took a deep breath and prepared to face Coralee.
* * *
Inside the workroom Coralee stood at one end of the large wooden table. Wiping her hands on the canvas apron covering her navy blue dress, she pushed back the strands of hair that always seemed to come loose. Jars of herbs, half-full beakers, a small metal scale and Papa’s marble mortar and pestle sat before her, evidence of an early morning full of work. She hoped she was close to figuring out which elements would create the right amount of pain relief with the fewest side effects. But this process wasn’t as easy as extracting the usual herbs like dogwood, ginger root, lavender or spearmint. Mixing elements to form a new compound had been Papa’s idea. After too many failures, Coralee was beginning to think a single herb had to be the answer.
A firm knock sounded on the door several times before she noticed. She shuffled her notes into a haphazard pile and covered the remnants of burned peppermint and yarrow with a cloth. When it came to making Papa’s shop a success again, she couldn’t be too careful. “Come in,” she called, trying to smooth her hair again.
When the door opened to reveal Jake, her breath caught for a moment. His chocolate-brown eyes made all thoughts of chemistry and herbs disappear. She couldn’t help admiring the width of his shoulders, broad chest and strong arms as he stood outlined in the doorway. Coralee flushed, realizing the direction of her thoughts. She had given up the right to notice Jake’s looks a long time ago.
“Good morning.” His deep voice was a bit cool. Not surprising, after her shameful behavior at the café the week before. In spite of her embarrassment, her traitorous heart started to beat faster as he stepped into the room. Closer to her.
Coralee forced herself to sound aloof to cover her unwanted reaction. “Good morning. I hope you haven’t come to spy on my work for Dr. Jay. I’m certain he would love to get his hands on anything he could use to undermine my business more.”
Jake stiffened at Coralee’s sharp words. “I came to speak to you about the problem you seem to have with Samuel.” His eyes flashed and Coralee realized baiting him might not have been the best response. “I don’t want working in the same town to be awkward, but you aren’t making it easy to get along. Samuel believes that medical professionals should be educated and governed. He doesn’t know anything about your experience, just that you aren’t certified.” Jake gave her a hard look to go along with the forceful words. “He might be a bit old-fashioned concerning his feelings about women in the field, but that’s all it is, Coralee. It’s not personal.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised that you would take his side. Do you have a problem with my level of experience, as well?” She turned sharply on her heel and marched to a glass-fronted cabinet full of clean jars and beakers. Her reactions weren’t smoothing things over at all, but she couldn’t seem to get her emotions in check. Alan, Jake, the failed experiments, Dr. Jay, declining business at the shop... It all swirled in her mind, making her tense and snappish.
With her back still turned, she heard Jake retreat to the doorway. “I’m sorry you think that of me.” His voice sounded tight and maybe a little wounded. “I’d hoped we could work together, in spite of our past. But I can see that you haven’t become any more reasonable than you were the night I told you about St. Louis.”
To her dismay, tears filled her eyes. She stood facing the cabinet, pretending to search for something. If she didn’t reply for long enough, maybe he would just leave.
It must have worked. A moment later she heard the door slam behind him.
For the next several days Coralee threw herself into her experiments. She spent hours bent over her table pressing tablets and brewing teas. Many of the tinctures she had mixed weeks before were ready for a few of her patients to test. In spite of some mild success, nothing was effective enough to market to the public. As much as she wanted to make a brilliant discovery, she was about to hit a dead end. With each compound she marked off Papa’s list, Coralee grew more and more worried.
In the evenings she tried to relax in the living quarters behind Lily’s Café with Cat, Cecilia and Aunt Lily. Their conversation flowed around her, but her mind whirled with thoughts of herbs and Jake. Why did she behave so dreadfully every time she saw him?
“Coralee?” Cecilia’s sweet, concerned voice broke her out of her dark thoughts. “What’s going on? You’re so quiet and distracted these days.”
She looked around the table at what remained of her family. The shop’s success or failure affected them, too, so she might as well include them in the problems. “As Cat knows, our customer base is dwindling. My experiments on Papa’s research for the new medicine aren’t going well. I don’t know what to do to save the shop.”
“We still have customers coming in, Coralee. Enough to keep the shop running. We can pay the bills and we have some money in the bank.” Cat sounded unaffected, as always. But her confidence didn’t weaken the constant pressure in Coralee’s chest.
Cecilia reached over to rub Coralee’s shoulder as she chimed in with her usual optimism. “Papa would understand if things don’t work out. He loved the shop, but he wanted us to be happy more than anything.”
“Maybe you’re right. But Papa trusted me to run the shop the way he would. I know I can do this. I have to do this.”
Aunt Lily clucked her tongue. “Now, girl, you worry too much about that old shop of your pa’s. Your life can be much more than just running that place, my dear.” Coralee started to argue, but Lily shushed her and went on. “I think I see what the problem is here. It seems you don’t think you’re meant for anything more than that shop. But I’m here to tell you that’s altogether wrong, child. God has great things for you, happy things. Maybe this is just one small part of your story, not the whole thing.”
Cat and Cecilia nodded along with Lily’s words, but Coralee couldn’t accept that. God had placed her in the position of running Papa’s shop, carrying on his legacy. She had accepted that His will for her didn’t include her own family, so the shop had to be her sole purpose now. It had to be enough.
Coralee went to bed early, just to have some time away from her family’s prying eyes. But no matter how much she tossed and turned, she couldn’t sleep. Jake’s presence in town had stirred up feelings she had hoped were long buried, disappointments she had tried so hard to force away in the years since Alan’s death.
Frustrated by the emotions rising in her, Coralee left her room. She tiptoed through the house, hoping she wouldn’t wake anyone. It only took a few minutes over the stove before she settled in a chair at the kitchen table with a china cup full of steaming tea. She had just started trying to formulate some kind of words of prayer when a voice startled her.
“Mind if I join you?” Aunt Lily stood in the doorway, a thin blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Without waiting for an answer, the older woman crossed the room to the teakettle, fixed herself a cup and settled at the opposite end of the table.
Coralee examined her dear aunt, the woman who had been such a mainstay in her life. Sitting there in her nightdress with a loose braid pulled over her shoulder, Lily Holbrook looked older than Coralee had noticed before. Maybe even a little frail. All the more reason she had to get the shop back on track. Cat depended on it for her livelihood and soon enough Aunt Lily would, too. She was a strong woman, but she couldn’t run the café forever.
“Well, my dear, something must be bothering you. After the week you’ve had, you ought to be sleeping like a baby.”
Coralee considered brushing her aunt’s concern aside. She wanted to. But she was humble enough to admit when she needed wisdom. “It’s been years since I’ve spent so much time around Jake. I’m...having a hard time understanding my own feelings about him right now.” The words came out more faltering than she’d intended, but they were out, all the same.
Understanding filled Aunt Lily’s face. “You have so much history with him, dear girl. Not all good, though, I’d guess. I never did understand why he took off and you started spending your time with Alan.”