A Lady in Attendance Page 8

  When Hazel was alone, she wrote several letters, hoping to solicit help from a different judge or a lawyer. Thus far her efforts had been in vain, leaving her with little hope of ever escaping the chains of her past.

  She finally crawled under her patched blanket, closed her eyes, and tried to think of anything but Gilbert. It was much harder than she had anticipated. At first when she drifted off, she dreamed his hands were around her waist, leading her as they danced in the old barn. He stopped, smiled, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a red ear of corn. Her heart beat faster as she tilted her head back and wet her lips. He inched closer, his lips so close to her, but then the barn disappeared and they were in the courthouse. A judge was pounding his gavel and shouting, “Guilty!” in a ferocious voice. She tried to lean against Gilbert for support, but he backed away. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he didn’t come to her for comfort. Instead, he turned and walked away, leaving her alone and heartbroken.

  She woke in tears, sobbing about the future she could almost reach out and touch yet could never have. Gilbert, with his quiet ways and simple goodness, appealed to her more than any man she’d ever met. She buried her head in her pillow, then pounded it with her fist. Be grateful you have a friend in him, she reminded herself when the tears slowed. The reminder helped a little but not enough to remove the ache.

  Gilbert strolled home from the corn husking in no hurry for the night to be over. Despite his slow tread, he arrived at his Amherst home long before he was ready to enter the empty abode. Aside from his years away at school, it was the only home he’d ever known. When his father grew ill, Gilbert was beside him, consoling and caring for him until he left this life and went on to the next.

  If he could have his father there again, he’d pull up a chair next to him and plead with him for advice. He would dig deep, looking for wisdom and guidance. Begging for answers about life and what matters.

  If he were there, his father, always so wise, would set his book or his newspaper aside and listen to Gilbert’s uttered pleas and read in his eyes the ones unsaid.

  “Tell me how you knew you loved Mother,” Gilbert wished he could ask, knowing his father would tell him something profound that would help him understand the storm of feelings he was experiencing. “I’d planned to spend my days quietly working,” he’d say to his father if he could. “I thought that was enough. I thought there’d never be a woman I felt at ease around. But now my world is changing. There’s a woman who loosens my tongue. She awakens something in me I’ve never felt before.”

  Gilbert imagined his father patting him on the knee. “When you’ve found someone to fill the quiet, you never feel so peaceful alone again. But that new noise you’ve found is a tune you’ll be forever grateful for. There’s nothing like the music of companionship.”

  Is that what his father would say?

  His childhood house was much the same as it had always been, with its old wallpaper, furniture, and even the same lamps. But the home was quiet now, when before it had been filled with the sounds of family. The floorboards groaned beneath his weight, and he realized their din had become his most frequent companion. He was thirty, and even though he told everyone he never planned to marry, he hadn’t pictured himself being thirty and alone. It had just happened. One year after another he lived out his life, and now here he was a homeowner, a successful dentist, and alone.

  Since hiring Hazel, he found he was eager to get up in the morning to go to work and a little sorry when the day was over and he was back on his own. Tonight, walking away from the social, he’d felt like something was missing. He would have liked to have had someone on his arm. Someone to go home with. Someone to talk to.

  Hazel had changed him.

  A void he’d been oblivious to had grown over time, first with his brother leaving and then with the loss of his father. Each year since, it’d grown wider and deeper. Tonight he felt the barren emptiness that until now he hadn’t realized was meant to be filled by another soul. Holding Hazel while they danced. Laughing with her over nothing. Brushing his lips to her cheek. For a few brief, fleeting moments he’d experienced what it would feel like to have someone.

  He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and for the first time prayed that this home would someday be filled with family again.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  “Good morning,” Hazel said two days later when she walked through the office door with a basket swinging on her arm. “I go by an apple tree every day on my way here. I finally asked the owner if I could pick a few.” She held up a bright red apple. “Isn’t it lovely? If I had my own kitchen, I’d make you a pie. But Mrs. Northly doesn’t permit us in hers, so we will just have to slice them and eat them plain.” She set down the basket and pulled off her coat.

  He instinctually walked up to her and reached for it. “Let me hang this for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If you are set on a pie, you could use my kitchen,” he said over his shoulder as he hung her coat beside his own.

  “Are you sure that doesn’t cross one of your lines?” She bit her fingernail while scrutinizing him. “I’d love to, but—”

  “As I see it, a happy employee works harder. And I can tell by the look on your face that pie would keep you smiling.” He picked up three apples and attempted to juggle them, only to have one fall to the floor. “I’m only thinking of my work and how to make the office run as smoothly as it can.”

  She reached out and snatched an apple from the air. “All this time I thought you were a kind and generous man, but alas, I find you are just another man who thinks only of—”

  “I know what you are about to say. No more of your wittiness. I want you to come over and make an apple pie, and not because I believe it will improve the office one bit. I lied.” He put his hand on his heart. “Want the truth?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I love apple pie. You come over and make pie, and I’ll make dinner.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Say yes.”

  “I’m not sure.” She fidgeted with the stem of an apple, twisting it until it popped off.

