Shaking her head in exasperation and resignation, she couldn’t help grinning at the affable man who made himself so easily at home, wherever he went. “You do beat all, Gabe. If you can wait a bit, Ben is supposed to be home soon. Unless you don’t want to share.”
“Oh, heavens above, happy to share. Meanwhile, a cup of your fine coffee would go down well.” That was more than a broad hint. It was an out-and-out plea.
She had poured a cup of coffee for each of them, and, taking pity on his wistful expression, sliced the rest of the cornbread for his consumption—“Just to tide you over”—when a knock at the back door announced her third visitor for the day.
“Lucky for you that you cleaned up the joint after last night’s foofaraw,” commented Gabe, unperturbed. “Didn’t realize you’d have so much company in and out.”
“Nor did I,” muttered Camellia, rising to undo the lock.
“Well, well, look who’s here. C’mon in, Paul; Miz F. was just about to fix us a meal. May’s well join us. What’s up?”
Camellia sighed. The doctor was absolutely incorrigible. “Yes, Paul, do come in and join us.”
Carefully wiping his boots on the rag rug arranged at the threshold for just that purpose, the sheriff looked up with a crooked smile. His broad shoulders, in the soft home
spun he favored, were sprinkled with rain drops, and his Stetson, when he removed it, had been darkened here and there, as well.
“I didn’t stop by to eat, Miz Forrester. Been makin’ my rounds, keepin’ an eye on the place, and thought I’d see how Molly is doin’.”
“Paul.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
Resigned to the inevitable, she poured another cup of coffee and wondered if the simple dinner menu of fried steak and essentials would stretch to feed four instead of two. Dadrat that simpleton of a Havers, anyway. Why didn’t he just hire a town crier and invite three streets’ worth of guests in to sit at her food trough?
“Here, sit. Yes,” she assured him, somewhat impatiently, “by all means, stay and eat with us. Paul, why do you address me as Mrs. Forrestor but you use my sister’s first name?”
“Oh. Ah.”
As he laid his hat aside and took a chair opposite the doctor’s, he kept both gaze and face slightly downturned. Camellia realized, with a start of surprise, that faint color was mounting across the man’s tanned cheekbones.
“Didn’t figure I knew you well enough yet to get so familiar,” mumbled Paul, looking like nothing so much as a boy shamed before his peers.
“But you do Molly?”
“Well—uh—the circumstances that threw us together...sorta seemed—well, almost life and death, y’ know...”
Gabriel, reaching hungrily for another piece of cornbread, hooted. “Our sheriff here is comin’ late to the barn dance. Once struck, forever struck, in his books. Reckon his twenty-eight years is finally startin’ to feel grown-up.”
A steady, even glance across the table. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, as usual, old man, and nothin’ outa your mouth makes sense anyway.”
“Old man? Well, you young whippersnapper, I do have almost a year on you. Experience tells. So, y’all wanna hear how my patient is doin’, or not?”
“Oh, do wait until Ben gets home,” begged Camellia. Hoping he could keep these two rowdy males separated and the atmosphere convivial. Although, actually, the three of them together behaved even more badly—like toddlers, lacking supervision. The center spot of her spine between both shoulder blades, an excruciatingly sensitive area, seemed to be targeted to invite barbs, and she shrugged a few times, working to loosen tight muscles.
As it was, he showed up about ten minutes later, while Camellia was pounding and flouring the steaks into exquisite tenderness. If he felt taken aback by the men around his table, being entertained by a flushed and flustered wife, he gave no indication.
“Things slow over to the sawbones’ office?” he wondered casually. A kiss for his wife, a pat on her shapely bottom as she labored at the stove, and he could wash his hands in anticipation of devouring something whose savory smell drew him bodily to the table. “Nothin’ doin’ over to the jail?”
“Checkin’ in on Molly,” both visitors answered simultaneously. And then looked at each other.
“Ahuh. So, you gonna report to me, or what?”
“Let’s do it on a full stomach, whatddya say?” suggested the doctor, watching Camellia’s movements with interest.
One of Camellia’s most endearing attributes was her grace under pressure. It was, perhaps, a more unusual quality in which Ben took great pride, but there it was: the cool ability to turn out an edible—no, a wonderfully tasty—meal, before an audience of hungry and impatient males. For someone with so little training in culinary arts, she had come a long way.
Amazing. In short order, she set on the table a platter of beef steaks, fried with onions; a large bowl of creamed turnips, heated and mashed with butter; another bowl of stewed carrots; a compote of fresh cooked spinach topped by boiled egg slices; a plate of baking powder biscuits dripping with elderberry jam; and yesterday’s baking of a crusty and savory apple pie.