and had a couple drinks. His brother wasn’t anything like him. Thomas was a good man.”
They came to the ferry crossing. Thankfully, the flat raft remained on this side of the river. She started to lead Berta down the bank and onto the wooden planks when she felt the doc’s hand on her arm.
“I’ll find my own way back from here.”
She held the reins taut while he climbed from the wagon and grabbed his doctorin’ bag. He returned to her side of the wagon and looked up at her, squinting against the sunlight. “I’ll check on Tommy in a day or two.”
“No need. I can care for my son now.”
He frowned. “I should be aware of how he heals.”
“It ain’t... It ain’t that I don’t appreciate the thought.”
“Then what is the problem?”
The reason stared him in the face! Didn’t he have any sensibilities? She let a twig drift past as she contemplated how to answer him. Seemed all she could do was be blunt.
“I can’t pay you.”
“I thought you understood. That isn’t a problem.”
“It is for me,” she hurried to say. “It may be late in comin’, but I pay my debts.”
It pained her to have to ask, but she had to know where things stood between them. “You going to tell about this? The sheriff—or anyone else?”
He pressed his lips together. “I won’t say anything to Sheriff Baniff. And I can’t see why it is anybody else’s business.”
It was as if the notion of being improper was not something he ever dealt with. Here she’d been dealing with it practically every minute of her entire life. She swallowed again. “I—I mean about stayin’ the night.”
“Oh. No one will hear a word of it from me.”
She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Believe me. It’s an easy decision. Should I say anything, questions will arise not only about your virtue, but also about my inability to thwart my kidnapping. People would know that you, a small mite of a woman, bested me. I can’t afford that. My reputation might never recover.”
He was teasing her in that way of his. Nothing seemed to ruffle him. In every moment, he was confident and strong. She wished she could soak up some of that. It would be nice to feel that sure of herself again. Guess when Thomas left her, any sureness she possessed had evaporated.
She smiled slightly at his quip. “Thank you kindly for your help.”
He stepped onto the ferry and slipped the tether line off the stump. Taking hold of the heavy rope that was suspended across the river to the opposite bank, he put his back into it and pulled hard. The flat raft eased out into the current and carried him across the water.
* * *
Once ashore on the north bank, Nelson followed the wagon trail toward Oak Grove.
The early-morning sun warmed his back and quickly melted the thin crust of snow into a slushy mess. After he brushed past, the weeds and grass lining the trail sprang back to attention with only a few casualties bent and crushed under his boots. He was vaguely aware of this while he walked and mulled over the strange encounter with Miss Marks.
He could have wrestled the gun away from her at any time. Why didn’t he? What had held him back every time that he’d thought to try it? Was it the desperation of the act? Tommy was worth everything to her. She would go to any lengths to make sure he was well and safe. He couldn’t imagine his own parents breaking the law in order to take care of him. They had packed him off to boarding school when he was Tommy’s age—with a formal, undemonstrative goodbye. Miss Marks would never have let her son go away at all.
It had to be impossibly hard for her to survive on that piece of land. Almost any other woman in her situation would have moved into town long ago. What was it that kept her there? That plot of land or her unmarried status?
She was an interesting woman—very different than any he’d ever met before. She was self-sufficient, stubborn and emotional all wrapped up under that ugly, floppy hat. And oddly enough, charming in an unsophisticated way. She had her pride. And she had certainly been worried about him being there all night even though it was her fault he was there in the first place. Guess she hadn’t thought that all the way through until morning came—another indication of how desperate she’d been about her son’s condition.
He stopped walking as a new thought occurred. Maybe it wasn’t her own reputation that she had been worried about. Maybe it was ruining his reputation that concerned her.
He started walking again.
Now, there was an interesting concept.
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