  When she didn’t readily agree to his plan, he amended it. “I hadn’t meant a meal for just the two of us.” He hoped his red face did not give him away. “It’ll be the perfect chance for us to have Duncan and Ina together again. It’d be a house party.”

  “Yes! That’s perfect. Ina has been longing to see Duncan again.” Hazel squealed, the apprehension from moments before gone from her face. “Let’s do it.”

  “I’ll make the arrangements. Perhaps this Friday evening. You bring the apples.”

  “You never cease to surprise me.” Hazel used the knife she’d brought to cut him a slice of apple. “Surprise me again. We still have a few minutes.”

  “Surprise you?” He took the apple from her. Slowly, he bit into the crisp fruit and let the sweetness fill his mouth while he stalled. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

  With the tiniest twitch of her shoulders, she shrugged. “Anything. I just thought it’d be fun to hear something else about you. There’s so much I don’t know.”

  He chewed his slice of the apple a moment before saying, “I once solved a crime. Does that surprise you?”

  “Indeed! First a matchmaker and now a lawman. I would never have guessed. Tell me the story.” Hazel pulled over a chair and settled in beside him.

  “I was working when a pair of officers showed up in their formal uniforms. I wondered when they walked through the door what they could possibly want with me.”

  “Were you suddenly afraid they would discover your life of crime?” Hazel giggled at her own bit of humor. “Did your conscience eat at you?”

  “Of course not. I’ve nothing to hide. Perhaps you suggest it because you are hiding a guilty past.” He pursed his lips, attempting to match her wittiness, despite having no true fears about Hazel. No one as kind as she was could harbor secrets that would scare hi
m off, but jesting was entertaining. “Have you some dark secrets you aren’t ready to divulge? Some secret life of pillage and deceit?”

  “And if I did?”

  “Well, as a law-abiding citizen, I’d have to turn you in. I can’t have a criminal in my house of employment.”

  Hazel stuck the knife deep into the apple and pushed it aside. Something shifted in her countenance. “I suppose I must find a new job where my list of offenses can remain hidden. Now finish your story. I need to know what the officers wanted with the least suspicious man in town.”

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

  “Take it however you’d like. But Alberta will be here soon, and I want to hear your story.”

  “Alberta?”

  “She wasn’t happy with whatever it was you did last week, and so she’s coming back. There was a note under the door.”

  At least he wouldn’t be on his own with Alberta this time. But even with Hazel nearby, he still dreaded Alberta’s presence. He found only a small measure of solace in the fact that he’d survived all his encounters with her in the past, and odds were in his favor that he would again.

  “Finish your story before she comes.”

  He forced Alberta from his mind, refusing to let the sour woman rob him of this moment with Hazel. “The officers had a denture with them. They’d found it on a body that had been burned to an unrecognizable state. They were going from dentist to dentist, hoping whoever made it could identify the teeth and therefore the body.”

  He stood and puffed out his chest a little. “Turns out you are looking at the man who solved the case. Don’t tell me that dentists aren’t exciting.”

  “You pull teeth for a living. Who would ever argue that it is not an exciting profession?” She laughed. “Who was the dead man?”

  He feigned offense. “You sound like you think my crime story is more exciting than my ordinary days of pulling teeth.”

  “Come now, you know I find mouths and saliva to be very . . . um, interesting. Who was the dead person?”

  “It was an older man I’d known for years. He was a drunk who the police believed may have been the cause of the fire that destroyed the Henley building.” He walked up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. Looking as heroic as he could, he said, “If you ever need someone to solve a case for you, you know where to turn.”

  “I may have you honor that promise someday. One never knows when they will be in need of a crime-fighting dentist. Now tell me more about dear Alberta.”

  “The clock moves slower when she is here,” he warned. “But time will pass, and eventually she will go.”

  His warning hung in the air for only a moment before the door swung open and in walked Alberta with her bony frame poised for attack.

  “You told me to enjoy the social,” she said. “How was I supposed to enjoy a social when a good half of my head was throbbing? The pain has never gone away.”

  She walked right up to Gilbert until she was only inches from his face and opened her mouth. “Look here.”

  He winced as foul breath drifted toward him, alarming his senses. His gag reflex was well trained, but this caught him off guard, threatening to overturn his stomach. He took a moment to force the bile that had risen in his throat back down.

  “Half my mouth is red. See there.” She moved even closer, once again assaulting him with her words and air. “See how red it is?”

  Hazel interrupted her. “You must be Alberta Robertham. I’ve heard a great deal about you. We’re so pleased to have you today.”

  She scowled at Hazel with beady eyes. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Doctor Watts’s lady in attendance. My name is Hazel McDowell.”

  Alberta continued scowling as she finished her appraisal. “You look too young and prim to be of much help.”

  “I’m flattered you think so. However, I’m twenty-five. And quite unconventional, as you can tell, since I just told you how terribly old I am.” Hazel linked arms with Alberta. “Let me walk you back to the chair. I’ve no doubts the good doctor will have you out of pain in no time.”

  “Twenty-five? You married?” Impatient for a response, Alberta snorted. “Are you? Or aren’t you?”

