Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

" I t's been three weeks, doctor. When will she be able to play again?"

Even though they were in the next room, Serena could hear every word, since Johann had seemed to be unable to control his emotions of late. And his most overwhelming emotion tended to be anger.

The doctor's soft voice came in answer. "There were several broken bones in her hand, Mr. Weber. I'm not certain that she'll be able to play again at all, but certainly we won't know until she's completely recovered. At least a month more."

"A month? A month! This is ludicrous. How many more concerts and engagements must I cancel. Do you know how much this is costing me? I can't be expected to keep up the interest of the public when she needs that much time off. I might be able to spare another week or two, but certainly not a month!"

Though Serena couldn't see the doctor's face, she could hear his tone of disappointment. "The human body can only heal so quickly. You cannot expect miracles that you're not willing to pray for."

"Prayer and miracles? Those are for fools and children," Johann spat.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," the doctor said, and then a moment later, the door opened, and the doctor made his way out with his bag under his arm. His pitying glance shot her way before he turned and headed for the door.

"I'll need a second opinion!" Johann shouted from behind the doctor. "There must be a doctor somewhere in Atlanta who can heal her faster."

The doctor didn't say a word and barely hesitated before he shut the door behind himself. That was when Johann's full attention landed squarely upon Serena. A sneer curled Johann's lip. He'd never been the affectionate kind before, but he'd not been particularly unkind to Serena, either—not that she could remember. But since the injury, he'd not even said her name. He referred to her as that girl… her… she… or even you, but her name hadn't come across his lips. As he glared at her, she wished she could shrink away into the settee and become somehow smaller.

"You did this on purpose, didn't you? Have I been such a bad guardian to you that you felt the need to punish me?" He lay a hand upon his chest. "I've done nothing but offer you the best of everything, and this is how you repay me. You do realize that you are worthless if your hand doesn't heal quickly. Your hands were the only part of you with any value. Otherwise, you are trash. No one would want a worn out, plain, orphan with no talent. You were an anomaly because you played so well at a young age, but now it's been a struggle to keep you at the front of concerts, almost impossible to make you the headliner. Now you've gone and done this…"

Her heart thumped in her chest, a lump formed in her throat, and tears stung her eyes at his words. She knew that he'd be angry with her but had no understanding of just how much he seemed to loathe her now that she had no value to him.

He shook his head and released a sigh as he turned his back on her. "Surely it would have been better if you'd died than lost your use."

Visceral pain shot through her chest, and her heart sank as he stomped away and allowed the door to slam behind him. Serena could hardly have felt more unwanted. When she was three or four, both of her parents had left her behind in order to serve in the war. Her father was a soldier, and her mother was a nurse. Serena's grandmother had raised her and taught her to play the piano. There was some talent there, even at her young age, so her grandmother had her continue to practice with the goal of playing a jaunty tune or two for her parents when they returned. But they never did. And when she was twelve, her grandmother passed away, leaving Serena to go into the orphanage. In the orphanage, Serena helped care for the younger children and the babies and found a love for them there. In church one day, she wanted to cheer the children up, so she sat at the piano and began to play for them. They had her play several popular songs that she'd only heard but knew how to play from the sound of them. And that's when Johann had discovered her and taken her away from the orphanage.

He'd promised her many things and dressed her like a princess. She got to play the piano again, and it reminded her of her grandmother and even of the love she had for the parents who she'd learned to play songs for. So, she played to make Johann happy and for the accolades that she received. But now it seemed that Johann didn't… that maybe no one would… want her if she couldn't play. Frowning, she stood up on her shaky legs and swiped at her tears. She peered around at the house where she'd lived with Johann for nearly five years. Her glance fluttered to the stairwell. She didn't care for any of her things. Nothing there was from the time when she'd lived with her grandmother or with her parents. They were all things that Johann had bought her. She didn't want them. The last thing she would do would be to go up the stairs to retrieve those things. Instead, she turned toward the door, grabbed her coat off the hook, and followed the doctor outside.

Blindly she paced along the busy streets of Atlanta, looking at nothing but her feet and the path where she walked. It was barely past ten in the morning when she'd left the house, and when she heard the bells across town toll the noon hour, she was taken aback. Then she peered up at the tower in front of her as a sense of nostalgia came over her. She'd been here before. Not for a long time, since Johann didn't attend church on Sundays unless it was to impress someone or meet a socialite there. And this wasn't the church that Johann would attend.

No. This was the church that Serena attended when she lived in the orphanage. And then she noticed the building next door where the orphanage was housed. Somehow the building looked smaller than it had been before. Older. But the laughter of the children playing in the yard still made her heart squeeze in her chest with a sort of longing that she couldn't quite grasp. Her feet moved of their own accord, and she found herself at the front door. She lifted a hand to knock but hesitated, and then reached for the doorknob instead. The brass knob turned easily in her hand and the door opened.

