Mack's Care (Grooms With Honor Book 4) Read online

  "See the school in the distance?" Mrs. Reagan pointed out to Pansy. "The church and parsonage are just past the schoolhouse."

  "Yes, I see the church steeple," Pansy confirmed. It wasn't a steeple in size compared to large brick churches in Boston, but it still differentiated the church from the schoolhouse.

  The biggest difference between Boston and her new home? The lack of trees in Clear Creek compared to the dense groves of mature trees in the East.

  But that was okay because being out in the open reminded her of Wyoming Territory where she'd grown up on a cattle ranch.

  "This is it," Cora stopped in front of a new building, then moved to the side. On the wall beside the door hung a sign with her name painted on it, Doctor P.F. Walline. It gave her chills to see the proof of her accomplishments.

  "Do you want the honors of opening your office for the first time?" Cora asked.

  "Yes, please." Finally, all her hard work at school had paid off. She had her own practice.

  She pushed on the door handle, but it didn't open. Pansy tried again, putting her shoulder against the door frame this time, but it wouldn't budge.

  "Oh shoot. I bet Mack locked it. Wait while I get the key from him," his mother spun around to walk back to the depot.

  A minute later the man, carrying a trunk on his shoulder like it weighed nothing, returned with his mother.

  "I'm so sorry, Doctor Walline. I was so excited about meeting you I forgot to give you the key." Pansy cringed when Mack roughly dropped her trunk to the ground. Was that the trunk she’d packed her china in? If so, it held broken dishes now.

  "Here's your key. Open the door to your new office." The man beamed, still standing too close, giving off his sawdust odor.

  Pansy fit the key in the lock, and this time the handle effortlessly opened, revealing the smell of new lumber, just like the grinning man standing beside her.

  “Did you like the sign I painted for you? What do your initials stand for?”

  “Um, yes. Pansy Flora,” she answered quickly as Mack grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room.

  "Let me show you what I've built so far."

  The rest of the women followed behind them, apparently as curious to see her new office as she was.

  "This first room is your waiting room." It held four wooden chairs, a coat rack, and a small wooden desk and chair by the back wall.

  "The city council furnished the office too?" Pansy asked Cora.

  "That was in the contract," Cora smiled.

  "Well, that's a nice surprise," Pansy said before Mack pulled her into the next room.

  "Here's your examination room, and two patient rooms." Mack rushed her through the three smaller rooms before she had a chance to look at them. The exam room had an examination table, a roll-top desk and a swivel chair in it. The patient rooms each contained a cot and a washstand.

  "Is there a water closet?" Pansy asked while crossing her fingers behind her back. She was positive the chance of indoor plumbing, as Boston had in most of its buildings, was next to nil in this frontier town. Hopefully, she didn't have to use a communal privy out back.

  "Yes, in the back beside the storeroom," Mack proudly proclaimed. "And out the back door is a coal bin for your supply to heat your stoves."

  Pansy couldn't believe her luck in getting to practice her profession in a brand-new furnished office.

  "I waited to build shelves until you arrived, so you could say where and how many you wanted." Mack's smile was contagious, and Pansy couldn't help smiling back. He blushed and rubbed the toe of his boot across the floor, leaving a clean streak on the dusty floor. Pansy would give the place a thorough cleaning before she opened for business.

  "I look forward to working with you, Doc Walline." Did he just call her "Doc"?

  "Thank you, Mr. Reagan. I appreciate all you've done for my office."

  "Please, call me Mack."

  "Maybe once we know one another better." Pansy tried to step around him to take another look at the rooms.

  "Oh, I hope to get to know you really well, Doc." He flashed a smile and winked at her before tipping his hat and finally leaving through the front door.

  "Let's go tour your apartment upstairs next," Iris suggested as she walked to the front door. "Since our business is next door, Fergus and I share the stairs and landing to our home with you."

  "Then we’re neighbors.” Pansy smiled, relieved she had an ally so close by. “Is it as large as the downstairs space?" she asked as she followed Iris out the front door to a door between the two businesses and up a flight of stairs.

