THE NIGHT WAS DARK, foggy and utterly quiet except for the labored breathing of the horse and the whisper of leaves in the treetops as the wind passed through them.
“I hope you know where you’re going. It’s darker than the bottom of a well out here.”
“How many times have you been in the bottom of a well?” “Are you never serious?” she asked with an exasperated sigh.
Joe chuckled. “The horse knows where we’re going.” “Thank goodness for that.” April tried to sit up straight and not lean back against him. “How much farther?”
“Not much. Cold?”
“No.”
“Then sit still or I’ll not be able to keep the slicker around you. You’re the most mule-headed woman I ever met.” His voice was close to her ear. “You’d not admit you were cold if you were freezing to death.”
“You’ve only known me for a few hours, Mr. Jones. How do you know how stubborn I am?”
“I can read you like a book, Miss April. You’re cold. You’re wishing you’d stayed an extra day with Jesse’s kin down in Kearney and missed the rain. And you’re wondering what my pa is going to say about me riding in this time of night with a pretty woman dressed in my old work clothes.” When he laughed, his breath was warm on her ear. “Since my pa married my stepmother, he’s been a churchgoin’ man. He might get out the shotgun and make me marry you.”
“Oh, no! I can’t let that happen. Dozens of women will commit suicide, and I’ll carry the guilt to my grave.”
His arms pulled her tightly against him, and she could feel the movement of his chest when he chuckled.
Lord. She was rare. He’d not had so much fun since he’d stood by and watched a fat girl chasing his friend Thad Taylor down a street in Oklahoma. If not for the fact the creek might be flooding the road, he’d take her on to town just to prolong his time with her.
“We’re almost there. Old Sam’s picked up speed. He’s thinking about that nice dry barn ahead and a bucket of oats.”
No doubt about it, Joe Jones was a charmer. Every single woman in Fertile, Missouri, must be after him. April vowed not to be among them. When she met the right man and settled down, it would not be with a handsome man. Her father had been one, and, according to her grandmother, her mother had not had an easy time with him.
They rode into the yard of the Jones farm and right up to the back porch. Joe slid off the horse and reached up to lift her down. She was surprised that her legs were stiff and numb, and she had to lean against him for a minute, during which time the back door opened, letting a ribbon of light flow out across the porch.
“Jack, is that you?”
“No. It’s me, Pa. I’ve brought a lady who was stranded down the road.”
“I thought you were Jack.”
April blinked until her eyes became accustomed to the light. Then she saw a stocky man, not as tall as his son. His hair was dark with wings of gray at the temple. She held out her hand.
“April Asbury, Mr. Jones. I’m sorry to impose on you at this hour, but my car’s stuck, and I walked to your son’s house.”
“She’s Todd’s new nurse, Pa.”
The big hand that engulfed hers was warm and callused. “Come in. My wife is upstairs putting our son to bed. She’ll be down shortly.”
“Is Jack here?”
“No. He went to town this afternoon when it started to rain again.”
“I’ll put Sam in the barn. In the morning I’ll get Jack to go with me to pull her car out of the mudhole. Here are your clothes, Miss April.” He shoved the flour sack containing the damp clothing into her hand.
April entered a warm, homey kitchen filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread. The teakettle on the big cook-stove emitted a thin plume of steam. A bowl of shiny apples sat on the blue-flowered oilcloth that covered the table.
“Hello.” A pleasant-faced woman with soft blond hair came into the room and closed the door leading to the stairway. “Oh, my. You got caught in the rain.”
“I certainly did.” April held out her arms, showing the large shirt she was wearing. “Mr. Jones was kind enough to lend me something dry.”
“I’m Eudora Jones.”
April held out her hand. “April Asbury. I’ve come to work with Dr. Forbes.”
“How nice to meet you.” Eudora smiled and her husband smiled watching her. “Sit down and I’ll make us a cup of tea. You do drink tea?”
“Hot in the winter, cold in the summer.”
“It’s not quite winter, but the air is cold and damp.” April liked Eudora Jones immediately. She was somewhat younger than her husband, certainly not old enough to be Joe’s mother. Dr. Forbes had told her that Jethro Jones’s first wife had died and Julie, his oldest daughter, who was sixteen at the time, had stepped in, run the house and taken care of her siblings.
Later, after Eudora had hung April’s wet clothes on a line that stretched over the cookstove, she poured hot tea. The four of them sat at the kitchen table.