She peered into the empty, well-lit hall with windows lining one side and doors on the other. None of the children would be near the door at this time of day. The noon bell would remind them that it was time for dinner, and they would all come in from the play yard and head for the dining room. The smells of their meal reached her, and her stomach grumbled in response. It reminded Serena that she hadn't eaten at all that day. She'd been too nervous to do more than nibble at a piece of toast before the doctor was scheduled to visit. Again, her feet led her, this time toward the dining room, her ears tuned into the laughter and cacophony of the children.

"Serena, is that you?" a soft voice came from behind her.

Serena turned toward the sound of the inquiry and found the matron of the house standing in front of her with her hands clasped together. The older woman had her silver hair pulled back but wisps of it had fallen softly around her face in a wavy frame. The matron's eyes sparkled when she looked up at her. Serena nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Jones. It's me."

Immediately the woman stepped forward and pulled Serena into an embrace. Other than growing stiff, Serena didn't know how to respond. She'd not felt this sort of affection in quite some time. The matron's soft body offered a warmth that Serena didn't know that she missed until it squished up against her. Mrs. Jones's soft gray hair brushed Serena's chin, and she wondered at how much she'd grown or how much the lady had shrunk since the last time she'd been here. Then the woman patted her on the back and pulled away, but her hands remained upon Serena's arms. "It's good to see you. So very good. I hope that your guardian has been treating you well? I've seen the advertisements for your concerts and even snipped an article out of the newspaper that had your name in it. We're all so very proud of you."

Serena didn't want to cry, but felt that she might if she attempted to say anything at all. Instead, she just shook her head.

The older woman eyed her with a more serious expression this time. She set a hand upon her chin. "You look a little peckish. Maybe even a little pale. Would you like to join us for dinner? There's more than enough room at the table and always plenty of bread to go around."

For a moment, Serena was unsure whether to accept the matron's offer. She didn't want to take anything that might have been used for one of the children in the care of the orphanage, but before she could say no, her stomach grumbled again.

"Ah!" Mrs. Jones said as she turned Serena around with her small hands. "That settles it then. Come along."

The little older lady led her to the dining area where everyone turned and looked as soon as they entered. Instantly the din from a moment before died down so that they were greeted with silence for a moment before all the children said in a sing-song voice, "Good afternoon, Mrs. Jones."

"And a good afternoon to you children as well," Mrs. Jones answered and then gestured toward her. "I'd like for you all to meet Serena Carver. She used to be one of the children raised by the orphanage before she was adopted and became a concert pianist. We're excited for her to visit us, and she will be staying for a little while."

"Hello, Serena," the children said, and the laughter and raucous resumed again, this time a little more sedated than it had been before.

"Why did you say I'd be staying for a while?" Serena asked, whipping her head around to face the matron.

The matron shrugged. "I supposed that was why you are here. Don't you remember? I told you when you left, the same as I tell all the children in my care. If you're ever in any trouble, if things are going wrong and you need somewhere to go, you can always come back here."

Serena blinked. She didn't remember, but now that the matron was saying the words again, they were sparking in her head as familiar. And she felt humbled by them. "But I'm not really a child anymore. I'm only a few weeks from my coming of age."

Gesturing toward a chair beside her, the matron told her. "Sit, darling. And do not worry about such a trivial thing. If you want to stay, you can stay as long as you need. You can help with the younger children, clean, and make yourself useful if you like."

Taking the seat, Serena shook her head. This wasn't what she'd been expecting, and when the matron offered her a plate of dinner, she felt a bit guilty taking it. But her hunger pressed her to take the plate as well. Tears stung the back of her eyes as she began to eat.

"I've done what I could, but it doesn't seem that we can find a nanny at all, and as winter settles in, and Christmastime, it will become even harder," Mrs. Slocum, the pastor's wife said when she came for a visit. She helped with the child regularly, and Theo appreciated it greatly. "It's been almost a month since the funeral. Have you ever considered getting a wife?"

Theo flinched at the question. Mrs. Collins had pressed him a few times with the task, and now it was Mrs. Slocum's turn? "I've been avoiding that question," he answered honestly.

The older woman's lips thinned. "Perhaps you should consider it seriously."

"That's all fine and good, but there aren't many women of marrying age in this town or the next. Joshua and Sarah had been sweet on each other since childhood and had always known they would marry someday. I never had such a luxury. The girls in school felt like nuisances or sisters to me. Romantically, they'd never felt like an option. Now most of them are married to other men around. And certainly no one means for me to go find a saloon girl to marry."

