“I don’t know how much you’ll need, so here’s eighty dollars.”
The amount staggered Alice’s mind. She’d sold her father’s house for a little over one hundred, so eighty dollars for groceries sounded excessive.
“Are things actually so expensive here?”
Niall shrugged. “Who knows what they’ll charge you when O’Hanlon realizes you’re purchasing the food for me?”
A name to keep in mind. O’Hanlon. Strangely, it sounded familiar. Was he behind Niall’s trouble in the town?
Alice nodded and took the money. Not having her reticule at hand, she placed it on the table, securing it under her bread plate. Moving to the counter, she retrieved the list and topped the money with that piece of paper.
A sudden wistfulness filled her. This scene smacked of the domestic. A man giving his wife money to buy groceries, providing for her.
After years with no callers, Alice accepted her spinster status. Why now would her mind start dreaming of what couldn’t be? Merely because he’d kindly held her close after her fright?
Needing to put distance between them for her own peace of mind, Alice’s response to him came out tartly. “Sir, I appreciate the funds. I will head to the store as soon as I’ve cleaned up after our meal.”
At her use of sir, Niall’s auburn eyebrows rose half-way up his forehead. Seeing that, Alice quickly looked away and began gathering dishes to place on the edge of the dry sink. Thankfully, a hole had been cut into it and a pipe allowed for her to drain the water without carrying it outside.
She stoppered that hole and turned to dip hot water from the reservoir. And ran into the hard chest.
“No more sir. Call me Niall. Or idiot. Don’t call me sir.” His lips bit off the phrases, clenching his teeth at the end of each.
Not wanting to say it, she swallowed her comment about temper and the bit of red in his hair. Rather than antagonize him, she looked up into his frowning face and nodded, her own lips tight with a frown.
“Well, let me hear you say it.”
Why this mattered so much to him, Alice could only guess. He either didn’t want to demean her further since he’d already reduced her from qualified nurse to cook and maid status. Or, perhaps, he’d had a bad experience with someone who insisted on being called sir. Just like he’d had a terrible experience and now wouldn’t accept the title of doctor.
When she stood thinking and didn’t respond, Niall reached out his forefinger and tapped her lips gently. “I’m waiting.” The previously somber voice now held hints of the teasing she’d heard from him before. A bit more healing?
Well, if he could tease, so could she. “Yes, sir. I’ll call you Niall, sir.”
His hands gently gripped her upper arms. “Sassy baggage. But I sense you’ve gotten the point.”
Alice nodded with a triumphant grin lighting her face. He stared down at her for a moment. Then, oddly, she watched his head lower toward hers. Mesmerized she stared at his mouth.
The sudden banging on the back door broke them apart. Niall stepped to the hall door in full retreat. Alice shook her head in his direction and sighed for the lost moment.
Peering through the glass set into the door, she spied an old woman with a small basket looped over her arm. Smiling, Alice opened the door and expected the woman to try to sell her something. The elderly lady’s words erased the smile.
“I’m terrible stoved up. Needin’ something for the pain beyond my bitter cherry juice.” No greeting or introduction. The woman demanded and frowned.
As a nurse who’d vowed to help end suffering where she found it, Alice ignored the rudeness. “I’m sorry, but Doctor MacKenzie, junior that is, has decided not to practice medicine.”
The woman’s frown deepened. “That don’t get me what I’m needin’.”
Alice considered her for a moment before giving a brief nod. “What do you think you’re in need of, ma’am? Laudanum?”
A quick look of fear flitted in the woman’s eyes. Quickly, she hid that and shook her head. With tight lips, she muttered, “Can’t get willow bark tea anywhere else and don’t have the energy to climb down the river’s bank to get the bark.”
Inwardly, Alice sighed with relief. She’d seen a supply of the tea in the pantry and knew she could help the woman. Before she could say a word, Niall called her name from the hallway.
“Alice. Close the door.”
Standing silent for a moment, she winked at the woman before partially closing the door. In a whisper, she offered, “Meet me down the path to town. In about twenty minutes, I’ll be heading that way.”
Not giving the woman a chance to reply, Alice shut the panel and moved back to the stove’s reservoir. From the hall doorway, Niall muttered an oath she ignored.
“Never let them in. They’ll get no treatment from me.”
Alice didn’t look up from the basin she filled, her stiff shoulders being her only response. His growl echoed in the hallway along with the stomp of his boots. After their tender moment, the anger that remained in the air behind him was a disappointment.
Two steps forward and one step back. Her mother’s favorite saying certainly fit Niall’s progress.
She poured the water into the sink and shaved soap into the hot liquid. Adding a bit of cold to it until the steam no longer rose, Alice swished a cloth around in it to mix the soap about before adding the cups and glasses first. Then silverware, bowls, plates. Finally, the pans. Her mother had emphasized that order to keep a family healthy, and Alice never deviated from it.
Order and tradition. The marks of a settled spinster.
Was a bit of disorder and spontaneity needed to win Niall?
Win Niall? Nurses didn’t woo their patients. What had possessed
