Page 9 of Leftover Mail-Order Bride (Frontier Brides #2)

V ictoria surged to her feet, but Jack reached his father first. “Pa!”

The others seemed to be in shock. Mrs. Willets had both hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide and frightened over the top. Jenny put an arm around Joy. Victoria didn’t stop to think. She went to crouch beside Jack. “May I help?”

“I…” For the first time since she’d known him, for perhaps the first time in his life, this capable man seemed at a total loss. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he drew in a breath.

“Pat his cheek,” Victoria advised, taking Mr. Willets’s wrist in her hands. “Call to him.”

“Pa?” Jack asked, cradling his father close. “Pa, can you hear me?”

“Oh, Joe!” Mrs. Willets sank down beside her husband, tears already staining her pale cheeks. She smoothed the hair back from his forehead. “Sweetheart, don’t leave me.”

The pulse fluttered against Victoria’s fingers as she checked it, faster and more irregular than it should be. She pressed a hand to his chest and felt it rise and fall.

“Has he been ill long?” she murmured to Jack.

He and his mother met each other’s gazes. With a nod, his mother rose.

“Jane, take Joy and Jenny upstairs,” she ordered with brisk efficiency. “Joanna and Jacob, see to the milking. Jason and Joshua, start moving the benches from the barn to the parlor for services.”

“But, Ma,” Jason protested.

Her eyes flashed. “None of your sass now, young man. Move!”

They moved, until all that remained in the parlor were Jack, his mother and father, Jeremy, Caroline, and Victoria.

“Doctor Rawlins told him a few months ago that his heart was failing him,” Mrs. Willets explained, wrapping an arm about her waist as if she needed the support. “Jack’s been taking on more of the work, and Jeremy and Caroline decided to live in the house with us in case…” She sucked in a breath.

Caroline moved alongside her and patted her arm. “We’re here. How can we help?”

“Anything you need, Ma,” Jeremy agreed, for once with no teasing in his voice.

Victoria studied Mr. Willets’s face. He was pale, and his mouth twitched, as if something inside tugged at it. “I don’t think it’s his heart, at least, not entirely. He clutched his stomach first.”

“Ma!” Jenny’s voice echoed down the stairs. “Joy’s sick too!”

“What!” Mrs. Willets scrambled up and started toward the door, then jerked to a stop. She looked back at her husband, teeth worrying her lower lip.

Of course she would want to stay with the man she loved. “I’ll go,” Victoria said, gathering her skirts and rising. “Jack, it might be wise if you and your brother carried your father to his bed.”

“Right away,” he promised.

She was just thankful no one questioned her right or ability to step in. She might be a novice at the housewifely arts and running a ranch, but she knew how to take care of sick and injured people. Falling back into old patterns was easy.

She climbed the stairs to the door off the landing, where voices babbled. Joy was slumped on the floor, and her sisters were cleaning up the mess she’d made. The sour scent tainted the air.

“Dinner not set right?” Victoria asked, crouching beside her.

Like her father, the little girl’s forehead was sweaty, and Victoria wouldn’t have been surprised to find she was running a fever.

“My stomach hurts something awful,” she said, rubbing it with one hand.

Footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of Joanna. “I don’t think it’s just Pa. Jacob’s cast up his accounts in the barn.”

Jane visibly swallowed. “I might join him.” She hurried from the room.

Victoria straightened. “Jenny, Joanna? How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Joanna said.

“Aside from a little queasiness,” Jenny agreed. “And that might be just because of everyone else. My stomach doesn’t actually hurt.”

“Good,” Victoria said. “If it does, get yourself to a basin or porch if possible. The less cleaning we have to do, the more time we can spend helping others. Right now, will you boil some water for us?”

“On my way.” She started for the door.

“What can I do?” Joanna begged, hands worrying in front of her gingham gown.

“Check with all your siblings and parents,” Victoria said. “Find out who’s sick and who’s tending them and where. Then report back to me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She hurried from the room.

Victoria bent beside Joy. “Can you get up onto your bed, honey?”

Joy nodded. Moving far slower than Victoria had ever seen her, she eased herself up and onto the nearest bed.

Victoria felt her pulse and listened to her breathing, then put a hand to her forehead. “If you have a fever, it’s not high at the moment. Why don’t you lie down on your side? I’m going to check on Jane.”

She found Jack’s oldest sister leaning against the wall down the corridor. Though her face was pale, and her hand pressed against her stomach, she didn’t look as if she’d lost her dinner.

“How bad is it?” Victoria asked.

Jane straightened. “Livable. I think it might have been everyone else’s problems that overset me.”

“Completely understandable,” Victoria assured her with a nod. “Will you sit with Joy? I’m going to see if I can help Jenny.”

Jane went to her sister.

Downstairs, Jenny looked up as Victoria poked her head into the kitchen.

“Water’s on the boil,” she reported.

