Would-Be Wilderness Wife

That chance for peace was what had brought her here so very far from what she’d planned for her life. She should not let the misguided actions of an impetuous boy change that.

Nor the fluttering of a heart she had sworn to keep safely cocooned from further pain.

* * *

How could his brother have been so boneheaded? Drew glanced over his shoulder at the youth. Levi had curled himself around the supplies on the wagon bed like a hound before the fire, and it wouldn’t surprise Drew if his brother started snoring. The boy had absolutely no remorse for what he’d done. Where had Drew gone wrong?

“I’m really very sorry,” he apologized again to Catherine as he faced front. “I don’t know what got into him. He was raised better.”

“Out in the woods, you said,” she replied, gaze toward the front, as well. Her hair was once more confined behind her head, and he knew a moment of regret at its disappearance. Levi might have been the one to cry out at the sight of it, but the satiny tresses had held him nearly as captive.

“On the lake,” he told her. “My father brought us to Seattle about fifteen years ago from Wisconsin and chose a spot far out. He said a man needed something to gaze out on in the morning besides his livestock or his neighbors.”

She smiled as if the idea pleased her. “And your mother?” she asked, shifting on the wooden bench, her wide blue skirts filling the space at her feet. “Is she truly ill?”

It was difficult to even acknowledge the fact. He nodded, turning his gaze out over the horses. “She came down with a fever nearly a fortnight ago.”

He could feel her watching him. “A fever that lasts that long is never good,” she informed him in a pleasant voice he was sure must calm many a patient. “Do you open the windows daily to air her room?”

He’d fetched gallons of water from the spring, even trudged down to the lakeshore to draw it cold from the depths. He’d stoked up the fire, wrapped Ma tight in covers. But he hadn’t considered opening the windows.

“No,” he answered. “Doesn’t cold air just make you sicker?”

She shook her head, Levi’s hat sliding on the silk of her hair. “No, indeed. The fear of it is a common belief I have had to fight repeatedly. Fresh air, clean water, healthy food—those are what cure a body, sir. That is what my father taught. That is what I practice.”

She was so sure of the facts that he couldn’t argue. He knew from conversations with Doc Maynard that Seattle was woefully behind on recent medical advancements. As one of the few physicians, Doc was overwhelmed with the number of people ill or injured. He must have been overjoyed to have Catherine join his staff.

“I hope you’ll be able to help her, then, ma’am,” he told her. “Before we return you to Seattle tomorrow.”

He glanced her way in time to see her gaze drift out over the horses. “You did not seem so sure of my skills earlier, sir.”

With Levi right behind him, he wasn’t about to admit that his initial concern had been for his brother’s matchmaking, not the lack of her skills. “We’ve known Doc for years,” he hedged.

He thought her shoulders relaxed a little. She sat so prim and proper it was hard to tell. “My father’s patients felt the same way. There is nothing like the trusted relationship of your family doctor. But I will do whatever I can to help your mother.”

Levi’s smug voice floated up from behind. “I knew she’d come around.”

Though Drew was relieved at the thought of Catherine’s help, he wanted nothing more than to turn and thump Levi again.

“As you can see,” he said instead to Catherine, “my brother has a bad habit of acting or talking without thinking.” He glanced back into the wagon in time to see Levi making a face at him.

“My brother was the same way,” she assured him as he turned to the front again with a shake of his head. “He borrowed my father’s carriage more than once, drove it all over the county. He joined the Union Army on his eighteenth birthday before he’d even received a draft notice.”

“Sounds like my kind of fellow,” Levi said, kneeling so that his head came between them. “Did he journey West with you?”

Though her smile didn’t waver, her voice came out flat. “No. He was killed at the Battle of Five Forks in Virginia.”

Levi looked stricken as he glanced between her and Drew. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she replied, but Drew saw that her hands were clasped tightly in her lap as if she were fighting with herself not to say more.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Drew said. “That must have been hard on you and your parents.”

“My mother died when I was nine,” she said, as if commenting on the weather. “My father served as a doctor in the army. He died within days of Nathan. It was a very bloody war.”

How could she sit so calmly? If he’d lost so much he would have been railing at the sky.

Levi was obviously of a similar mind. “That’s awful!” He threw himself back into the bed. “Pa died when I was eight, but I think I would have gone plumb crazy if I’d lost Drew and Simon and James and John, too.”

Her brows went up as she glanced at Drew. “You have four brothers?”

He chuckled. “Yes, and most days I’m glad of it.”

“We had another sister, too, besides Beth,” Levi said, popping up again. “She died when she was a baby. Simon says it about broke Ma’s heart.”

It had almost broken Drew’s heart, as well. His parents had been grieving so hard that he’d had to be the one to fashion the tiny coffin and dig the little grave at the edge of the family land. He’d never dreamed his father would be dead just five years later.

Please, Lord, don’t make me bury another member of my family!

The prayer came quickly, and just as quickly he regretted it. It was selfish. If a man prayed, he should ask the Almighty for wisdom to lead, strength to safeguard those he loved. The Lord had blessed him with strength. Some days he wasn’t too sure about the wisdom.

Beside him, Miss Stanway’s face softened, as if his pain had touched her.

“I’m sorry for your loss, as well,” she said. They were the expected words; he’d just used them on her. He’d heard them countless times at his father’s passing and his sister’s. Yet the look she cast him, the tears pooling in her blue eyes, told him she understood more than most.

He wanted to reach out, clasp her hand, promise her the future would be brighter. But that was nonsense! He couldn’t control the future, and she was his to protect only until he returned her to Seattle. He had enough on his hands without taking on a woman new to the frontier.

Besides, every settlement within a hundred miles needed her help. Catherine Stanway might not have realized it yet, but a nurse was a valuable commodity, even if she wasn’t so pretty or one of a few unmarried women in the Territory.

Which made him wonder how far his brothers might go to keep her at Wallin Landing.

Chapter Three (#ulink_7ee00e78-b063-588b-bb23-a0f9a05eb4e4)

Twilight wrapped around the forest by the time Catherine’s host guided the team into a grassy clearing crossed by moss-crusted split-rail fences. A large cabin and a barn made from logs and planed timber hugged the edges, with trees standing guard behind them as if honoring their fallen brothers and sisters. Another light through the trees told her at least one more cabin was nearby. The glow through the windows of the closest cabin beckoned to her.

“Where’s the lake?” she asked as Drew hopped down and came around the wagon.

He nodded toward the cabin, a two-story affair with a pitched roof and a porch at one end. It was encircled by a walk of planed boards.

“Through the trees there,” he said. “We’re on a bench fifty feet or so above the waterline. Keeps us out of any flooding in the spring.”

His father had obviously planned ahead. She wouldn’t have thought about spring flooding when choosing a plot for a house. Of course, she’d never had to choose a homesite in the wilderness!

She turned to climb down, and once again Drew reached out and lifted her from the wagon to set her on her feet. For a moment it was as if she stood in his embrace. His eyes were a smoky blue in the dim light. She couldn’t seem to remember why she was here, what she was supposed to do next.

The sound of Levi scrambling out of the wagon bed woke her, and she pulled away. As the youth started past, his brother put out an arm to stop him.

“See to the horses and bring in the supplies. I’ll take our guest inside.”