Bluebonnet Belle

“Wonderful,” she muttered, drawing a deep breath to clear her head. Something else to explain to Grandpa.

“Are you experiencing any pain?”

“No, and you’ve done quite enough, thank you.” April felt like a fool! Not only had she drawn undue attention to herself by speaking up like that, she’d created a scene that was sure to get back to Grandpa and all of Dignity before she did. Still, it wasn’t that unpleasant being administered to by Dr. Fuller. The feel of his gentle hand on her forehead lingered, and she reached to finger the spot.

“Ouch!” It had felt much better when the doctor touched the bump.

Gray’s brows lifted. “I’m trying to place you. Haven’t we met, Miss…”

“I have a common-looking face,” she said, standing up hurriedly. He’d been at the house several times, but she’d managed to evade him. His very demeanor frightened her—and doctors plain scared her. Still, he might have spotted her lurking in the porch shadows….

Regaining her bearings, she straightened her dress, smoothed her flyaway hair, remembered to thank him, and took off in the opposite direction at a hurried pace.

“If you have any blurring of vision, be sure and see a doctor…miss?”

She dismissed him with an absent wave. “I’m fine, really.”

He would remember where he’d seen her, and tell Grandpa. She might as well brace herself for the explosion.

Gray stared after her, watching the sway of her slender hips as she hurried along. He searched his mind, trying to recall meeting her. How could he possibly have encountered such a beautiful woman and not remember?

One thing was certain: the incident today would not be forgotten. It would take some doing to forget this woman.

If he ever saw her again, he’d remember.

Chapter Two

Francesca DuBois didn’t understand the word no.

“Have you not missed me, chéri? It has been too long.” The ebony-haired beauty seated across the desk smiled provocatively.

“It’s difficult for me to get away. I’m the only doctor in town. A lot of people need me.”

“But, my darling, I need you, too.” She frowned. “Are you aware of how difficult it is to explain your continued absence to my friends?”

“You knew when I took this practice I would be in Dallas less frequently.” He tossed a folder on his desk, annoyed that she was here. He’d made it clear that when the time was right—and if he changed his mind and decided to honor the engagement—he would send for her. True to form, Francesca had jumped the gun, and here she sat, looking as though she was here to stay.

Her eyes roamed the small office. “Honestly, Gray. Why would you want to bury yourself in a backward town like Destiny?”

“Dignity.”

As usual, she ignored the correction. Had he noticed this irritating trait before?

“Even more appalling. You had a glowing Dallas practice, more patients than you could handle. Now—” she swept a gloved hand at the Spartan quarters “—this.”

At first she had argued about his decision, but when it became clear he was going to make the move, she’d stopped. Gray knew she thought the forced separation would strengthen their shaky relationship. But just the opposite had occurred.

Gray had realized his calling. Dallas had its share of progressive doctors, and few people who needed, or wanted, them. The rural communities still depended on midwives and herbalists to serve their medical needs—people with no training, who gained what little knowledge they had through information passed down from a grandmother or an aunt.

No, Gray wasn’t needed in Dallas. But he was needed in the countryside. Francesca couldn’t understand that; couldn’t or wouldn’t understand it. Her father wasn’t much better.

Though he was indebted to Louis DuBois for financing his medical internship, he didn’t agree with the older doctor’s focus on medicine merely as a means to make money. Somewhere along the way, Louis had forgotten medicine was a service to humanity.

When Gray announced his intentions to take over Joe McFarland’s practice in Dignity, Louis hadn’t argued with him. Instead, he’d figured it wouldn’t take long for Gray to admit his mistake and return to Dallas, where he would then be taken into one of DuBois’ three clinics as a full partner—a stance Francesca also embraced.

Uncomfortable under the resulting pressure, Gray had broken their tenuous engagement. Only Francesca had ignored that fact. She’d refused to return the ring or to accept Gray’s declaration that the relationship was over. Now here she was in Dignity, sitting in his office and acting as though he should be thrilled to see her.

Louis’ offer was tempting. Only a fool would refuse it. But Gray had dedicated his skill to treating the ill rather than catering to the privileged.

Now that he had been in Dignity for a little over a month, his convictions were even stronger. He wanted to set down roots in the small town and develop a busy practice. Exactly how he was going to convince this woman that his life was here now, in Dignity—without her—he wasn’t sure.

Admittedly she was a beauty, and entrenched in Dallas society. Would she be willing to give up the social whirl and move to Dignity? He doubted it.

She extended an entreating hand. “Why won’t you listen to reason? Move back to Dallas. That is where you belong.”

“I believe Dignity is where God wants me to be.”

“God?” She shook her head. “You always had a streak of religious idealism. I find it hard to believe God cares where you practice medicine.”

Gray shrugged. “You’re entitled to your opinion.”

She slapped a hand on his desk. “I do not understand why you feel you must live in this bumpkin town. What is there in Destiny?”

“It’s Dignity. And it’s people. They need a doctor.”

“There are sick people in Dallas, as well. People who pay for a doctor’s service with things other than chickens, produce from the garden and baked offerings from their kitchen.”

“They give what they have. I find it sufficient.”

Sighing, she sat back in the chair, drumming her fingers on the desktop. “Will you just listen? Give up this crazy idea and move back to Dallas. Papa will set you up in a practice with Jake Brockman, Lyle Lawyer and Frank Smith. We can be married in a month.”

Drawing a deep breath, Gray pulled back the curtains to look out on the street. Dignity wasn’t Dallas, and that was what attracted him. He liked the town’s sleepy lifestyle. He liked its people: good, hardworking, God-fearing farmers, their children and wives, town merchants and neighboring families who came from miles around to seek his medical advice. Gray Fuller’s knowledge, not Brockman, Lawyer, Smith and Fuller’s advice, as Francesca would have it.

The area itself drew him; the small community sat near the upper corner of the port. Rail service of both the Houston and Texas Central and Texas and Pacific lines made travel practical. Hired carriages were available to take one anywhere in the city quickly. But out here in Dignity he enjoyed windswept land, trees shaped by gulf breezes, rolling surf…No, he would not abandon his dream. Not for her, not for any woman.

Families strolled around the common on a cool evening, or brought picnics on Sunday afternoons. Dignity was interesting, compelling, and more to his taste than the Dallas Francesca loved.

It was a sense of peace that had drawn him when he first visited here six months earlier. The doctor in him demanded it, the man in him wanted it.

“Papa was asking about you before I left. He worries that you’re being a fool. He asked if you had come to your senses—”

Gray cut her off. “How is Louis?”

“Oh, chéri,” she complained, “someone has stolen your mind in this town! You are surely not thinking clearly!”

He suddenly lost his patience. Francesca was a beautiful, charming, but spoiled young woman who’d been raised in the lap of luxury, a woman who used her position as leverage to get whatever she wanted. Position her father had earned for her.

Louis DuBois had come to the United States from France shortly before Francesca was born. Starting with little more than ingenuity, he’d built a successful group of medical clinics in Dallas. Francesca was his only child, and he wasn’t subtle about his desire for his daughter to marry Gray.