Fletcher's Woman by Linda Lael Miller Page B

She turned a scathing gaze to Griffin’s face and spat, “You’re no better than he is, Griffin Fletcher!”
    Griffin turned away, caught the handle of his medical bag in one hand, lifted the wide-eyed Fawn into his arms, and walked out.
    â€œYou can’t leave him like this!” Mrs. Hammond cried out.
    Griffin kicked the front door shut behind him in an answering crash.
    â€¢   •   •
    Rachel could not bear to remain in her mother’s bedroom after the undertaker came, so she crept down the wooden steps, through the now-quiet saloon, and outside. The rain was back, but it was a light, cool drizzle; and Rachel welcomed the bracing touch of it on her upturned face.
    Dr. Fletcher had ordered her to remain inside the building until his return, just before rushing off to answer some distress call. In Rachel’s opinion, that was as good a reason to leave as any.
    Tent Town held as little appeal as ever, though, and she had no friends to go to, so she walked around the weathered walls of her mother’s establishment and down a path curving through the thick woods.
    The sound and scent of the sea came to meet her long before she rounded the last bend and found herself on the rockyshores of Puget Sound. The tide was rising, and it sounded angry as it hammered at the shoreline and battered the great brown boulders within its reach.
    Out on the water, hundreds of rough-barked logs bobbed, bound together by cables. Rachel turned her head toward the mountain rising just to the north and willed her father to know she needed him now and to come home.
    In her mind, she could see him working in the misty depths of the woods. Often he bound himself loosely to the trunk of some massive pine tree, climbing at least ten feet up its side to bore, with an auger, two holes: one straight into the heart of the tree, and one at an angle. That done, he would climb down, only to climb back up again, carrying several glowing coals in metal tongs. Carefully, he would press the coals into the straight cavity, to burn there while the slanted perforation provided ventilation.
    Soon, the giant tree would fall, shaking the earth as it struck.
    Rachel had watched her father work many times, held her breath as he placed the coals expertly, or sawed, winced as he untied himself and jumped clear of the tree’s treacherous trunk. His mortality had never come home to her as it did now, on this day of three deaths.
    Staring sightlessly at the incoming tide, she hugged herself. What would she do if he was killed? Where would she go?
    Rachel bent, took up a smooth, green-gray stone, and flung it into the tide. A stiff wind blew, salty and cold, and pressed her hated brown woolen dress to her bare skin.
    Her mother had been so insistent that Rachel go away from Providence, start a new life in some other place. Now, facing the inland sea, she knew she would not, could not leave.
    She turned; through the treetops she could see a corner of the saloon’s tar-paper roof. She was going to have a little money of her own—she doubted that her mother had saved much—and a perfectly good building.
    No, she would not leave Providence. With the money, she would turn the brothel-saloon into a respectable boardinghouse and a real home. Surely such wealth would ease the curious wanderlust in her father’s heart; they could stay here always, and live happy, settled lives.
    Rachel would have friends, attend church, buy the books and pretty clothes she hungered for. In time, she would become an accepted member of the community. I might even marry, she thought, and blushed with chagrined pleasure as the image of Dr. Griffin Fletcher invaded her mind.
    Not him! she vowed, in silence. But, still, his reflection was stuck fast to the bruised walls of her heart.
    Presently, she heard the snap of a twig behind her, then the rattle of pebbles rolling down the slight slope that separated the woods on her mother’s property