The Drifter. Сьюзен Виггс

into his thick golden hair. “Didn’t know I was wound up so tight.” He glanced up at her. She felt an inner twist of compassion at the turbulence in his eyes. Those gunslinger eyes. The first time she had looked into them, she had nearly fainted from fright. Now she felt a chilly reluctance to tell him the rest.

      “Thanks, Doc,” he said to her.

      She nodded, holding the edge of the door, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for him to ask about the baby. He didn’t. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge its existence. She swallowed hard. “Mr. Underhill?”

      “Yeah?”

      She took a deep breath, sensing the harshness of carbolic and ammonia in her lungs. “I’m afraid I couldn’t save the baby.”

      “The baby.” His soft voice held no expression, no hint of what he was feeling.

      “I’m sorry. So terribly, terribly sorry.”

      He stared at her for a long time, so long she wasn’t certain he’d heard and understood. Then at last he spoke. “You did your best, I reckon.”

      In her travels with her father, she’d met her share of gamblers and gunslingers. They were men without souls, men who killed in the blink of an eye. Jackson T. Underhill was one of them. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how badly she’d wanted him to be different—better, more worthy, more compassionate. But his attitude about the baby proved her wrong.

      “I did my best, yes,” she said. “But like every physician, I have my limits. Some things just weren’t meant to be.” She decided not to tell him her concerns about Carrie. Not now, at least.

      “I see.” He steepled the tips of his fingers together.

      Mr. Underhill, you lost a child today. She didn’t say the words, but she wondered why he didn’t react more strongly. Perhaps his way of coping was to deny the baby had ever existed. After all, he’d only known about it for a day.

      “What about the tonic your wife’s been taking?” Leah asked. “I really must know its contents.”

      “Yeah, I’ll give you the bottle. It’s some patented medicine. Helps her relax. She’s always been…a nervous sort.”

      “I’ll write off to the manufacturer and inquire about the contents.” Based on the substances she’d seen her father dispense, she was not optimistic. A lot of the patented remedies contained calomel purgatives and worse. She tried to smile encouragingly. “After the recovery, there’s no reason you and your wife can’t have more children.”

      “There won’t be more children.” He slashed the air with his hand and lurched to his feet, the motion at once violent and desperate. “She almost died this time.”

      Leah had heard the same words from other frightened husbands. The vow rarely lasted, though. Once the woman was up and about again, their husbands generally forgot the terror of the miscarriage. Still, she smiled gently and said, “Make no decisions now, Mr. Underhill. Everyone’s tired, and your wife has a long recovery ahead of her. You have plenty of time to think of the future.”

      His eyes narrowed. “What’s that mean? A long recovery.”

      “Weeks, at the very least. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she was underweight and anemic to begin with.”

      “I can’t wait that long.”

      Anger hardened inside Leah. “Then you’re taking a terrible risk with your wife’s health, sir,” she snapped. “Now, can you help bring her to her bed?”

      “Doc.” His voice was flat, neutral. “Dr. Mundy.”

      “Yes?”

      “I wish you’d quit looking at me like that.”

      “How am I looking at you, sir?”

      “Like I was a snake under a rock.”

      “If you see things from the perspective of a snake, that is your fault, not mine.”

      He muttered beneath his breath, something she didn’t even want to hear, but he cooperated, helping her with Carrie.

      “Will you stay, then?” Leah asked as they carefully tucked Carrie into bed. “No matter how long her recuperation takes?”

      Jackson T. Underhill dragged his hand down his face in a gesture she was coming to recognize as his response to frustration. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, I’ll stay.”

      Like a morning mist, a rare, dreamy wistfulness enveloped Leah as she made her way back from the Winfield place. She had driven herself in the buggy since the weather was fine and the vehicle unlikely to get mired. Ordinarily, Mr. Douglas from the boardinghouse did the driving. But he was getting on in years, and she tried not to drag him out of bed too early.

      Her father had insisted on a driver, claiming it bolstered his image of importance. The thought of her father took Leah back in time. She was nine years old again, done up in ribbons and bows, seated stiffly in the parlor of their Philadelphia house while he drilled her on her sums. Even now, she could recall the scent of wood polish, could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. Could see the chilly glare of her father growing colder when she stumbled over a number.

      “I’m sorry, Father,” she’d said, her voice meek. “I’ll study harder. I’ll do better next time.”

      And she did do better the next time. She perfected everything he demanded of her, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Edward Mundy had done a splendid job of convincing his daughter that no matter how hard she studied, no matter how hard she tried, she would never please him.

      He’d wanted her to be a doctor, yes, because he had no son to carry on in the profession. But he’d also expected her to marry, and marry well. There had been an endless parade of suitors arranged by her father, but they never stayed. The men she met had no idea what to do with a woman like her. They wanted someone who laughed and danced and gossiped, not someone who studied anatomy and voiced opinions that raised eyebrows.

      Lulled by the creaking rhythm of the buggy wheels, Leah thrust aside the dark memories. Her father was gone. The past was gone. It was up to her to keep it at bay.

      She watched the roadway unfold between the horse’s brown ears and thought about the Winfields. The birth had been an easy one; the baby had emerged healthy and whole into her eager, waiting hands. She would never tire of the warm, slippery feel of newborn flesh. The look of wonder from the father, the triumphant tears of the mother. But most of all, she loved the first gasp of breath as the baby inhaled, the lusty cry that said, “Here I am, world, alive and hale,” followed by the glorious rush of crimson as the child took on the flush of life.

      Each time you save a life, Sophie had told her, you yourself are reborn.

      On spring mornings like this, a week after Mrs. Underhill’s miscarriage, Leah could believe it. She had been called from her bed at five to attend Mrs. Winfield. Just two hours later, the baby had made his appearance, and Mr. Winfield, overjoyed, had paid Leah—immediately and well, a rare surprise since most of her patients tended to procrastinate when it came to settling fees.

      So with pride in delivering Coupeville’s newest citizen and carrying a gold double eagle in the pocket of her smock, Leah was in excellent spirits.

      She practiced the most glorious profession of all, that of healing, saving lives, relieving suffering. She had been an exemplary student, studying harder than her male counterparts, performing better than her father’s expectations for her, and in the end knowing the triumph of succeeding against all odds.

      Yet inevitably as always, a shadow crept in on her, dimming her elation. Because even as she stood holding a newborn, the time always came for her to surrender the child to its mother. To watch the father gather them both in his arms while a glow of radiance surrounded them.

      Some might claim the notion pure fancy, but Leah had seen that glow again and again. She wondered