“Dr. Forbes has been without a nurse since his last one got married and moved to St. Joseph. I thought for a while we might have a nurse in the family.” Eudora’s teasing eyes went to Joe.
“There was no danger of that,” he commented dryly. “Unless Jack would get caught in her net. She was too old for Jason.”
Jethro chuckled, then said seriously, “I wish Jack would patch it up with Ruby. I’m thinking it’s going to take that to settle him down.”
There was a long silence that prompted April to think there was more to the story of Jack not being “settled down” and they didn’t want to discuss it in front of her.
“Have you heard from Jason?” Joe asked.
“Yesterday.” Eudora’s eyes met her husband’s before she turned to April. “Our Jason is going to school in St. Louis. Charles Lindbergh is his hero. He has this burning desire to be an airplane pilot. When he can, he wants to take flying lessons. We’re very proud of him.”
“He’s had the flying bug since a barnstorming friend of Julie’s husband, Evan, stopped here a few years ago on his way to an air show,” Jethro explained. “Jason has read and studied everything he could get his hands on about airplanes since then. When he turned twelve, Evan took him to Kansas City so he could go up in a plane.”
“I’m eager to meet Julie. Dr. Forbes spoke highly of her.” April felt a tinge of regret that she had never had brothers or sisters. She knew from the tone of Joe’s voice and the look on his face when he spoke of his siblings that they meant a lot to him.
“Jill looks like she swallowed a watermelon.” The teasing look suddenly spread over Joe’s face. “Thad says she’s getting as ornery as a cat with a knot in its tail.”
“Jill is a small girl,” Eudora explained to April. “She’s carrying around quite a load right now.”
“Thad’s afraid to go to the field. Someone told him that first babies come early. He’ll be a wreck by the time it gets here,” Joe said.
“She’s got a couple of weeks to go. Julie’s been going over every day.”
“I hope this is the last of the rain. Thad’s already worried how he’ll get to Julie if the creek is up. He has it all planned: He goes first to get Julie, then you, Eudora, then he’s off to town to get Doc. If the roads are bad, he’ll go on horseback and take an extra horse for the doc.”
“Jill said that she just might stay pregnant permanently. Thad waits on her hand and foot. He’ll hardly let her lift a glass of water. He has tended to the garden this summer and even helped her can beans and tomatoes.”
“He’s spoilin’ her, is what he’s doin’,” Joe said.
“She was already spoiled.” Jethro was grinning. “You and Jack spoiled her, then Thad took over the job.”
“Did Jack take the car to town?”
“No. He walked.”
“Maybe I should mosey on into town and come back with him. I’ll stop by and let Doc know his nurse is here.”
“Suit yourself.” Jethro got to his feet. “Better take your slicker. It’ll probably rain off and on all night.”
Joe tied his horse to the fence in front of Dr. Forbes’s clinic, then followed the walk to the porch and around to the doctor’s private quarters. When he knocked on the door, it was opened immediately.
“That was quick. Are you expectin’ one of your adorin’ ladies? Sorry to disappoint you.” Joe’s grin said that he was not sorry at all.
“You s-sick, I hope,” Doc grunted.
“Nope. I’m fit as a fiddle.”
“Well, c-come in anyway.”
Dr. Forbes was a rough-looking man with heavy shoulders and chest. He looked more like a lumberjack or a stevedore than a doctor. A few years older than Joe, he had come to town right out of medical school about nine years earlier and had taken over old Dr. Curtis’s practice. He had a quick wit besides being an excellent doctor. He also had a slight stutter in his speech, which, for some unknown reason, endeared him to the ladies.
Joe kicked his boots off at the door.
“Something smells good. Have the good ladies in town brought you supper in hopes of snaring you for their daughters?”
“Daughters, h-hell. They hopin’ to t-trap me for themselves.”
“What are you now, Doc? Forty? Fifty? I heard your bones creakin’ when you opened the door.” Joe enjoyed teasing the doctor because he was only thirty-four and his once-dark hair was rapidly turning gray.
“S-smart-ass. What’re you doing out on a night like this? Can’t be Jill. I saw her yesterday. She’s not due for a couple of w-weeks. Thad thought I should pinpoint it down to the day and hour. I’m good, b-but not that good.”
“I came to tell you that your new nurse got as far as my place before she got bogged down in the mud.”
“April is here?” A brief smile fluttered across Doc’s face, then disappeared. “Did you t-treat her to s-some of your smart-alecky humor? If you did, I’ll s-sew up that mouth of yours the f-first chance I get.”