Joanna came through the back door. “I checked on everyone. Jeremy, Caroline, Jack, and Ma are fine. They’re with Ma and Pa in our parents’ bedroom. Jason and Joshua got Jacob up the stairs to Jack’s rooms in the barn. He’s lying down. They’re keeping an eye on him, but neither of them is showing any symptoms. They’re more worried than anything.”

“We all are,” Jenny said.

“So, that’s your father, Jacob, and Joy confirmed ill,” Victoria said. “Jane says she’s fine.”

Joanna rolled her eyes. “Jane would. I say we keep an eye on her too.”

“Will you go help her with Joy, then?” Victoria asked.

She hurried to comply.

Victoria took a step closer to Jenny. She had filled multiple small pots and pans and set them on each of the burners of the stove.

“I thought they’d heat faster than one big pot,” she told Victoria as if she’d seen her look.

“Very smart,” Victoria told her. “Am I right in thinking you do much of the cooking?”

Jenny nodded. “I’ve taken over a lot of Ma’s duties in that area. Why?”

Victoria licked her lips. “Because I’m wondering whether this illness might have been caused by something they ate.”

“What they ate!” Jenny drew herself up, two red spots blazing in her cheeks. “How dare you insinuate I’d make my own family sick!”

Victoria held up her hands. “I’m not implying you did it on purpose, Jenny. But the doctors I worked with when I was nursing my family told me that if it isn’t a disease or accident that incapacitated someone, it was often something they ate or drank.”

“But we all eat and drink the same things,” Jenny reminded her. “You ate and drank at our table yourself, and you’re not sick!”

There was that. “Then it might not have been food or drink served in this house,” Victoria reasoned. “Did your father, brother, and sister go anywhere together in the last day or so that they might have eaten something? Picked the wrong mushroom from the field, perhaps?”

Jenny frowned. “No one’s been mushroom picking that I’ve heard, and we all know the difference between ones that are edible and ones that are poisonous. As for eating something the rest of us didn’t, Pa, Jacob, and Joy went to the Abercromby farm yesterday for a bit. Joy wants one of their pups so badly. I think she was trying to convince Pa to change his mind, and she brought Jacob along to help. Maybe they ate something there.”

“Worth investigating,” Victoria said, trying for a smile. “Thank you.”

Jenny turned her attention to the stove once more, though her shoulders were still stiff. “Ma and Pa’s room is across the hall, if you want to check on him.”

“I’ll do that, and thank you for your understanding. I just want to make sure we treat the right illness.”

Jenny shrugged, and Victoria left her to her work.

The door was open across the hall, so she eased inside. Mr. Willets was resting on the four-poster bed in the center of the room, which had pink rosebuds on the wallpaper. Jeremy and Caroline were watching from one wall. Mrs. Willets sat on one side of her husband, holding his hand, and Jack sat on the other.

Lines Victoria didn’t remember crossed his forehead. He’d stepped up to lead the ranch after his older brother had left, but clearly his father’s illness had added to the burden she so often imagined on his shoulders. He’d taken responsibility for them all, no matter the cost to himself. She just wanted to gather him in her arms, promise him all would be well.

But that was a promise she could not make.

Please, Lord, be with this family. Give Jack and me wisdom on how to help them during this time.

Jack looked up as Victoria ventured closer, then rose to join her.

“Thank you,” he murmured, taking her hand. “I don’t know what happened to me. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move.”

And didn’t like it. That was all too evident by his frown. Victoria reached up with her free hand and ran her fingers across his brow, as much to ease the lines as to check his temperature. His skin was warm to the touch, but not hot. Relief coursed through her.

“I’m used to being the one in charge,” she said with a smile. “And being the nurse. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

“You’re a godsend,” he assured her. “How’s Joy?”

“Resting,” she said. “So is Jacob.”

“Jacob too?” He directed his frown toward the bed. “What happened?”

“I’m guessing bad food,” Victoria said. “But Jenny wasn’t too pleased to hear that. It might have been something they ate at your neighbor’s farm, the Abercrombys. Has your father regained consciousness?”

“Not yet.” His gaze searched hers as if looking for any sign of hope. “Shouldn’t he have?”

“If I’m right about the bad food, and his heart is weak, as you say, the effects might be harder for him to fight off than the others,” Victoria allowed. “Keep an eye on him. I want to see if I can get everyone who’s ill to take a few sips of water and whether they can keep it down. That might give us more of an idea as to what we’re dealing with.”

His mother roused herself to look at them. Like the others, she was pale, but she seemed more worried than ill.

“Jack, we should send word to Mrs. Dalrymple,” she said. “Until we’re certain this isn’t contagious, we shouldn’t hold services here.”

Jeremy straightened away from the wall. “I’ll ask Jason to ride.”

As his brother left the room, Jack squeezed Victoria’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re here. This is just further proof that I need a wife.”

