A Convenient Wife

Tess Dillard cast Ellie a glance, then took a second look, her forehead furrowing into a puzzled frown. “I haven’t seen you in a while, child,” she said softly. “You haven’t been to town lately, have you?”

Ellie shook her head. “I wouldn’t be here today, but for some things my pa forgot when he came in last week. I usually just give him a list of what we need, but he left it home last time.” And besides, she’d wanted to see the doctor. For all the good that had done her.

“Well, let me see what we can do for you,” Tess said, reaching for the folded slip of paper Ellie held. Her fingers touched the back of Ellie’s hand and lingered. “Are you feeling well?” she asked kindly.

Ellie stiffened, looking around for listeners. “Of course, I’m fine, Mrs. Dillard. I just have to hurry along today. I’ve got supper in the oven, and I need to be home before the roast gets overdone. Pa doesn’t like his meat cooked all the way through.”

Tess reached to the shelf behind her and lifted a metal container to the counter. “I’ve got spices in here,” she said, sorting through the tins it held. “Here we go. Cinnamon, and there’s another of nutmeg. Are you doing a lot of baking these days, Ellie?”

Ellie nodded. “I make pies for the men. Clyde does their meals, but I fix cookies and such for them. I only cook for Pa and me in the house.”

“Well, let’s see what else you need.” Tess placed the list on the counter and turned back to her shelves. “I’ve got liniment and a fresh supply of Dr. Wilden’s stomach remedy.” Her sharp eyes honed in on Ellie’s face. “Is that for you? You’re not feeling well?”

“Pa gets heartburn lately,” Ellie said quickly, feeling the telltale blush rise to color her cheeks as she told the blatant lie. “Don’t forget I need sugar, too, Mrs. Dillard.”

“Yes, all right,” Tess said, eyeing Ellie with suspicion. She leaned over the counter, her voice low. “If you need someone to talk to, I’m always available, honey. I know you’ve missed havin’ a mama in your life.”

“I’m fine,” Ellie said, desperate to be on her way. “Just put my total on the book if you will. Pa will pay when he comes to town next.” She gathered up the small pile of bottles and tins Tess had placed before her and held the assortment in both hands.

“Here, put that in this box,” Tess said, reaching beneath the counter for an empty cardboard container. Adding the sack of sugar, she reached for a peppermint stick and placed it amid Ellie’s purchases. “That’ll settle your stomach, Ellie,” she said quietly, pushing the box across the counter. “Just remember, I’m here if you need me.”

And that was the second offer she’d had today, Ellie thought, lifting the box and heading for the door. Striding out onto the sidewalk, then stepping down to the road, she ignored the passersby, nodding only when the tall minister of the Methodist church spoke her name.

“Ellie, we haven’t seen you in Sunday morning service for a long time. Don’t be a stranger now, you hear?” Reverend Fairfax said with a wide smile. He tipped his hat and moved along the road, speaking to another of his parishioners as he made his way toward his own buggy.

“I doubt you’ll be seeing me at all,” Ellie muttered beneath her breath as she untied the mare from the hitching rail. The box with her purchases settled beneath the seat, she climbed into the buggy and turned the mare toward home. Although seeing the kindly minister would have been a logical move if Tommy had stayed here, instead of moving back East. If he’d told his mother that he wanted to marry Ellie.

She sighed, envisioning the event. Her with a new dress maybe. Tommy with his hair slicked back and his smile flashing just for her benefit. She frowned, closing her eyes, as his image eluded her, replaced by the tall, kindly man who’d just rocked the very foundations of her world.

Winston Gray. No problem recalling him, she thought with a flash of humor.

Now, as to Tommy… Ellie squinted as the buggy headed toward the setting sun. Funny, she could barely remember what he looked like. And he was supposedly the love of her life. Although, hard as she tried, today she couldn’t come up with much more than lukewarm feelings for the man.

That she’d been a fool to listen to his palaver was a given. He’d played her like a shabby fiddle, plucking at her strings, telling her she was beautiful, just the girl he needed for a wife.

Beautiful, indeed. As if plain brown hair and eyes that matched were anything to talk about. But she’d listened, bewitched by the running on of his compliments, intrigued by his kisses that promised pleasure. But there’d been no pleasure to be had in his taking of her body, only a painful, embarrassing few minutes of prodding and thumping on her, while Tommy wheezed and groaned against her ear.

She’d been a fool. That fact recognized, she set about working on a plan to get her future in order. The first thing would be to tell Pa. And to that end, she set her jaw and considered the best way to approach George Mitchum.

No matter what she’d done, the results would have been the same, Ellie realized. She crawled with effort into her bed, aching in every muscle, bruised from the blows she’d accepted as her due from the man who’d sired her. The man who’d told her in no uncertain terms that she was no longer welcome in his house.

“You’ve got till tomorrow morning to be gone from here,” he’d shouted as she’d huddled in the corner of the kitchen. “I won’t have a bastard in this house. I always knew you were just like your ma. You’ll no doubt have a simpering girl child, just the way she did. Worthless females, both of you.”

Supper forgotten on the table, he’d stormed out the back door, leaving Ellie to consider the condition of her body. Her face hurt from two sharp slaps, and unless she was mistaken, her eye was swollen. If the aching in her arms was any indication, there’d be bruises turning blue by morning, where great hammy fists had punched her as she’d sought to protect the child she carried.

Her backside throbbed from several kicks and her legs bore bloody scuff marks from George’s boots, but there hadn’t been any serious bleeding done, and for that she supposed she should be thankful. She’d thought at first that he would surely kill her, but his look of disgust had not included a gleam of hatred akin to murder in his eye.

She sighed, curling beneath the quilt. Maybe Tess Dillard would be the person to seek out. Perhaps she could use a hand in the store, at least until Ellie found a better solution to her problem. And that didn’t seem likely, at least not for the next few months.

The house was quiet when she crawled from her bed, donning the same dress she’d worn yesterday. Her other two dresses, one she wore to do chores, the other her Sunday best, hung in the wardrobe and she gathered them, along with a spare petticoat and her good drawers, folding them all neatly into a small bundle. Two pairs of stockings completed her pile of belongings, and she stuffed the lot into a small valise that had been her mother’s.

Her chest of drawers held extra bed linens and a shawl. The shawl she took, along with her comb and brush and a small bottle of scent Tommy had presented her with. Lily of the Valley, it said on the gilt label, and she smiled ruefully as she recalled her pleasure in the gift.

On second thought, she decided, she’d do just as well without any reminders of Tommy, and cast the bottle aside. It was about as worthless to her as the promises he’d made and broken. She surely didn’t need to smell good for his sake anymore.

Damn Tommy Jamison, anyway. “I hope he rots in hell,” she whispered, and then slapped a hand over her mouth as she muffled the curse word she’d said aloud.

The kitchen was empty, the coffeepot cold. Pa must have taken breakfast with the men in 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.