Lawman

“Is she—is she going to be all right?” Cal asked.

The doctor folded his arms across his barrel chest. “She is, though she’ll need someone to watch her close overnight—she lost a lot of blood, you know.”

Cal knew. “The—the…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

“The baby?” the doctor filled in briskly, his gaze piercing. “She lost it. Ordinarily I’d say ‘unfortunately,’ but under the circumstances…”

Cal looked down at his boots, not knowing what to say. Livy’s words, when he’d found her at the bottom of the stairs, echoed in his ears. Yes, I’m miscarrying…and I’m glad…

Had she been rejoicing that she would no longer have to bear the child who had been the evidence of her sin? As understandable as that was, Cal found it hard to believe the Livy he had known could think that way. Had she cared so little for her slain lover that she would only be relieved to lose his baby? But perhaps she had changed since he had left for the war. Perhaps he had never really known her at all.

The doctor’s raspy voice intruded into his thoughts. “I hope you’ll pardon me fer askin’, but I’m just wonderin’ how you come into this? How’d you happen to be, uh…were you—were you with Miz Gillespie… when the miscarriage began?”

Cal started to say yes, for it was the truth, and then he realized what the doctor had meant by “with” and he felt fury rising in him at the implication. He met the old man’s inquisitive gaze. “I was just pay in’ a call on Mrs. Gillespie to thank her for a kindness she did me recently,” he nearly growled, fighting the urge to punch the sawbones in the nose for what he was implying. “She fell down the stairs, and I’m the one who found her.”

The doctor must have realized he’d offended him, for he took another look at the badge on Cal’s chest. “I meant no offense,” he said quickly. “Just curious, is all…”

“Can I see her?” Cal wanted to see Livy, but he also wanted to escape the questions he knew the doctor was dying to ask.

The man nodded. “She was asleep when I left her, but I imagine she’ll rouse when you talk to her.” He gestured for Cal to follow him.

“Why, Cal, you waltz divinely!” she said, laughing up at the handsome young rector of the Bryan Episcopal Church, who released her with obvious reluctance as the music died. She glanced around, and just as she’d suspected, the eyes of almost all the ladies at the ball were on them, and they were envious eyes. And why shouldn’t they be? She’d been dancing with the catch of Brazos County, and he looked as if he couldn’t bear to give her up to her next partner. She didn’t want him to, either. There was a way she could keep him with her, but would he think her fast? He might…but if she didn’t try she’d never know.

“Cal…” she said, allowing, her lashes to flutter as she looked up at him over her fan, “would you like to take a turn in the garden? I think I’m…a little too warm…”

He smiled down at her, enthusiasm dancing in his wonderful gray-blue eyes. “Miss Livy, I can’t think of anything on this earth I’d like better…”

“Livy…” murmured a voice.

Was it the same voice she’d been hearing in her dream? “Mmm, yes…” she answered.

She extended her hand to Cal and together they stepped through the French windows and out into the rose garden, lit only by the light from the Childress ballroom.

“Livy,” the voice said again. “Livy, can you hear me? Open your eyes.”

Obediently, she did so, but it seemed like such an effort. Her lids seemed weighted down with rocks.

A face, bending low over her, swam into focus. It was the same face she’d seen just moments ago—surely it was just moments ago—under the cottonwood in her backyard.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

How was she feeling? How should she be feeling? she wondered as she studied his solemn face, and then she became aware of the insistent cramping within her belly.

And then she remembered the fall, the sudden sharp pain that had seized her as she struggled to regain her senses at the foot of her stairs and the gushing wet warmth between her legs. She had miscarried the baby, she remembered, and for a moment, sorrow for the loss of that innocent life flooded over her as she lay there looking up into Cal’s concerned face.

But where am I? she wondered as she took her eyes from his face and looked around the tiny room. She recognized at last that she was in Doc Broughton’s examining room—the same room in which he’d told her, just weeks ago, that she was with child. A fact she had already suspected, but the confirmation of that fact had filled her with horror. And the same fact had left the doctor’s face stern with disapproval, for it was, unfortunately, well-known that Dan Gillespie had come back from the war unable to perform his husbandly duties.

But now she was no longer going to bear the baby whose brief existence within her had brought about her disgrace. Sorrow became mingled with a regretful relief. As much as she had longed for a child, this one would have been born into a world of ugliness, and her love for it would have had to exist side by side with her hatred for its father.

“I’m tired,” she managed to whisper at last. “So tired…”

“The doctor says you’re going to be all right,” Cal said, nodding toward the door he’d closed behind him. “But you lost the baby.”

“I—I guessed,” she admitted.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his gaze leaving hers, but not before she had seen the question in his eye.

Then she remembered the way he had found her, and how she had told him she was miscarrying, and that she was glad Heavens above, what a heartless monster she must have sounded—to have admitted to a man she had once known so well that she was glad to be losing a baby, whatever the circumstances of its conception! What must he think of her?

“It’s for the best,” she told him.

His penetrating gaze returned to her face. She had forgotten he could study her that way and see to the depths of her soul, and the ability seemed undiminished by the patch that now covered one eye.

She was unable to stop the tears that belied her words.

He reached out and caught a tear with a finger. “You rest now, Livy. I’ll talk to the doctor and see what’s to be done.”

Just then she caught sight of the shiny, five-pointed star pinned to his chest, and she grabbed at his wrist before he could leave.

“Why are you wearing that?” she asked, puzzled.

His face grew guarded. “Don’t worry about that right now, Livy.”

He started to gently disengage his hand, but she tightened her grasp. “No, please tell me. I—I thought I heard shots earlier…”

“Seems there was a bank robbery taking place just about the time I was layin’ you down there,” he said, indicating the examining table she was still lying on. “The sheriff was killed. I stopped them and…well, seems I’m the sheriff of Gillespie Springs now.”

It was a lot of news to digest on top of what had happened to her today. In addition, the doctor had given her something to drink and it was making her feel so muzzy-headed…

“So…you’re the new sheriff…” she murmured, and then she let her too-heavy lids drift shut again.

He found the doctor waiting for him in the hallway. The old coot had probably been listening at the keyhole, Cal thought with irritation.

“You were saying that Mrs. Gillespie was going to need someone to be with her,” Cal began.

“Just a few days, till she gets her strength back,” the doctor said. “She an’ Dan used ta have some widow woman to help with the cleanin and such, but she hightailed it outa there when—when Dan Gillespie died, and I can tell you she wouldn’t come back.”

“You know some woman who might be willing to take the job?” Cal asked the doctor. “Some woman who needs the money more than she worries about what people think?”

The sawbones looked doubtful. “I dunno. Folks is pretty disapprovin’ a’ what they say Miz Gillespie did.”

Cal felt a surge of anger. Livy needed another female with her at such a time, damn it. There were things she’d need done, questions she’d have—and only another woman would do. He’d stay with her himself if there was no other choice—he wouldn’t let her be alone—but he knew that was the last thing Olivia Gillespie would want and the last thing her reputation needed, especially right now.

“You might ask around town,” the sawbones said. “Mebbe they’d listen, since it was you askin’. You’re ridin’ pretty high in folks’ opinions right now. But meanwhile, I gotta get back to my patients. And I’m gonna have to see them in my watting room,” he added, as if it were somehow Cal’s fault that his sole examining room was occupied.

“Give me an hour,” Cal said shortly. “I’ll see if I can find someone, then I’ll locate a wagon and take her home.”

“Good luck,” Broughton said, a skeptical note in his voice as he headed into his waiting room to see Ginny Petree’s restless brats.