“I treated her like the gentleman I am. What do you take me for? A country clod?”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
“I charmed her. She fell for me like a poleaxed steer. She couldn’t keep her hands off me.”
“B-bull hockey! She’s too smart for that.”
“She’s at Pa’s. Jack and I will pull her car out in the morning. She’ll be so grateful she’ll swoon in my arms. Where’s she going to stay?”
“I’ve put out some feelers. Shirley Poole has a room to let. Only she and her b-brother live in that big old house. I don’t know if she offers meals. She and Miss Asbury would have to work that out.”
“Marry her and she can stay here.” Joe watched carefully for Doc’s reaction. His expression never changed.
“And lose out on all the c-cakes and pies I get from the ladies who are trying to s-snare me?”
“How about Mrs. Bloom? Her son went to St. Louis to find work.”
“It’s a thought. I’ll s-suggest it to Miss Asbury.”
“How did you meet her?”
“You’re awfully nosy about my new n-nurse.”
“Why not? She’s the prettiest thing to come to Fertile in a long time.”
“She was r-recommended by a doctor in Kansas City when I went there to take a brushup course. She was working at the hospital and taking care of a s-sick grandmother. She told me that she wanted to eventually work for a small-town doctor where she could get to know the patients. I wrote to her as soon as Miss Franklin t-told me she was quitting.”
“She’s a lot better-looking than Miss Franklin.”
“You’re just saying that because she turned you down for Harold Walker.”
Joe snorted. “She made a play for every single man in town and some that were not single. Even you, for God’s sake. That’s how desperate she was. She caught poor old Harold when he was looking the other way.”
“Why even me? Hell. I’m the best c-catch in town.” “Bullfoot! I’m the one carrying the stick to keep the women off me.”
“Don’t play f-fast and loose with my nurse. Hear? I want her to s-stay.”
“Miss April Asbury can take care of herself. She’ll have you wrapped around her little finger in no time at all.” Joe headed for the door and slipped on his boots. “I’ll get her car as far as our place. I think the road from there to town is hard-packed enough for her to come on in.”
“Don’t rush off. I was about to offer you a p-piece of Miss Davenport’s chocolate cake or a dish of Mrs. Maddox’s peach cobbler or a hunk of meat loaf b-brought in by Sarah Parker.”
“Thanks. That’s generous of you, but I’m afraid it would get out that I’m eating the treats the dear ladies bring you and your supply would be cut off. I’d better get back uptown, look up Jack and see if he’s ready to go home.”
“Jack’s going through a d-difficult time right now.”
“Pa’s worried about him.”
“You’re a h-hard act to follow, Joe. You’ve got your land and a good start while he’s s-still working at home with his pa. His dream of p-playing baseball blew up, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
“I know he was disappointed. But hell, Doc, we all have disappointments. That’s no excuse for trying to drown them in booze.”
“He was shaken up when Ruby b-broke off with him and started going out with a fellow who has a g-good job with the electric company.”
“Jack had his chance with Ruby. She’s been crazy about him since they were kids in school. I don’t know why they broke up, but I suspect it had something to do with his drinking. Her folks are churchgoing people, and she was probably getting stomped on at home.”
Doc stood in the doorway as Joe crossed the porch. “Hurry up and get s-sick, Joe,” he called. “I’ll need the money to pay my new nurse.”
“If I get sick, I’ll head for the vet over in Mason. At least he knows enough not to pull my teeth if I have a bellyache.”
Doc chuckled and closed the door.
Joe rode his horse the two blocks to Main Street, then turned into the alley behind Hannity’s, the pool hall where Jack usually hung out when he was in town. After tying his horse, he walked between the buildings to the front door.
He heard his brother before he saw him.
“Dammit, This. I’ve a notion to bend this cue stick around your scrawny neck.”
“You’re a poor loser, Jack.”
Jack was playing pool with This and That, the redheaded Humphrey twins. Their names were Thomas and Thayer but they had been called This and That since they were babies, and most folks thought those were their real names. They still resembled each other but not as much as when they were younger.
The twins were strong, hardworking boys, as were all the Humphreys. They had been working with a harvest crew, but that job played out. They were home now and, like hundreds of other young men, looking for work.
“What’re you doin’ in town? Come to see about the prodigal son?” Jack bent over the pool table to line up a breaker shot.
