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“Maybe we could get to know each other a little better.”
“But that would entail you ditching your mailorder bridegroom.”
“Yes, that is a big problem I do have.”
He needed help balancing against the pillows when she returned with a tray, so Hannah, resigned, moved to give aid.
The feeling of his tousled head resting heavily against her side, while she held the glass for him, aroused something very sweet and indescribable. It wasn’t fair, when she was so deprived of male companionship, to put this one right within reach, and touch. If she succumbed to any feeling of warmth toward him, or an emotion much more intense than warmth, it was due only to propinquity.
“Now,” she said, when he was finally finished sipping (complaining that he felt like a bloated camel about to trek across the Sahara), “you may eat. And talk, if you’re not too tired
. I want to hear about your mother, and your travel such a distance, and what happened to get you gunned down like an escaped criminal.”
There was never any trouble getting the good doctor to talk. In between slow spoonfuls, he satisfied Hannah’s curiosity.
His trip to Atlanta was uneventful. Thank the Lord, his mother, sixty if she was a day (a lady never reveals her age, even to her family) continued in good health. The plantation had been situated far enough away from the city to survive the War—not unscathed, given the realm of destruction, but relatively intact. His two older brothers, with their wives and more progeny than you could shake a stick at, ran the place and all was well.
“So, she did her usual,” said Gabe, carefully applying his napkin. This business of having to do everything left-handed was a bloody nuisance, but he wouldn’t be able to move his right arm for some time yet. “Berated me b’cause I was so thin, wondered when I was movin’ back to God’s country, and ordered me to get myself married and settled down.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Hannah, considering the loving benefits of a motherly scolding, of which she had been deprived, murmured wistfully.
He snorted. “Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Well, I stayed as long as I could stand it, and then I shook that red clay dust from my heels and headed on back to Turnabout. Trouble was...”
Trouble was, he naturally had no idea what sort of hornet’s nest he would be running into.
“I heard most of that part from Paul,” she said quietly. “The whole thing must have been—terrifying.”
“To tell you the truth, it happened so fast that I was flung flat on the seat before I knew what was goin’ on. Here, take this, please.” He indicated his half-empty bowl. “I’ve gotten down about all I can right now. When is Letty comin’ back?”
“Later. When I let her know that you’ve driven me off, and she replaces me. Unless,” Hannah produced a wary half-grin, “we can find one of your other adoring fans to sit here and keep you entertained.”
“Adorin’ fan. Huh.” He shifted his bandaged upper body slowly back and forth across lumpy pillows: restless either with pain or with the conversation. “Ain’t got none of those.”
“Well, all of us Burton girls, for example. And most definitely Abigail Fitzsimmons.”
He shot her a bleary look from bleary eyes. “Outa the good of her heart, maybe; no other reason than that. She’s got herself all tied up with Linus Drinkwater.”
“Linus Drinkwater! Can you possibly be serious? No!”
“The same. So your mail order hero never showed, huh?”
Hannah drew back. Unexpectedly confronted with a stab to the heart, her every muscle clenched, and her mouth went dry. “W-W-What? What do you mean?”
“Figured—Figured you were still waitin’ for Prince Charming, since—you’re here. Hannah, I appreciate your company, but I gotta—uh—reckon you could fetch Ben here, for some personal business?”
A physician who could not discuss, or mention, all the private functions of the human body, especially when those concerned his own. Well, perhaps it would be easier if she could leave right now. Gabe had touched a very sore nerve when he’d asked about Mr. Ualraig, and right now she needed to escape his probing gaze.
Chapter Seventeen
ANOTHER TELEGRAM, DELIVERED first thing Monday morning to the newspaper office:
Unavoidable delay. Sincere apologies. Arriving shortly. Will explain. Very impatient.
HANNAH, CLENCHING HER teeth, crumpled the yellow paper in her fist.
She was growing quite weary of this elusive Mr. Ualraig and his myriad excuses. He must be traveling from the depths of the Yangtze River aboard the slowest canoe in human history, to take so long to get here. At this point, all she wanted was a face-to-face meeting, and every question answered.
Yet, what choice did she have but to wait?