  “I am indeed twenty-five,” Hazel said. Her features showed no obvious signs of annoyance, but Gilbert felt the strongest impression that she was battling to keep her temper under control. “And I do not have a husband. In fact, I do not even have a suitor. Seems all the men I know have no plans to marry. Odd, isn’t it? That men would choose to be unattached when there are so many eligible females around?”

  Alberta patted her arm. “Be wary of bachelor men. Especially those who have remained bachelors into their thirties.” She darted a look back at Gilbert. “There’s always a reason they don’t settle down.”

  Gilbert’s and Hazel’s eyes met for a brief moment, and with no words spoken, they communicated how utterly shocked they were by her manners and ghastly remarks.

  “Be cautious,” Alberta warned again. “I often have men trying to woo me and persuade me to follow them to dark and dismal places. I have never given in to the sly workings of men, no matter the persistence of their attempts.”

  Gilbert covered his smirk and turned away. Surely these enticing men had malicious plans, but he doubted they were the plans Alberta envisioned.

  “You must be strong too,” Alberta said to Hazel. She leaned in closer and whispered, but not soft enough to leave him out of the conversation. “Even with your fading looks, I’m sure a few men would still take advantage of your vulnerability. Some men are not the least bit particular. Be especially wary of the doctor. I heard he kissed a girl at the corn husking.”

  Hazel coughed and then coughed again. “Excuse me,” she said between fits. “I think I need a drink of water.” She slipped from the room without another word.

  Drat. It was just him and Alberta again. She walked up to him and shook her finger in his face. “You leave that girl alone. I don’t approve of this men and women working together nonsense. Trouble will come of it.”

  “She has no need to fear.”

  The finger poked him in the shoulder. “Keep it that way. I won’t keep patronizing your establishment if I catch wind of you being anything less than a respectable man.”

  So there was a way to scare Alberta off. Nothing had ever tempted him to lower his moral standard so much. Hazel returned, a stifled smile on her face, and the two of them teamed up to keep Alberta under control.

  “Tell me, Alberta, was there popcorn at the social?” Gilbert asked, a mock smile on his face.

  “There was,” she mumbled while Gilbert worked.

  “A kernel of corn.” He held it up a few moments later for her to see. “This is the culprit. We’ve found the source of the inflammation.”

  “I’m sure the pain wasn’t from that. It was from whatever you did to my mouth.” Alberta pulled herself from the chair and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Your mouth should start feeling better right away,” he said, remaining outwardly calm.

  “Unlikely,” she said.

  “Nonetheless, I do believe you’ll be feeling like yourself before long.” He moved toward the door, herding her out as he went. “I suggest you buy a toothbrush. They’re becoming more common and easier to come by. There are tooth powders you can buy as well. I believe you’ll find them quite effective.”

  Alberta scowled at Gilbert, turned on her heel, and stormed from the building.

  “It was lovely meeting you,” Hazel called to the woman’s back.

  When the door swung shut behind her, both Gilbert and Hazel plopped down in the waiting room chairs and sighed.

  “She is every bit as audacious as you said.” Hazel shook her head. “Someone ought to turn that woman over their knee and give her a swat.”

  “I don’t think a swat would change anything. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember.”

  “I’m glad you said I wasn�
��t like her. I’m not sure I could live with myself if you’d seen one bit of resemblance.”

  Gilbert shook his head as he looked at Hazel. There was no resemblance—not a thing about her was like Alberta. Hazel was easy on the eyes, with her soft curves and dimpled cheeks, all framed by her gorgeous red mane. Alberta was wiry, with a face that scowled and intimidated.

  “Your looks aren’t fading,” he mumbled.

  She brought a hand to her face. “You heard her say that?”

  “I did. And I about boxed her ears in when she said it. It’s not true.” He thought of saying more, of pouring out all the compliments he’d inwardly composed, but that would surely cross the line. He straightened in his chair. If he drew the line, he could move it, could he not? They were his rules. Didn’t that mean he could change them? If she were willing, could they be more than doctor and attending?

  “You’re beautiful,” he said so softly he wondered if he’d said it aloud. “Very beautiful.”

  Hazel shifted in her seat until she faced him and their eyes held one another, his look as gentle as a caress. “Thank you. I do wonder sometimes. Now that I’m older, I see all the young girls about town and wonder how it is that I am twenty-five. I’m so out of fashion, and I’ve found a gray hair among the brown. Time can be cruel.” She smiled her easy smile again. “Alberta offered me some good advice.”

  “The bit about avoiding me at all costs. I heard that too. That was right before you ran from the room coughing.”

  Hazel smirked. “If I’d stayed one moment longer and heard one more word, I would have been on the floor laughing. Or I’d be behind bars for having walloped the woman.”

  “She took advantage of our time alone and told me to keep my distance from you.” Gilbert scooted his chair a few inches away from Hazel. “Does that make you more comfortable?”

  “It does.” She scooted her chair in the opposite direction, putting even more space between them. “That’s about right. I think at this distance I’m safe from your conniving ways. Thirty and unmarried.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue disapprovingly.