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Dr. Leah Mundy was coming into the bathhouse, shuffling backward, bent over and talking softly to someone in a rolling wood-and-wicker chair. “Just a few steps more. There we are,” she said.
Her voice was incredibly sweet and coaxing, devoid of the acid, scolding tone she used with Jackson.
“You’ll feel like a new person when you’re in the bath,” Leah Mundy said. She brought the rolling chair fully into the room and swiveled it around.
“Dr. Mundy, who’s that man?” asked a child’s voice.
She glanced up, and her eyes grew wide and panicked, the eyes of a doe caught in a hunter’s sight. “Mr. Underhill!”
He bowed from the waist where the towel was knotted precariously. “Ma’am.”
He was impressed by the way she regained control without even moving a muscle. The panic in her gaze subsided to a detached authority. In her profession, she probably saw male bodies all the time. Half naked or not, he was no more than an anatomy specimen to her. She straightened her shoulders, folded her lips into a humorless line, and cleared her throat.
“I didn’t expect to find anyone here,” she said. Jackson could tell she was trying not to look at his tattoo. “I was bringing Bowie for his therapeutic bath. He’s Mrs. Dawson’s boy.” Her voice softened a little as she glanced down. “Bowie, this is Mr. Underhill. He was just leaving.”
The child in the chair smiled shyly. Jackson felt his heart squeeze with an odd feeling of longing and loss. Bowie had fair hair and pale skin, and a face stamped by an invalid’s patient resignation. He was painfully thin, with a blanket draped over sticklike legs.
Jackson managed a friendly grin. “How do, youngster. Pleased to meet you.”
He glared at Leah, his gaze never leaving hers as he gathered up his things and stepped behind a trifold screen. He whistled as he dressed, savoring the feel of clean clothes against clean skin. He noticed that his shirt button, which had been broken for weeks, had been replaced. Leah Mundy might not be all that friendly, but she employed good help.
Every so often, it was possible to feel respectable, just for a minute or two.
As he was leaving the bathhouse, he happened to glance into the bathing chamber. Leah had managed to get the boy out of his clothes except for a pair of drawers for modesty.
“Sophie’s away, so it’s just the two of us,” she was saying. “Can you hang on to my neck?” She burrowed her arms around and under him.
Bowie complied, linking his bony wrists behind her neck. “Where’s Sophie?”
“She took the side-wheeler to Port Townsend.” Leah lurched as she stood up with the boy in her arms.
“Here, let me help,” Jackson said gruffly, striding toward them.
A flash of surprise lit her face. She gave the briefest of nods. “Just take Bowie’s legs and we’ll ease him into the bath.”
The legs were even paler than the rest of him, flaccid from lack of use. Jackson took careful hold and slowly bent, easing Bowie into the water.
“Too hot for you, son?” Jackson asked.
“No. Just right…sir.”
“You don’t have to call me sir. Call me Jackson.” It just slipped out. Here he was, running from the law, and he was supposed to be keeping a low profile. Being friendly only brought a man trouble. The lesson had been beaten into him by all the hard years on the road.
The boy seemed happier once he was in the bath. He rested his head against the edge of the basin and waved his arms slowly back and forth.
“You like the water?” Jackson asked, hunkering down, ignoring Leah as she seemed to be ignoring him.
“Yup. I keep telling Mama I want to swim in the Sound, but she says it’s too dangerous.”
Leah scooped something minty-smelling out of a ceramic jar and started rubbing it onto Bowie’s legs. “It is too danger—”
“Just make sure you’re swimming with someone real strong,” Jackson cut in.
“Don’t put ideas into the boy’s head,” Leah snapped.
“If a boy doesn’t have ideas,” Jackson said, “what the hell is he going to think about all day?”
“And don’t swear,” she retorted.
Hell’s bells, she was a bossy stick of a woman. “Did I swear?” Jackson asked. “Damn, I never even noticed.”
He found a sea sponge and playfully tossed it to Bowie. The boy looked baffled for a moment, then tossed it back.
“Anyway, son,” Jackson continued, “when I was your age, I was full of ideas.”
