A Convenient Wife. Carolyn Davidson

the bunkhouse, she decided, heading for the pantry. Last night’s leftover beef and cooked carrots were on a platter, covered with a dish towel, and she wrapped a good portion in a clean napkin. It might be a long time before she found something else to eat.

      Her final act was to take the sugar bowl from its place on the kitchen dresser. A handful of coins were in the bottom of the flowered china container. Pa didn’t hold with fancy dishes on the table, preferring to take his sugar from a jar. Ellie had squirreled away all her meager savings in the last piece of china left from her mother’s good dishes, and thankfully, George hadn’t discovered the cache.

      She dumped them into her small reticule and replaced the bowl. Then in a moment of rebellion, she snatched it back and settled it in the top of her valise.

      “It’s the last thing I have of yours, Mama,” she whispered. “I won’t leave it for him.”

      The faraway sound of men’s voices came to her as she walked out the back door, looking toward the near pasture. The big farm wagon rolled across its width, filled with men holding scythes, her father holding the reins of his team of draft horses. One of the men, John Dixon, looked up, nudged another, and shook his head slowly in her direction.

      Whether it was an expression of sympathy or a declaration of disgust she couldn’t tell, and as she set off staunchly down the lane toward the town road, she decided she didn’t care.

      That she was a fallen woman was a fact she could face. That her father had turned on her with a vengeance beyond belief was more than a reality, as her bruised and battered body could attest. Her hips ached as she walked the length of the pasture fence. Her eye throbbed, and she squinted through its swollen slit as she turned onto the dirt track leading to Whitehorn.

      The load she carried, her valise in one hand, her bundle containing food and every cent she owned in the world in the other, was heavy, yet not nearly so weighty as the pain of being an outcast. “He never loved me, anyway. I don’t know why I’m surprised he wouldn’t let me stay on and work for him,” she murmured to herself. “If I’d been a boy like he wanted, he might have been different.”

      And wasn’t that the truth. She wouldn’t be in this fix if she’d been a boy. She’d have been the one doing the sweet-talking and taking advantage.

      No. She shook her head. Even as a man, she wouldn’t have done what Tommy did, hurting another human being the way he had. Running off back East with his folks, not even a goodbye issued in her direction.

      Useless. Pa had called her that, plus a few other choice names, none of which she felt were fit to pass between her lips. Her chin lifted as she paced along on the side of the dusty road. It was only two miles to town. She could make it in less than an hour.

      And then what?

      Chapter Two

      Winston Gray was a good doctor. He didn’t need the opinions of the townspeople to recognize the fact, although they were ever ready with praise on his behalf. He’d filled a need in Whitehorn, and the men on the town council had been jubilant at his arrival.

      They’d given him a house in which to live and set up his practice, and he’d been properly grateful, although they’d said it was just part of the package.

      The rest of the parcel included a whole community of men, women and children who’d done without the services of a doctor for almost two years. Harry Talbert’s wife had done her best, but being the wife of a barber did not automatically fit her for the role she’d been called on to perform.

      “I’m sure glad you came to Whitehorn,” she’d told him that first day when he climbed from the stagecoach. “I’ve had to sew up more cuts than you can shake a stick at, and deliverin’ babies is not what I do best.” Her grin had welcomed him, as had her unexpectedly firm handshake, matched by the dozen or so men who’d joined her to meet the stage.

      He’d settled in nicely, awaiting the arrival of his office equipment, and the shiny, walnut desk he’d ordered from Saint Louis. For several months he’d spent time with the people of the community, tending to their problems, mending broken bones and stitching up their wounds, with an occasional delivery tossed in for variety. A box of medicine he’d brought with him kept his black bag supplied, and he’d ordered more as it was needed from a pharmaceutical outfit in Kansas City.

      Now, his day half done, he polished the bell of his stethoscope with the cuff of his shirt sleeve, awaiting his first patient of the afternoon office hours. His morning and most of the night spent on house calls, he’d only just arrived back in town. He’d been at Caleb Kincaid’s ranch, setting a broken leg for one of Caleb’s ranch hands who’d been thrown from a horse.

      Called from his bed just past midnight, he’d ridden to the Darby ranch, where Matt’s wife had delivered her fourth boy just after daybreak. She could have likely done it on her own, he recalled with a smile, but had gratefully inhaled the chloroform he’d dosed her with at the end.

      Bone-weary, but willing, Win opened his office door, noting with thankfulness the dearth of patients. That would soon be remedied when the chill winds blew in from the north in the next few weeks, and folks began the usual run of pleurisy and other winter ailments.

      He might do well to consider outfitting himself with a sleigh, once snow fell and the buggy could no longer traverse the open country. There were always folks needing house calls, those too old or infirm to make it into town. It was a part of the business he’d chosen, he decided, although business was too harsh and uncaring a word for the lifestyle he’d accepted upon finishing medical school.

      Business best described the world of his father and uncles, the world of finance, where money was the god they worshipped, and his love of medicine and its benefits to humanity had met with scorn and derision.

      “You’ll come crawling back one day,” his father had said, his voice harsh as he’d delivered his final thrust. There’d never been a word of admiration for Win’s success in medical school, or a note of support for his choice of medicine as a career.

      Win took off his spectacles, recalling that day when he’d turned his back on family and the social scene in Saint Louis to come to this small town in Montana, where a doctor was desperately needed, and fervently appreciated.

      “Doctor?” The outer door opened and Tess Dillard stood on the threshold. “Are you busy?”

      Win smiled. The storekeeper’s wife was a lovely lady, friend to all, and one of his staunchest supporters, sending him all and sundry who complained of major or minor illnesses. “Come on in, Tess. I’m just wondering where all my afternoon quota of patients have gone.”

      “It’s too nice out to be sick, Doc. This spell of warm weather won’t last forever, and folks are taking advantage of it. School’s started up early this year, but before you know it we’ll have snow falling. Time enough then to be visiting the doctor.” Her cheerful words only served to support his own theory, and Win motioned to her expansively.

      “Come on in,” he said warmly. “Did you need to see me for anything special or is this a social visit?” He eyed her suspiciously. “You’re not about to offer me up another young lady on a platter, are you, Tess? I told you I’m not in the market for a wife.”

      She shook her head. “No, not this time, Doc, but one of these days, I’ll come up with a woman you won’t be able to resist.” She crossed the room and sat on one of the straight chairs he furnished for waiting patients. “There’s something going on I thought you needed to be aware of.”

      Win joined her, pulling a second chair from its place against the wall and scooting it closer to where she sat. “What’s the problem? What can I do?”

      Tess glanced out the open door. “I’m kinda keepin’ an eye out for the girl, Doc. I’m afraid she’s run out of choices, and I’m worried about her.”

      “What girl?” Win asked, and even as he spoke the words, his heart sank. Ellie Mitchum. As sure as he was of his own name, he knew the