrugged into her coat, then he opened the door for her.

  “Wait,” she said. “I don’t know if I have everything I’ll need. What is the nature of the patient’s distress?”

  “Your patient is Lily Salt. She’s been on the receiving end of her husband’s fists. This isn’t the first time. Nothing’s broken, she says, but her shoulder’s out of joint, and she can’t reset it herself. I think, but don’t know for a fact, that she’s had some belly bruising. She says she will lose her baby.” He noticed the doctor’s fingers tighten on the handle of her bag. “Well? Do you have what you’ll need?”

  “Yes. Barring some complication, I believe I do.” She waved him on and closed the door behind them. “Should I lock it? I locked the door to the surgery earlier, but that was from the inside. I don’t have any keys.”

  “I don’t think Doc ever locked his doors. I’ll have to think on where he might have kept the keys, if he even had them any longer. I’m not hopeful. He should’ve given them to me.” He could see that she was reluctant to leave the house open and unattended. “Your things will be fine. I promise.”

  She regarded him with a skeptical eye. “You can’t promise that.”

  “Pretend I can. We should go,” he said, and was glad when she did not offer further argument. She was right, of course, he couldn’t promise that, but he believed the thief was done here and was unlikely to return at least until the doctor restored the contents of the medical cupboard.

  At the end of the short walk to the street, Ben waited for her to close the picket gate before he pointed to the alley behind the Butterworth Hotel. “We’re going this way. It will be faster.”

  “Truly?” she asked, falling in step beside him. “I have the impression you are hiding me.”

  “I have to tell you honest, Dr. Woodhouse, that your impression is nonsense. Have you already forgotten that I paraded you down the center of town like you were the queen of the Frost Falls Festival? And then there’s that invitation to the Ladies Giving Circle tea that I secured for you. I spoke to Amanda Springer herself about it, and once you’re acquainted with Mrs. Springer, you’ll have some idea how that pained me.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” Ben asked. The alley was deserted, as he knew it would be. Businesses were closing or already closed, proprietors were locking up and heading home, and what lamps lighted rooms at the backs of the shops were extinguished. It was a real shame, he thought, that dusk had already turned to darkness. Ben figured he was familiar with the suspicious expression that lifted one of the doctor’s eyebrows higher than the other and curled one corner of her mouth, but he’d like to have seen it nonetheless. Something about that look tickled him.

  “Is there a Frost Falls Festival?”

  “Uh, no. But that doesn’t mean there can’t be. I admit I’m partial to the idea now that it’s come to me.”

  She stopped suddenly. “Are you the town fool, Mr. Madison, or playing at it for my benefit?”

  “Do you mind if I think on that awhile?” Her heavily exaggerated sigh made him grin. He kept walking, having no doubt that she would catch up. “Have a care where you step. There are ruts that’ll trip you up.”

  “Tell me again why we are walking behind the business establishments instead of in front of them.”

  “Speed.”

  “Right. That must be it.” She gravitated toward the center of the alley, where the grooves from the wheels of delivery wagons were not generally a hindrance.

  “Take my arm,” Ben said, making his elbow available. He wasn’t sure she would accept it, so he was pleasantly surprised when she did. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

  “If you say so.”

  “You’re walking more confidently, so I do say so.” As if on cue, she stumbled hard and would have pitched forward if it hadn’t been for his supporting elbow. “You did that on purpose.”

  She did not respond to the accusation. Instead, she said, “Tell me about the invitation to tea. How did that come to pass?”

  “There’s nothing mysterious about it. Amanda Springer is in charge of every important committee in town. There’s your Presbyterian Ladies Giving Circle, the temperance society, the library board, Friends of the School, and the future Frost Falls Festival Committee.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? Mrs. Springer can smooth the way for you.”

  “I was hoping my skills as a doctor would do that.”

  “I’m sure they will . . . in time. In the meantime, it cannot hurt to fall in with Mrs. Springer’s plans.”

  “I thought Dr. Dunlop chose you to smooth my way.”

  “He did, and I’m offering you my best advice.”

  “I’m not interested in joining her committees.”

  “Well, there goes your chance to be queen of the festival.”