“What sort of ideas?”
Like how to escape the orphanage. How to forget the things fat Ralphie made him do in the middle of the night. How to turn a deaf ear to the cries of the younger boys…
Jackson thrust away the memories, hid them behind a broad grin. “Ideas about sailing off to paradise. I had me a favorite book called Treasure Island. It was by a man called Robert—”
“—Louis Stevenson!” Bowie finished for him. “I know that book. He wrote Kidnapped, too. Did you read that one, Jackson? I have heaps of books. Dr. Leah always gives me books, don’t you, Dr. Leah?”
“You’re never alone when you’re reading a book,” she murmured, and Jackson looked at her in surprise.
For the remainder of the bath, he and Bowie discussed all sorts of things from storybooks to boyish dreams. Jackson couldn’t believe he’d actually found something in common with a little crippled boy who spoke properly and owned a roomful of books. And all the while, Leah Mundy looked on, her expression inscrutable.
She probably disapproved. He didn’t blame her. She didn’t know him, and what she’d seen of him did not inspire trust. He’d taken her away at gunpoint, would have kidnapped her.
In a way, he was glad it hadn’t come to that. The idea of spending days with her cooped up aboard the schooner gave him the willies. Still, a sense of urgency plucked at him. The past was nipping at his heels.
“Ever been sailing?” he heard himself asking.
“No, sir.”
“It’s a fine thing, Bowie. A damned fine thing.” Jackson shot a glance at Leah. “Of course, you have to make sure you don’t have a mutineer aboard who’d sabotage the steering.”
“Who’d do a thing like that?” Bowie asked. “Pirates?”
“A crazy woman,” Jackson said casually.
Bowie laughed, thinking it a great joke. Leah ducked her head, but Jackson noticed the hot color in her cheeks. She didn’t look half so harsh when she was blushing.
“One time,” Bowie said, “Mama was going to take me on the steamer to Seattle, but she changed her mind. Said it was too far from home.”
“Maybe your daddy—”
“His father’s been dead for years,” Dr. Mundy said. She spoke with a peculiar icy calm that sat ill with Jackson.
He kept his eyes on Bowie. “Sorry to hear that. But be glad you have a place to call home. Maybe you’ll go swimming in the Sound one of these days.”
“Maybe,” Bowie said, slapping his palms on the soapy surface of the water.
“I’d better go.” Jackson lifted him out of the bath, and Dr. Mundy wrapped him in a towel. “You keep reading those books, you hear, youngster?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dr. Mundy.”
“Good day, Mr. Underhill,” she said stiffly.
He left the bathhouse, shaking his head. What the hell was it with her? She’d gotten her way, forced him to stay here on this remote green island, yet she refused to drop her mantle of self-righteousness. Something about her taunted him, challenged him, made him want to peel away that mantle and see what was underneath. He told himself he shouldn’t want to know her. He wondered why her opinion of him mattered.
Damn. He’d met scorpions and prickly pears that were friendlier than Dr. Leah Mundy.
By sunset, Leah had finished with Bowie, lanced a boil for the revenue inspector, visited elderly Ada Blowers to check on her cough, and set a broken arm for a drunken lumberjack who swore at her and refused to pay a “lady sawbones” for doing a man’s job.
But Leah’s long day wouldn’t end until she paid a visit to her newest patient. She stood for a moment at the bottom of the wide hardwood staircase, resting her hand on the carved newel post and listening to the sounds of the old house at evening.
Perpetua hummed as she worked in the kitchen, a little worker bee at the heart of the house. In the parlor, the boarders sat after supper, the men smoking pipes and the women knitting while they spoke in muted voices.
This was Leah’s world, the place where she would spend the rest of her life. The light from the lowering sun filtered through the circular window high above the foyer, and to Leah it was a lonely sight, the symbol of another day gone by.
She didn’t know how to talk to these people who lived under her roof, didn’t know what dreams they dreamed, didn’t know how to open her heart to them. And so she lived apart, working hard, keeping to herself, an outsider in her own house.
