The time had gone by quickly. Milly and Nick had arrived home December 23, and Sarah welcomed them back with a wonderful supper.
“Oh, Sarah, why don’t you stay till after New Year’s?” Milly said the morning after Christmas. “It doesn’t seem right, your moving out right now. Why not stay till then?”
“It was a wonderful Christmas, wasn’t it?” Sarah said. “Your first one as husband and wife,” she said, smiling at the couple across the table. “But Milly, I can’t keep putting it off. Today’s the perfect day. Bobby and Isaiah are already set to load up the buckboard right after breakfast, aren’t you?”
Down the table, the two cowhands nodded.
Sarah looked forward to sharing the cottage with Prissy, for her lively and vivacious friend knew no strangers. It would be fun teaching Prissy how to cook and manage a household. And what would it be like, not having to cook three square meals a day for hungry cowboys, and hitch up the horse whenever she had baked goods to deliver?
An hour later, all was in readiness for her departure.
“Now remember, you—”
“Can always come back,” Sarah finished for Milly, from her perch on the driver’s seat of the wagon loaded with her bed and chest of drawers, as well as a pair of chairs Milly said she could spare. “I know. And perhaps I will, after I teach Prissy a few basic kitchen and housekeeping skills.”
“She couldn’t possibly be any slower to learn to cook than I was,” Milly said. “Now, with the fried chicken, you dip it in the beaten eggs, then the flour and spices, right?” She was to cook her first dinner without help tonight, and she’d already admitted she was nervous about it.
“Right. Actually, I’m more worried about teaching Prissy how to launder clothes than the cooking,” Sarah said. “She still thinks doing the laundry consists of handing her dirty clothes to the housekeeper. But don’t worry, your first supper will be fine.”
“Of course it will, darling,” said Nick, who’d been helping Bobby and Isaiah load the wagon. He put an arm affectionately around his wife’s waist.
Sarah watched them with a certain wistfulness. She was so happy for her sister, yet wondered if she would ever know this happiness herself.
She straightened and nodded to Bobby, sitting next to her and holding the reins, and Isaiah, who waited on his horse beside them. They were coming along to help her move her furniture into the cottage. “We’re burning daylight, as Josh would say. I reckon we’d better get going.”
By noon, the men had unloaded everything on the wagon, placed it all wherever Sarah and Prissy had directed in the little cottage, rid the house of a mouse that had sent Prissy shrieking in panic out into the yard and departed. Now Sarah and Prissy sat down and enjoyed the sandwiches Sarah had packed for their midday meal.
“It’s shaping up well, isn’t it?” Prissy said, surveying with satisfaction the room that served as a combined dining area and parlor. They had arranged the round oak table between the kitchen and the couch and chairs, and there was a fireplace along the back wall. Behind the dining room and parlor, a short hallway divided the two bedrooms.
“Small, but cozy,” Sarah agreed. “But I just realized something I should have thought of before…”
“What’s that?”
“Now that I’m here, I won’t have the wagon to deliver my baked goods to the hotel and mercantile. It’s a lot to carry, so I’m either going to make at least a couple of trips back and forth to the cottage, or—”
“I could help you carry your pies and cakes,” Prissy offered.
“Thanks, but it’s not fair for you to have to do that several times a week. I think I’ll just go see if Mr. Patterson has a little pull-cart he could trade me for this week’s pies.” She arose, and took her woolen shawl and bonnet from the pegs by the door. “I need to discuss with him and the hotel owner when I can start delivering again, anyway.” She had notified her customers she would not be baking again till after the move. “Do you want to come with me?”
“No, I think I’ll work on arranging my bedroom,” Prissy said. She stretched and rubbed the small of her back. “I have a feeling my bed’s going to feel very good tonight, after all the boxes we’ve been carrying and the furniture we’ve been arranging and rearranging. Oh, and while you’re there, would you look and see if they have anything lighter for curtain material? Mama’s castoff damask curtains are just too dark and heavy for this room, don’t you think?”
Sarah nodded her agreement. “I’ll look at the bolts of cloth while I’m there. Perhaps a dotted swiss…” Sewing was Milly’s area of expertise, but surely she could sew a simple pair of gathered curtains.
It only took her five minutes to walk from the cottage on the grounds of the mayor’s property, out the wrought-iron gates and down Simpson Creek’s main street to the mercantile. The weather was cool, and lowering clouds in the north promised colder weather still, perhaps even a “blue norther.” Might they even have some snow? It was too bad it had not come in time for Christmas, if so…
Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t remember to look out for the warped board that lay halfway between the hotel and the mercantile—
—and suddenly she was falling headlong, her arms flailing in a vain attempt to regain her balance. She cried in alarm as her shawl slid off backward and her forearms skidded along the rough boards. The fabric of her left sleeve snagged on a protruding nail which sliced a three-inch furrow into the tender flesh of her arm, leaving stinging pain in its wake.
And blood. A crimson trickle, then a rivulet welled up from the lacerated flesh, staining the cloth. Dizzy and nauseated at the sight, she closed her eyes, hoping she was not about to faint.
Then there were voices and running footsteps from inside the store, and a pounding on the boards as someone ran up the walk from behind her. “Miss Matthews! Are you all right? I saw you fall.”
Sarah recognized the voice of Mr. Patterson, the owner of the mercantile. She heard another voice asking, “Wait, don’t try to move her. Can you hear me, Miss Matthews?” She recognized that voice, too—that of the very last person she wanted to have witnessed her humiliation, Dr. Nolan Walker.
Her recognition galvanized her and kept her from giving into the blackness that she might well have surrendered to otherwise. She opened her eyes. “Of course I can. I’m fine. Just…give me a minute.”
She opened her eyes, and saw that he was kneeling beside her.
“Can you move your limbs, Miss Matthews?”
“Of course I can,” she said again, and to prove it, struggled to sit up.
“Wait. Just lie there a moment, get your bearings.” he commanded her, coolly professional. “Lift your head.” He wrenched off his coat, and laid it under her head.
“I assure you, Dr. Walker, I have my bearings.”
He ignored her. “Mr. Patterson, could you please get me some clean cloths and water?”
By now a trio of curious cowboys riding by, and a couple of small boys who’d been shooting marbles across the street, had stopped to gawk at her, and she felt her face flaming with embarrassment. “Please, I don’t want to be a public spectacle.” She reached out a hand. “And it’s cold. Help me inside.”
“Very well, just sit up for a moment, don’t rush—”
She was not about to act the fragile, swooning belle in front of this man. Paying no heed to his injunction, Sarah used his hand to pull herself to her feet. Then she accidentally caught a glimpse of her bloody sleeve. Her head swam, and the black mist threatened to swamp her again. If only she had a vial of smelling salts in her reticule, as proper ladies did! Suppressing a shudder, she