  "Yes, so it's large enough for you and your future family, with three bedrooms besides other rooms," Iris called back.

  Pansy hadn't planned to marry and have children, but then the town council thought they were building for a man, his future wife, and family.

  The door was unlocked when Pansy tried it, and she curiously peered inside her new home. The spacious open floor plan of the living room and dining room alone was four times bigger than the boarding house room she'd lived in for the past several years.

  "Oh dear, I should have checked to be sure the apartment was clean after Mack moved out," Kaitlyn said, picking up a shirt hanging across the back of a dining room chair. Pansy was looking at the newly upholstered settee and easy chair and hadn't looked in the dining room area yet.

  "Your son has been living here?" Pansy asked, now seeing the large footprints on the dusty floor.

  "Mack lives in whichever apartment is available while he's building."

  "Oh. So where did Mack move to?" Pansy asked.

  "Right now, he's between places, so he's back in the parsonage for a while. I enjoy his company, but not his appetite." Every woman clustered in her new home laughed at Kaitlyn's remark. Pansy could only imagine how much food a man his size could eat, but then she wasn't a dainty eater either.

  Each room had the bare necessities, but it was more than adequate and more than she imagined she'd have. It was a relief that she didn’t have to spend her meager savings on furniture. She hadn't relished the thought of sleeping on the floor, but she'd been prepared to do it. Pansy knew she'd be paid in chickens and eggs as much as money, so she’d expected it would take time to furnish her home.

  ***

  "So, what do you think of her?" Mack slid into the chair next to Jasper Kerns, his building partner, at a table in Clancy's Café.

  "Who?" Jasper looked around as if he were trying to figure out who Mack was talking about.

  "The new physician, Doctor Pansy Walline," Mack raised his eyebrows and nodded his head to the far side of the room as he whispered across the table.

  Doctor Walline was sitting with her female welcoming committee at a table in the back of the café. Mack had chosen this chair at this table especially so he could watch her.

  "She's going to have a hard time convincing people she can treat them since the town was expecting a man doctor."

  "Well, I'll give her business. I get splinters all the time. I might even get a smashed thumb this afternoon."

  Jasper's southern voice vibrated with his laugh. He had the same laugh as his sister, Iris Reagan, who was Mack's sister-in-law. The siblings hadn't grown up together because Jasper and their father had been sold at a slave auction when Jasper and Iris were youngsters, but the two had the same tone of voice and mannerisms anyway.

  "Are you already smitten with the new doctor, Mack?"

  "I fell in love as soon as she stepped off the train. Now I just have to convince her I'm a decent man. So far I've acted like a dunce though." Mack shook his head, thinking how uncomfortable Pansy had looked so far in his company.

  "Relax and be yourself, although you should stop kissing every woman in sight. Instead of getting jealous, she may think you're a scoundrel."

  "Why does everyone mention me kissing women all the time?"

  "Because I hear you kissed every unattached female at last year's New Year's Eve party."

  "And most
of them were old widows who probably hadn't been kissed in a decade. That doesn't mean I'm a Casanova."

  Mack studied Pansy across the room, not averting his gaze when she looked his way. She quickly looked away but then glanced back in a second. Mack smiled and nodded. Maybe she was interested in him after all. He'd be moving back into her apartment in no time.

  Her apartment. Shoot! He hadn't cleaned it before he walked out the door that morning. The dry sink was piled high with the breakfast dishes along with skillet he'd burned his eggs in. He tended to leave a trail of sawdust wherever he lived. His ma always harped about that when he moved back home for a while.

  No wonder she was looking at him, knowing he was a slob.

  Mack stood up to apologize to Pansy just as Linnea Lundstrom started to place a plate of food in front of him. It was a juggling act between the two of them before the plate fell face down on the floor.

  The mashed potatoes slightly muffled the cracking of the china plate, but everyone stopped talking and looked their way.

  "I'm so sorry, Linnea. It was my fault," Mack gushed as he bent over the mess, almost knocking Linnea in the head as she reached to pick up the broken plate too.