“Came to see Doc.” Joe took a cue stick from the rack on the wall and set up the balls on the other table. “How about a game, That?”
“What are we playin’ for?”
“Nickel.”
“Lord, you’re cheap,” Jack snorted. Joe knew his brother was on his way to being drunk. “Play the boy for a quarter.”
Jack wasn’t as tall or as heavy as his older brother. Thick light brown hair sprang back from his wide forehead. His smile was engaging. Until lately he had been the prankster in the family.
Jack made several plays before he spoke again. “Why’d you go see Doc? Is Jill all right?”
“Yeah. I went to tell him that his new nurse is out at the farm.”
Jack straightened up and chalked the end of his cue stick. “What she doin’ out there?”
“Waitin’ for you and me to pull her car outta the mud.” “Tonight?”
“No. In the morning.”
“I told Corbin I’d come by in the morning and help him grease his printing press.”
“It won’t take but an hour or two. We can take Pa’s team.” “What’s she look like?” This asked.
“Well”—Joe reached for the cube of chalk and studied the balls on the table—“you remember that teacher you had in high school who was so ugly she’d make a freight train take a detour through the woods?”
“Holy Moses! Not like her!”
“She’s a very nice lady. She can’t help what God gave her.” Joe moved to the end of the table. “Doc isn’t known for picking good-looking women.”
“Hell,” Jack said. “This one can’t be uglier than the last one he had.”
“You’ll see.”
“Doc got a new nurse?” The question came from a man who stood beside the cue rack.
“Yeah. How’s things at the hardware, Fred?”
“Slow. Not like it was when I first came here back in ’23. Business was booming then. That fellow Hoover about ruined the country.”
“He didn’t do it by himself. No man has that much power.” “I’m glad he got voted out. Roosevelt even looks smarter. But then, he’s probably crooked as a snake’s back. He’ll look after his rich cronies, and to heck with the rest of us.”
Fred Hazelton was pessimism personified. If there was a dark side to any subject, Fred would find it. It was probably the reason he had never married. He had come to Fertile eleven years earlier to help his sister, Shirley Poole, run the hardware store after her husband was killed.
“Sister has a room to let,” Fred said. “Does the nurse have a place to stay?”
“I’m not sure. Her car is stuck in the mud out near my place.”
“I’ll tell Sister to call Doc Forbes.”
Joe sank the last ball in the pocket and held out a hand to That to collect his nickel.
“Come on, Jack. Let’s call it a night.”
“Go ahead. I’ll be along.” Jack took a drink out of the bottle he brought from under the pool table.
“If the law catches you drinking in here, it will go hard for Mr. Dewey,” Fred said.
Jack glared at the shopkeeper. “I suggest that you tend to your own damn business.”
Joe saw the sign. Jack was spoiling for a fight. He wouldn’t fight a soft, sissified man like Fred, but he’d cut him down verbally.
“Fred’s right, Jack. We don’t want to cause Mr. Dewey any trouble. He’s hanging on here by the skin of his teeth, trying to support his family.”
“I know that. I just don’t want some prissy-ass store clerk telling me what to do.”
“Let’s go. My horse is out back.”
“I suppose you’re going to stay till I do.” “You got it right, Brother.”
“Sheee-it. Let’s go. I’m out of booze anyway.”
Fred waited until the Jones boys and the Humphrey twins left the pool hall, then went out into the light drizzle and down the street to the house he shared with his sister.
“Sister,” he called excitedly as soon as he opened the door. “What is it?” The woman who hurried from the back of the house was tall and thin with a heavily lined face. Long gray-streaked brown hair was pulled tightly back, twisted and pinned in a knot on the back of her neck. She looked much older than her thirty-five years.
“The new nurse is here. You’ve got to go tell Doc Forbes about the room.”
“I’ve already told him. He said that he’d tell her about it. That’s all I can do.”
“You promised that we’d get a lady roomer!”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Joe Jones says that she’s not pretty. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Where did you see him?”
“In the pool hall. Her car is stuck in the mud out by his place.”
“I’ll talk to the doctor again in the morning.”
“Go early.”
“Why are you so anxious for us to get a lady roomer?” Fred started up the stairs to his room and turned back. “Because you need someone here in case something happens to me.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you. You’re as strong as a horse. Aren’t you?”
Fred continued on up the stairs without answering. With a furrowed brow Shirley watched him until he turned at the landing. Why was he so concerned about her being alone all of a sudden?