"Certainly not!" Mrs. Slocum said, shaking her head. "But there are other options."

Skeptical, Theo gave the pastor's wife the side-eye. "Like what?"

She let out a slow breath and stood with little Joshua still in her arms and then she began to pace a bit. "You could put out an advertisement for a mail-order bride."

Swallowing, Theo shook his head. "I'd never live that down. The other boys on the ranch would poke fun at me for a decade and say things about the woman as well. It would be a burden to her in town when she came."

"I'm not so sure that what you say is true. There might be some teasing at the start, but people tend to get over those things in shorter order than you can imagine. It certainly wouldn't take a decade."

Theo sighed. "Still, I'm not interested in advertising my needs to the whole world. I'm a private man and would rather marry privately. I don't even want to have a big, fancy event like Sarah and Josh had." He swallowed the lump in his throat at the memory. "Especially since I don't have much in the way of family anymore."

With sad eyes, Mrs. Slocum nodded. "All right then. Let me see what I can do. I'll write a few friends and cousins back east and see if there might be a young lady looking for a situation. Perhaps we can work something out in private."

A frown tugged at Theo's lips. He wanted to argue this option as well. Truth was that he didn't want a wife at all. This wasn't the kind of life that he could bring a stranger into. To deal with a husband who had his own demons to battle and to have to care for a child that wasn't even hers? But the need for help seemed too strong when he looked down at young Joshua. The child couldn't grow up without a mother. That would be too cruel, and though Theo felt as though he was doing the best he could with raising the child, he had to admit that he felt woefully unprepared and often wondered if he could be doing better. Still, he didn't answer the pastor's wife in the affirmative. He just shrugged and decided to change the subject. "Mrs. Collins has been looking forward to your visit. Could you go and sit in with her and young Joshua? I'd like to go and check on how things are settling in the barn."

"If that will help, certainly I will," Mrs. Slocum said with a smile as she headed toward Mrs. Collins's room.

It seemed uncertain that Mrs. Collins would ever be able to remain on her feet much longer than a few moments. So far, she'd only recovered enough to make it to the wash closet and return to bed. Her feet shuffled and her movements were slow and deliberate, and she couldn't really get there without leaning on all of the furniture along the way. Though she did what she could to help with the child, there wasn't much that she could do except watch the child sleep and change his nappy occasionally. Theo had been doing all the remaining work for the care of his nephew on his own, with the workers, like Hank and Tom, fetching him milk from the goats as needed.

After pulling on his coat and donning his hat, Theo stepped outside into the cool afternoon air. His breath surrounded his face, and he breathed in the briskness of it and looked up at the low, grey cover of clouds in the sky. Rain was likely. He could feel it on the exposed areas of his face as he pulled his leather gloves on. When he drew closer to the barn, Hank rushed out the doors and spotted him.

"Theo! One of the horses is cast in her stall. I need help."

"Grab some rope," Theo said as he picked up his pace and jogged toward him.

Hank nodded and rushed back into the barn. The quiet of the barn was broken by the nickering of the horses as they entered. And one of them panted heavy enough to hear. Theo frowned. Normally a horse only took about a dozen breaths per minute, but these breaths were coming as fast as one every second. The moment they got to the horse's stall, the dim light of the lantern allowed them to see the gray mare with all four legs crowded against the rough-hewn boards of the wall between stalls. Steam rose from her body, and sweat was beginning to foam across her neck and between her legs.

"How long has she been like this?"

Hank continued to frown and shook his head. "Couldn't have been more than an hour, but regardless, it's been too long. She's got blood on her knees from struggling and if we don't get her up soon, she could suffocate."

"Grab a halter and put it on her. I'll get some rope wrapped around her legs. It's going to take the both of us to pull her away from the wall." Theo stepped toward the mare's front legs as she began to flail.

Both of the men stepped back a little to avoid the swing of her head, neck and legs. The battering of her horseshoes against the wood of the wall made a horrid racket. Both of the cowboys called out to her in a commanding voice to "whoa." This wasn't good. The longer she stayed in this position, the more likely she was to lose the ability to stand. And though horses always slept lying down, they changed position constantly so that they can breathe easier. It was detrimental for her to be stuck in one position for too long, and the horse knew that as well. When a horse was cast in a stall, it could struggle against the wall for a long while and end up injuring itself by breaking a limb or even its neck.

Theo removed his jacket and handed it to Hank. "Put this over her head and then sit on it. Keep her still."

Hank nodded and did as he was told, gently placing a knee on the horse's head to keep her still. The mare struggled against her sudden blindness for a moment before settling down. Her pants and heaves continued.