  Nolan Clancy, the café owner, and Mack's childhood friend, came out of the kitchen door armed with a dustpan and rag.

  "I'll take care of it, Linnea, while you dish up another plate for Mack. Don't worry about it, friend. It's not the first nor last plate someone's broken in here."

  Mack felt the heat race up his neck. He wasn't normally clumsy. He could walk across a two by four board, fifteen feet in the air with the ease of a ballerina. But thinking about the new doctor made him...uncoordinated.

  "Sorry, Nolan. I was about to go talk to Doctor Walline, and I wasn't paying attention."

  "Ah, the new woman doctor. Got a hitch in your step you want her to check out? Or have her make sure your lips are in kissing order?"

  Mack stared at Nolan. Had he figured out Mack liked the new woman or had Cullen already spread the news? Mack narrowed his eyes at his friend.

  "Nolan...you're going to see how well the new doctor can fix broken bones if you repeat that to anyone else."

  "You better find your brother then, although he's selective about who he talks to."

  "Cullen's liable to find himself stuffed in a mailbag, hanging on a hook waiting for the train to grab when it goes by next time," Mack muttered to himself. He didn't want his courting Doctor Pansy Walline ruined by anyone. He hadn't made a good impression of himself so far, and then if Pansy found out Cullen called her a moose...Mack wouldn't get a first kiss from her, let alone a chance to ask Pansy to be his wife.

  "Calm down and just be polite and helpful to the lady. She hasn't been in town half a day yet, so you have time to get to know each other."

  "Yes, I still need to build shelves in her office, so we'll be spending time together." And boy, was he looking forward to that.

  Mack caught Pansy glancing his way again, and he couldn't help smiling. Maybe she was looking forward to spending time with him too, especially if he became her “personal” assistant.

  Chapter 3

  Getting settled into her new office and home the last two days had been a challenge.

  After her Friday arrival and lunch with the women, Pansy had gone upstairs and laid down on the unmade bed for a nap, planning to clean the place after catching up on some much needed sleep.

  A few hours later, she awoke to find Kaitlyn and Iris knocking on her apartment door, armed with clean linens and cleaning supplies. By the time they left, she had a spotless home and new friends.

  Saturday was equally busy, with several Cold Creek residents stopping by her office as Pansy unpacked her crates of books and equipment. The women were friendly, usually bringing her food and some shyly asking medical advice. Pansy had enough pies, cakes, and cookies to add another ten pounds to her heavy frame, but all the same, she welcomed their visits and gifts.

  A few men came in to introduce themselves, but one man pointedly told her she should leave as the town didn't want a woman doctor.

  That's when Mack came forward from a back room, where he'd been measuring shelves, and defended her right to practice medicine. It turned out the rude man was the barber, a Mr. Tolbert, who had also pulled teeth for people and he was worried she would take away his side business.

  Pansy knew there would be people who wouldn't like her, as a doctor and as a person, but she'd chosen her path and wasn’t about to back down from her mission. She knew she would lose some patients through the years, but she'd help many, many more people with her knowledge and skills. That had been her vow as she watched her father bleed to death after being shot in the range war. If she'd known what to do then, he would have been alive today, and they'd both still be on the ranch they loved.

  *

  "Doctor Walline, please don't sit back here by yourself. Join my family and me," Kaitlyn interrupted her thoughts as the woman touched her shoulder. Pansy was sitting in a back pew of the church that Sunday morning, trying to be inconspicuous. And also because being big and tall meant no one could see around her.

  "Kaitlyn, it's time to start the service," Pastor Reagan said as he stood in front of the altar with his hymnal open.

  "Of course, Patrick, but I want to introduce our new doctor first," Kaitlyn said without a hint of embarrassment, even though it was obvious her husband was trying to start the church service on time.

  Pansy felt the heat crawl up her neck as Kaitlyn led her up to the front of the church and announced, "Please be sure to welcome Doctor Pansy Walline to church this morning. I'm sure she'd like to meet her future patients."

