God willing, she and her husband would start a family of their own. And Bess…who would help her speak again?
The more Nora thought about Bess and Emmeline, the hotter her blood ran. Instead of treating her like a quack, Zeb Garrison should have been helping her find a suitable office. He deserved an earful, but she couldn’t escape the memory of her father’s voice.
Before you speak your mind, daughter, count to ten. If that doesn’t settle you down, count to a hundred.
The harder she tried to calm herself, the angrier she became. Emmeline saw the good in him, but Nora saw the arrogance. “Help me, Lord,” she murmured. “I don’t want to turn the other cheek. I want to tell that arrogant, self-righteous scoundrel what I think of him.” She wanted to fight. She wanted—
Before she could finish the thought, he turned and caught her staring. He smirked. Furious, Nora started to count. “Ten, nine…Forget it!”
With her temper flaring, she headed across the street to give Zeb Garrison a piece of her mind.
Chapter Five
Zeb saw Dr. Mitchell coming straight at him and felt the uncomfortable urge to run away. He enjoyed a good fight as much as any man, but he didn’t want to argue with her. A few moments ago, Will had taken him to task.
You showed her Doc’s place? Are you stupid?
No, just hopping mad. She’d tricked him by using her initial, then she’d had the audacity to be poised and pretty about it. Why couldn’t she have had warts on her chin…warts with hairs growing out of them? Warts so ugly he wouldn’t keep smelling lavender and recalling her hand on his arm and the kindness in her blue eyes.
He’d argued with Will for two minutes and ended up feeling like an oaf.
We need a doctor, Zeb. I don’t care if he—she—whatever—is wearing skirts. I’ve got a family now. So does Pete.
Where am I supposed to put her? She can’t work in my parlor!
So find someplace else. We help each other in High Plains. Have you forgotten that? It’s called Christian charity.
Will was right. The town needed Dr. Mitchell until he could find a replacement. And whether he liked it or not, he owed her amends for his surliness.
Tom Briggs, his foreman, called down from the scaffolding. “More lumber tomorrow, boss?”
“Plan on it.”
“Good.” Tom’s hammer pinged on a nail. “We’re about out.”
The demand for lumber kept Garrison Mill running from dawn to dusk and Zeb looking at ledgers well past midnight. Folks chipped in what money they could spare, but Zeb cheerfully absorbed most of the costs. He could afford it and others couldn’t. With good weather and a little luck, the town hall would be finished and High Plains would celebrate a full recovery with a summer jubilee. If he had to work like a mule to make it happen, so be it. He didn’t have time to eat or sleep, much less deal with Dr. Mitchell, but she was coming at him like a summer storm.
“Mr. Garrison!” she called. “I need a word with you.”
He did not want to have this conversation in front of a work crew, but he couldn’t avoid her without looking cowardly. “Get back to work,” he said to the man. The hammering resumed, but in a slower cadence.
As she hurried in his direction, he heard the rustle of her skirts and the scuff of her shoes, sounds that should have been drowned out by hammering, but Tom and the other man had stopped working. Zeb felt their eyes on his back, turned to glare at them and realized he’d been wrong. The men weren’t looking at him. They were gawking at Dr. Mitchell.
Briggs, a married man, went back to work. The other fellow looked like a starving man at Sunday supper.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“Thank you for speaking with me.” Panting for breath, she put her hand on her chest in an Abigail-like gesture.
He hadn’t judged her as prone to vapors. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I came to thank you for setting me straight.”
Zeb liked this kind of talk. “About what?”
“What it’s really like in High Plains. How hard my life would be here.” She bit her lip, then blinked as if fighting tears. Her eyes had a shine and he wondered if he’d made her cry. He hoped not, but the sheen revealed a simple fact. If Doc’s office could drive her to tears, she didn’t belong in High Plains.
He crossed his arms over his vest. “It’s tough here. That’s a fact.”
“It’s such a warm day! Too hot for a woman to be hurrying, don’t you think?” She took a hankie from her pocket and dabbed at her forehead. “I thought I could hire someone to fix the roof, but the hole’s too big.”
“I know.”
“I went upstairs to check for myself. There were birds everywhere.” She indicated the smudges on her skirt. “I ruined my best frock!”
Well, what do you know? Dr. Mitchell had just proven him right about women. Knowing she wouldn’t stay longer than necessary, he could afford to be magnanimous. “I’ll pay for the laundering.”
“That’s kind of you, but I’m not worried about the dress.”
“Then what is it?”
The simpering female vanished in a blink. “I came to tell you that you’re a fool, Mr. Garrison. I am not the shallow woman you’ve assumed me to be. Being who you are—a town leader, someone who’s responsible and intelligent—you know High Plains needs a doctor. You should be helping me, not running me out of town! It’s reckless. It’s selfish. It’s—”
“Stop it, Doc.” Belatedly, he saw through her act. The woman was playing him. “You’ve made your point.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Garrison.”
“I do.”
“You owe me an apology.” She stood tall, her head high and her eyes burning with outrage.
Zeb said nothing.
After twenty seconds, she gave up. “Don’t think you’ve won. At the very least, I deserve courtesy. As for your respect, I intend to earn it. When the time comes for you to eat crow, I’ll expect that apology.”
“You won’t get it.”
“It’s not for my benefit,” she said. “It’s for yours. I’m assuming you do have a conscience?”
Zeb had a conscience, all right. It prickled every time someone in High Plains caught a cold. It twitched when he thought of his men working double shifts and ignoring their own families. It burned like fire when he thought of the tornado and how it had stripped High Plains bare. He’d picked this spot to settle. The death and destruction were on his hands. So was rebuilding. How dare this woman judge him? “You don’t belong here, Doc. Go back to New York.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
“Absolutely not! I care about people. I care about this town.”
“You think I don’t? I saw people die in the tornado, Miss Mitchell. What happens if you kill someone with your incompetence?”
“I’m not incompetent! I’m a highly trained physician.”
“You’re a woman!”
When the hammering stopped for the second time, Zeb realized he’d shouted at her. By tomorrow, the whole town would know he’d done battle with Dr. Mitchell. No way could he let her win.
She must have felt the same way, because she spoke in a voice loud enough for the work crew