  “I take it back,” she said. Under her breath, she added, “Village idiot.”

  “How’s that again?” asked Ben, though he had heard her perfectly well. He also heard her sigh in response but gave her full marks for not dissembling or hesitating to answer.

  “You are not the town fool at all, Mr. Madison. I believe you are the village idiot.”

  “Maybe, but I can light that stove of yours.”

  “Point taken.”

  “And you should probably wait until you’re asked to join one of Mrs. Springer’s committees before you decide against it.”

  “Invitation only, then.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can make myself perfectly disagreeable, you know.”

  “That was never a question in my mind.”

  She chuckled. “All right. I deserved that.” She paused to shake off something stuck to the bottom of her fashionably pointed shoe. For the first time, she was glad for the darkness. She did not want to know what she had dislodged. “How much farther?”

  “About a hundred yards. Is that a problem?”

  “Hardly. I walked miles every day along hospital corridors and I could still take the stairs two at a time when I needed to.” She fell quiet for a while, then, “What precisely is wrong with my hat?”

  Ben had been concentrating on where to put his feet so he didn’t fall or turn an ankle. Now his head snapped up and his brow puckered. “How’s that again?”

  “My hat,” she said. “You told me it wouldn’t open any doors where we’re going.”

  “Did I? Huh.”

  “You’re avoiding answering my question.”

  “Nothing gets past you.”

  “Still avoiding.” When he remained silent, she said, “It’s the bow, isn’t it? Too pink.”

  “Too fussy,” he said. “And too pink.”

  “I believe I saw more elaborate hats on the way through town.”

  “I’m sure you did, but none of those women want to be doctors.” Although they were no longer touching, Ben felt her stiffen beside him, and he knew immediately that there was nothing in the alleyway that he could have stepped in that was to be avoided more than what he had just stepped in.

  “I don’t want to be a doctor,” she said in clipped city accents. “I am a doctor.”

  “Well, I know that’s what you say.” He went on hurriedly. “And I believe you without seeing that diploma of yours, but if you don’t want to have to show it off everywhere you go, you’ll need to think about looking the part.”


  “It’s not a part.”

  Ben shortened his stride to match the way she had slowed her pace. He cleared his throat. “The spectacles are a good touch. They give you a studied, sober air. Do you need them?”

  She sucked in a breath. “You know I have sharp implements in this bag, don’t you?”

  “Did you maybe not see that I have a gun?”

  “I took an oath to do no harm, but I am seriously considering breaking it.”

  “Bet you want to hit me with that bag.”

  “In my mind, I am aiming for the back of your head.”

  He rubbed the spot she was talking about as if he could feel it. His hat tipped forward slightly. “Good aim. Strong arm.” Ben righted his hat. “Look, Dr. Woodhouse, it’s going to be hard enough for some folks to accept you as a doc when you’re not wearing a fancy go-to-meeting, go-to-church, or go-to-tea hat, and when you are wearing the hat, folks, especially women folks, will admire it, want to copy it, and whisper about who looks best in it, but what they won’t do is believe that you know a darn thing about doctoring.”

  Ben paused, said more quietly, “I figured you should know, I just didn’t figure on telling you all of it tonight.”

  When she remained silent, he added, “Maybe it’s different in the East, in the city, but you being a female doctor is going to take some getting used to. Doc knew it, too, and it’s a disappointment to me that after all these years being a part of this community, he up and left you and me on our own. I don’t know how you feel about that, you being his goddaughter and all, but I’m peeved.”

  She said nothing, and Ben did not insert himself into her thoughts. They were passing behind the cells at the rear of his office. He swore he could hear Jeremiah Salt snoring on the other side of the wall. It looked as if he would have to make good on his promise to take a dinner to his prisoner.

  “Doc’s dying,” she said.

  Now it was Ben who stopped in his tracks. He reached for her elbow to hold her back and was relieved when she didn’t shake him off. “Say that again,” he said. “I heard you, but I need to hear it again.” Ben’s eyes narrowed as he peered through the deep curtain of nightfall, and he observed the slow but distinct movement of the doctor’s head. She was nodding as if she understood his need to hear the horrible truth one more time.