Gabe drew up a chair, sat down beside the bed, and carefully took her hand in his. “Yes, dear, it hurts. But I can give you something to make it better. Would you like that?”
Tears gathered beneath the closed eyelids, no more pallid than the gauze bandage wrapped
in place, and oozed slowly down her cheek. “Yes,” came the faint answer. “—Bye...Bye—horse...”
After a few more minutes of confusing, frustrating back-and-forth, it seemed no progress was being made. Then Letitia slipped into the room. “Might she mean purchase? Something to do with purchasing—buying—a horse?”
“—Buy—Painter...” wept Molly.
“Painter.” Hannah turned the word around thoughtfully. “Wasn’t that the horse that—Quinn—”
she barely whispered the name, “hired from the stable, to run away on?”
Lightly, reassuringly, Gabe stroked the invalid’s limp hand. “Is that it, Molly? You want someone to buy Painter?”
“Save...save—Painter...”
“Someone already did,” said Camellia, with a serene smile now that the matter had been cleared up. “Paul bought the animal from Abel Norton. Specifically for Molly.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANOTHER WEEK FOUND Turnabout’s residents in mid-July, at the height of summer’s heat. Men rolled their long sleeves back to the biceps and frankly applied their neckerchiefs to sweating brows; women more discreetly unfurled their fans and tried to confine their heavier housework to early morning and early evening.
Matters at the Forrester house seemed to be progressing with great hope and plenty of optimism, for Molly, to the delight of everyone within her immediate circle, was recovering by leaps and bounds. Oh, she still slept extra hours during both day and night—apologizing, with a small flutter of laughter, for being so lazy—while the bones of her ankle knit together and the concussion’s headaches and dizziness faded. But she was not only regaining physical health but mental and emotional spirit, as well. Probably, confided Camellia to her husband, the fact that Quinn Hennessey could no longer present any danger had a great deal to do with that recovery.
Well-wishers, understanding only a little of what Molly had endured during her brief marriage (and that mostly through gossip), descended upon the house with an outpouring of gifts: mincemeat pie and wonderful little iced cookies; a granny’s square afghan and knitted slippers; even some sort of salve, containing arnica, guaranteed to relieve swelling and bruises. Items were received at the door, gratefully and with appreciation, but visitors, the householders always explained, had been limited to just the family and a few close friends for the time being.
One of those close friends was, not surprisingly, Sheriff Paul Winslow, and he showed up every day, several times a day, to see how Molly was doing. Once Camellia even asked him, with a tiny quirk of humor, if he were neglecting his duties by being absent from his office so often. He merely smiled that enigmatic smile of his and proceeded inside.
Each time, Camellia noted, he arrived wearing a shirt so fresh off the line one could still smell the soap used to wash it, and his face newly shaven. Clean boots, pressed trousers, as nattily turned out as anyone had ever seen him.
“If I didn’t know better, I might almost think he has come a-courtin’,” Camellia, seeking an outside opinion, murmured to her husband one fine evening.
Unconcerned, Ben had flapped a page of the newspaper. Not to read. To chase away the mosquitoes. “Maybe he has.”
“But it’s too soon! She’s barely a widow, and with what she’s gone through she won’t want to be trusting any man for a long, long time—if ever.”
He had looked up from the rim of his coffee cup. “Why doncha let Molly decide that?”
Life could be brief in the violent west, with untimely death always a possibility. The pairings and matings of interested individuals must sometimes, of necessity, move forward quickly.
By early afternoon that second-floor bedroom would grow stuffy and airless, rendering its occupant even more supine. Sympathetic, Ben took it upon himself to transport her carefully, night dress, wrapper, and all, to the parlor settee, (from whence he would reverse the process, come evening). There, at least partaking in a more normal routine, she might chat with her sisters, doze a little, or read.
And receive the only two males allowed inside the house.
Gabe harrumphed his way through a daily examination and usually stayed for supper.
Paul, on the other hand, sat quietly, with only a few conversational gambits, and—from what Camellia could see—feasted his eyes upon the woman he had come to visit. Realizing which way the wind blew, she often made excuses to discreetly disappear for a bit when the sheriff appeared. She needed to shake the kitchen rugs outside, or she wanted to check on how Amazin’ was progressing in the garden, or she had decided to give her bedroom a through airing and cleaning.
It wasn’t exactly according to the rules of decorum to give them private time together, she would admit. But who might be aware, other than she herself, if a budding romance were being gently nudged along?
“You’re lookin’ well,” said Paul, during one of these interludes.
Ben had returned to the store after dinner—not everybody could afford to take so much time away from work, he had commented with asperity—and Camellia, pulling another of her vanishing acts once Paul had materialized, had decided she simply had to have some ingredient for a recipe due to be concocted and traipsed along after him.
“Thank you. I’m feeling well.” Molly, dressed in a sweet and simple blue cotton dressing gown that should never, according to propriety, be seen by any man outside the bedroom, smiled.
“Ahuh.”