  Then Kaitlyn pointed for Pansy to sit in the front pew with her...and her four smiling sons. Mack scooted away from Cullen and patted the newly empty spot on the pew beside him. Pansy sucked in her breath as she sat down to wedge herself between Mack and Cullen.

  "Welcome to church and the Reagan pew," Mack leaned over to whisper to her as everyone stood for the opening hymn.

  Pansy glanced back, noting these four tall men—and herself—were blocking the view of the altar and the pastor for the people standing behind them. The married brothers, Angus and Fergus, and their wives sat toward the back of the church.

  Pansy couldn't help whispering to Mack, "Why are you still sitting with your mother in the front pew?"

  "Can't move back until we marry. Maybe we could move back together?"

  Pansy started to chuckle until she looked at Mack and noted he wasn't smiling. Was he serious? He stared at her another second before offering her half of the hymnal, so they could both see the song to sing. Pansy was conscious of Mack's shoulder against hers the whole service.

  *

  "It's so nice to meet you also," Pansy said for the hundredth time as she shook another person's hand. From wimpy to firm handshakes, the people had been just as varied. Pansy tried to find a distinction for each person to try to remember his or her name in the future. Some people blended into the crowd, where others, like Dan Clancy, stood out. Probably in his eighties, he was vocal and loud, partially due to his hearing loss and the rest due to the thought of a woman doctor in town.

  His wife, Edna, seemed sweet and unaffected by her husband's display. "Will you be making house calls, Doctor Walline, or should I bring Dan into your office on Monday?"

  Her question took both Pansy and her husband by surprise.

  "Either way, whatever is convenient for you," Pansy answered.

  "She is not going to touch that there, Edna," Dan practically hissed at his wife.

  "That boil on your buttocks is as big as a ripe Bing cherry, Dan, and it needs to be popped before the red runs farther down your leg."

  "Whoa, what's going on, folks?" Nolan Clancy, their grandson, stepped into the conversation.

  "Your grandfather needs to see the doctor—and soon—before he loses his leg."

  "Gramps, why haven't you said anything about this to me? It's got to be sore."r />
  "Ah, just another pain like the rest of them all over my body," Dan grumbled.

  "Doctor Walline, can you come by the house after dinner today to check on my grandfather?" Nolan asked.

  Oh, dear. Pansy’s first patient and he didn’t want to drop his drawers to a woman doctor.

  "I'll bring her over to your house after dinner," Mack said behind her. "She's eating with the Reagans today."

  "Thanks. Mack, we might need your help holding Gramps down, so I'd appreciate you sticking around too."

  "I heard that, and it won’t be happening!" Dan squawked as his wife tried to guide him away.

  What a start she was off to. Pansy hadn’t gotten much of a say in where to meet her patient or when the appointment time would be. Plus, now Nolan and Mack thought she couldn't treat a patient without their help.

  "Your very first patient," Mack said happily as he grinned at her. Instead of rounding on him for his intrusion, she melted at his words. Did it really matter the why or how? She'd be seeing her first Clear Creek patient that afternoon.

  "And if you can heal Dan and make him a friend, it will go long ways to being accepted in town."

  That statement sobered Pansy. Mrs. Clancy had mentioned red marks, so it might already be too late to save his leg. She should see Dan now instead of eating lunch.

  "Don't worry your pretty head about it,” Mack said, as though reading her thoughts. “He won't let you examine him until after he's eaten dinner and taken a nap, even if his leg was on fire." Mack stuck his elbow out for her to take. "Come on. Time to get dinner ready for our parents and for you to get to know my other brothers, Seth and Tully."

  ***

  "So, you boys have prepared the Sunday meal for your parents for years?" Pansy asked him, as the six of them dished up the food and carried the bowls into the dining room.

  "We don't prepare the food, just serve it, and wash the dishes after the meal," Mack said.

  Tully, Mack's youngest brother, sighed knowing he'd be stuck with the dishwashing detail. Mack didn't feel sorry for him though; the older brothers had done it for years before Tully was born.