As quickly as he could, Theo tied a rope around both her front legs and then did the same with a second rope around both the mare's hind legs. Holding the hind leg rope in his left hand, he nodded toward Hank to come take the one in his right.

Slowly, Hank stood from the horse's head, leaving the jacket as a blindfold to keep the mare quiet as he reached for the rope around the front legs. Then the two of them began to pull at the same time. Luckily, the mare didn't struggle against the new sensation and the two cowboys were able to roll the horse over so that she was away from the wall. Then they loosened the lassos quickly and stepped back, knowing that even though she lay still for the moment, she could start flailing with the legs again at any time.

Once the mare was free, they both stood at the door of the stall and waited, while the horse took a few breaths and stretched its legs as though realizing the relief of no longer being cramped against the wall. Then she lifted her head and leapt to her feet in one swift motion. A full body shake followed. The gray mare hung her head low from her exhaustion. Straw stuck to her body in the areas that were slick with sweat, and steam continued to rise from her skin. Theo shot a glance at Hank. "Check her bucket and make sure she has plenty of water. No grain tonight, only hay. We don't need her colicky from the stress."

"Right," Hank said as he got to work.

Theo stepped up to the mare and gave her a pat on her sweaty neck and the mare gave him a soft nicker in return. He checked her over and saw that though her knees were bloody, the wounds were nothing more than scrapes. He had the mare pick up each of her four hooves to make sure that her balance was all right and that she wasn't favoring any of her legs. After a thorough check, he patted her again, relieved that they seemed to have dodged any serious injury, and took his jacket from the floor of the stall. Once he shook off the straw that had stuck to the canvas exterior, he shoved his arms through and buttoned it back up.

"It's a good thing you came when you did. The rest of the boys are either in town or out on the back forty acres," Hank said as he poured one bucket of water into the mare's. "I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to do this by myself."

Theo nodded. Usually, one man in the barn was enough to take care of the regular, daily chores, but fairly often, there was an emergency like this where more than one man was needed. What would have happened if Mrs. Slocum hadn't come to help take care of the baby and visit with Mrs. Collins? Could Theo have been able to leave the child with Mrs. Collins and then come out to the barn to help Hank? It wouldn't have been the best situation, since there was only so much that Mrs. Collins could do in her current state. A lump formed in Theo's throat. Why was it so difficult for them to find a nanny? Sure, they could only afford to offer room, board, and a small stipend, but it also seemed as though there were a shortage of ladies who were willing to travel all the way out to Indian Territory in order to take up the task at least this close to winter.

A sigh escaped Theo as he continued to watch the mare while Hank threw down hay from the loft overhead into the stall with a pitchfork. Would it really be easier to find a lady willing to travel out this way in order to marry him? Especially when they'd also be taking on the task of instant motherhood. Caring for someone else's child wasn't usually a part of getting married. Memories of Joshua and Sarah flitted through his mind. They had a sort of love and companionship with one another that was enviable. Truth be told, Theo had always hoped that he could have that kind of relationship as well. That perhaps one day he'd just stumble upon the right woman, and she'd become his bride. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like just a fairy tale. After all, how was he supposed to stumble upon this woman? How was she going to suddenly appear in his life? And now that he was saddled with so much responsibility, she'd be taking on quite a burden. He'd never have time to woo a woman and develop the kind of friendship that Joshua and Sarah had.

"You've got all this?" Theo asked as Hank reappeared from climbing down the ladder of the hay loft.

"She seems to be doing better," Hank said as they both peered into the stall and saw that the mare was resting one of her back legs and munching away at the hay in the corner of her stall.

Theo nodded. "She does. Just keep an eye on her through the rest of the day and let me know if she shows any signs of discomfort or colic."

"I will," Hank said as he took hold of the wheelbarrow and started toward another of the horse's stalls for mucking.

Turning on his heel, Theo headed out of the barn and started to make his way back to the house. Dusk was already approaching. How long had it taken them to care for the cast mare? It had to have been close to an hour. Could he have left the babe with Mrs. Collins for that long? He wasn't certain, and regardless, he'd usually need to help with fetching bottles, or nappies, or any other sort of supply that she might need to take care of little Joshua.

As his boots stomped on the front porch and he leaned forward to take hold of the worn doorknob, he came to a conclusion. Even if a marriage of convenience wasn't something that he'd ever wanted, it was something that he needed right now. Though the thought of being married to a woman he didn't love or might not even like was abhorrent to him, perhaps he could make it work somehow. He could give her run of the house while he stayed in the bunkhouse like one of the cowboys if necessary. At least then he wouldn't have to subject her to his spells, and as long as the woman was good to little Joshua, that was all that really mattered. Steeling himself and his resolve, he turned the knob and entered, ready to tell Mrs. Slocum to go ahead and send out those letters.