The words landed like a blow. She pulled back from him and hurried into the corridor before he could see her reaction. With his declaration the other day and in front of his parents this afternoon, she’d been so sure he felt the stirrings of love as she did. What if he felt nothing for her but gratitude? Would he feel the same for any capable woman who could step in when he couldn’t? Did he truly care about her only because she could help his family? Would work always be more important?

She’d thought she had a chance to marry for love, if not that moment, then growing surely over time.

Tears burned. Pressing her lips together, trying to hold the pain in, she leaned against the wall. The lament tumbled out anyway.

“Is that all I’ll ever be worth, Lord?” she whispered. “To serve as a pair of hands to tend folks, only to be discarded or disregarded when they no longer need me? Am I never to be loved?

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

The remembered verse humbled her. No matter what happened in this world, her heavenly Father cared. Still, her heart ached. Her love for Jack had budded, and she felt as if it had just as surely been nipped before it could blossom.

***

Jack was never sure afterward how they made it through the night. Joanna and Jane watched over Joy, Joshua over Jacob until Jason returned from the Dalrymples, and Ma refused to leave Pa’s side. Victoria moved among them, checking temperatures and pulses, administering the cooled, boiled water Jenny replenished. Under Victoria’s direction, Jack, Jeremy, and Caroline cleaned up messes, helped Victoria carry water to the patients to sip when they woke, and debated what might have caused the illness to begin with. Joy had remembered eating some fresh-caught clams while at the Abercrombys’ house, and Victoria thought they might have been the culprit, which meant no one else would be getting ill.

At least Pa woke near midnight, cast up his accounts, and smiled blearily at Ma. Victoria confided that his pulse was steadier than it had been, which gave them all hope that the worst was over.

Just in case, as light dawned, Jack sent Jason down to Puget City to request that Doctor Rawlins come out to the ranch.

“Though I don’t think our local doctor could have done a better job than you,” he told Victoria as they took a moment on the porch. The sunrise was a smudge of pink under a row of low-hanging clouds, and a cool breeze set the grasses to waving. After last night, it felt good against his cheeks.

“I should see how Joy’s doing,” she said, turning for the door.

Even though she’d been up all night, like him, her hair was still in its pins, and she moved with her usual composure. He had never been so thankful for another pair of competent hands. If he’d had any doubts that Victoria could fit among his family and contribute to the ranch, this illness had wiped them all away like a storm sweeping across the prairie. She was the one.

Jane was coming down the stairs as he returned to the house.

“I’ll make breakfast for those of us who can eat,” she said. “Victoria says oatmeal, no ham, bacon, or sausage. Can you help?”

“Right behind you,” Jack said.

Jenny pitched in too, though she hadn’t had a lick of sleep that night either. Perhaps they could all nap once Doc Rawlins had seen to the patients.

The first person to knock at the door, however, wasn’t the good doctor. Jack found their minister standing on the porch. Mr. Dalrymple whipped the hat from his pomaded hair.

“I wanted to check on how you’re faring,” he said. “We’ve relocated to the Abercromby farm for this morning. How’s your father, your brother, and sister?” He peered around Jack. “Anyone else sick?”

“We’re holding up,” Jack reported. “No one else fell ill. But you need to know that Victoria thinks it could have been something Pa, Jacob, and Joy ate at the Abercromby’s house, like those clams, that made them ill. You might warn the family.”

He nodded. “I’ll do that. Tactfully.” He smiled.

Jack stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind him. “There’s another matter. I know Victoria’s father has passed. You’re the closest thing to a father she has here. I’d like your permission to propose to her.”

Mr. Dalrymple’s smile widened. “Given with pleasure. You’ll make her an excellent husband.”

“I promise to do my best every day of my life,” Jack vowed.

The minister clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s what marriage is about, son. I’ll check on you all again after services.”

Back inside the house, Jack squared his shoulders. A sickroom proposal wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but he didn’t want to wait another minute to tell Victoria how he felt.

He found her in the barn, just coming down from the rooms his parents had fitted up as a bedroom and sitting room for him.

“Jacob is much improved,” she told him, lifting her skirts to manage the last few narrow stairs. “He should be back to himself by evening.”

“That’s good news,” he said, pacing her as she started across the straw-strewn dirt floor. The shadows of the barn receded as they stepped out into the light of morning.

He put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Victoria, I have to thank you again for all you’ve done for my family. I don’t know how we would have gotten through the night without you.”

“I’m sure you would have contrived,” she said. “But I’m glad I could help.”

She didn’t smile, but he couldn’t blame her. He wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep for a week.

“It’s more than that,” he said. “You’re smart, you’re talented, and you’re just about the prettiest gal I’ve ever seen.” He took her hand and held it to his heart. Could she feel it pounding? “Would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

She gazed into his eyes, as if she could see the hope and love shining there. Then she gently pulled away.

“No, Jack. I’m sorry. I’m glad you think I work hard, but I’d like to be appreciated for more than my hands. I’ve come to realize that that is not too much to ask in a marriage. Excuse me.”

And she left him, taking his heart with her.