She smoothed her hands down the front of her white smock. The starch had wilted somewhat during the day, and she knew the ribbons straggled down her back.
Have a care for your appearance, girl. No wonder you haven’t found a man yet.
Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. She wished she could close out the memory of her father’s voice. She had loved him with all that was in her, but it was never enough. Even at the end, when he’d lain helpless and needy on his deathbed, her love hadn’t been enough. She couldn’t save him, couldn’t make him say the words she’d waited a lifetime to hear: I love you, daughter.
Pressing her mouth into a determined line, she climbed the stairs, her skirts swishing on the polished wood. She tapped lightly at the door.
“Mrs. Underhill? Are you awake?”
The sound of a male voice—his voice—answered her, but she couldn’t make out the words.
“May I come in?”
The door opened. Jackson T. Underhill stood there hatless, his blond hair mussed as if he’d run his fingers through it. “She’s awake, Doc,” he said.
No one had ever called her Doc. She realized that she rather liked the homey, trusting sound of it. She found herself remembering the incident in the bathhouse. What a shock it had been to see him standing there, naked except for a towel around his middle. Even without the gun belt slung low on his hips, there was something dangerous and predatory about him. Something she shouldn’t let herself think about. She forced her attention back to where it belonged—her patient.
Evening light spilled through the dimity curtains framing the bay window. The glow lay like a veil of amber upon the reposing figure on the bed. Carrie Underhill wore the shroud of gold like a mythic figure. How lovely she was, the fine bones of her face sharpened by light and shadow, her milk-pale skin and fair hair absorbing the pinkening rays of the sunset.
She turned her head on the pillow and blinked slowly at Leah.
“Mrs. Underhill, I’m glad you’re awake.” Leah took the slim hand in her own. Immediately, the pathologist in her took over. The first thing she noticed was how cold the hand was. Too cold. “How are you feeling?”
Carrie pulled her hand away with a weak motion. Her eyes, blue as a delft dessert plate, were wide and wounded. “I feel awful, just awful.” Her gaze sought Jackson, and she seemed to calm a little when she spied him. “Is this a safe place, Jackson? You said we were going to a safe place.”
“You’re safe here, sugar,” he said. His voice was so gentle that Leah almost didn’t recognize it.
“Hurts,” she said with a whimper, and her perfect face pinched into a wince of pain. “Hurts so bad.”
A chill rose up and spread through Leah. Her suspicions, the ones she had been beating down since first laying eyes on Carrie Underhill, came back stronger. She moved the coverlet aside.
Carrie clutched at the quilt. “Jackson!”
“She doesn’t like being uncovered,” he said. “Likes being wrapped up tight.”
“I need to examine her,” Leah snapped. Then, collecting herself, she turned back to Carrie. “I’ll be quick,” she promised. As gently as she could, she palpated Carrie’s abdomen through the fabric of a clean flannel nightgown.
An outlaw who did laundry…
What was a ruthless man like Jackson T. Underhill doing with this fey and delicate creature?
The scent of laundry mingled with something sharper, an odor that was rusty and unmistakable.
She looks to be about three months along…
Leah’s hand touched the abdomen low. Carrie screamed. Her legs came up to reveal an angry smear of fresh blood on the sheets.
“Jesus!” Jackson grabbed Leah’s arm and yanked her back. “You’re hurting her.”
Leah drew him away from the bed and into the recess of a dormer window. Lowering her voice so Carrie wouldn’t hear, Leah leaned toward Jackson. “When did the bleeding start?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t know she was bleeding.” Fear edged his words. “I thought she was doing better, just sleeping.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“No. She—I don’t think she knew, either.”
“I’m afraid she’s miscarrying,” Leah said.
“What’s that mean?” he demanded, clutching her arm, holding tight.
Leah wrenched her arm away. “She’s losing the baby.”
“So fix it.”
The chill inside Leah froze into a ball of fear. “It’s all I can do to save the mother.”
“So save her. Do it now,” he said, raising his voice above Carrie’s high, thin keening.
“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Underhill. It’s not that simple. She might need surgery.”
“Surgery. You mean an operation.”
