A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(76)

She lifted a hand. “Go with God.”

They started out, the lantern on the gig bobbing its light across the darkening prairie.

“Your patient from this afternoon going to be all right?” RJ trotted Captain alongside the doctor.

Adam shook his head. “I pray so. He missed with his scythe and sliced his leg to the bone. I cleaned, stitched, and stabilized, so now they’ve just got to keep him off it. Easier said than done for a farmer at harvesttime. Infection is the big danger.” He flicked the reins. “This Kinsley fellow—you think he’s ill or merely drunk?”

“I wasn’t there long enough to tell. My guess would be just passed out drunk, but you’ll know better. I think Del’s more concerned for his wife. She’s, uh, in the family way.” Heat crept up RJ’s neck. No doubt the doctor was accustomed to discussing such things, but he wasn’t, even after that evening with Captain and the Nielsens’ mare.

Adam nodded and urged the horse to pick up its pace. “Perhaps you should ride ahead? You’ll get there faster than I will.”

RJ nudged Captain with his heels and let him fly.

When he stepped back into the Kinsleys’ soddy, he found the floor and table cleared and the children finishing bowls of stew, their appetites seeming hearty enough. Del knelt by the pallet, spooning bites of stew into the mother’s mouth.

RJ cast a quick glance at the bed with its hefty inhabitant. No apparent change there. His shoulders eased. He’d been hounded by dark thoughts of the man waking with Del there alone.

“You’re back.” Del glanced at him, relief in her voice though he couldn’t clearly see her face. “Is Adam coming?”

“He is.” RJ crossed the floor to crouch beside her. “He’s in the gig, so I rode ahead.”

“Thank you. For going to get him.” She turned back to feeding the mother.

“Of course.” RJ crouched there a moment longer, then rose to peer out the single window. A faint bobbing light heralded the doctor’s gig drawing near. “I see him.”

“Tom don’t . . . trust doctors.” Mrs. Kinsley’s voice came weak from the pallet.

“Tom doesn’t get much choice here today.” RJ’s words came out harsher than he meant. After all, this wasn’t the woman’s fault. But how did she end up with such a man? Or maybe he hadn’t always been this way. RJ had seen in the war, and even more so after it, the havoc drinking could wreak on decent men.

A soft rap at the door, and RJ opened it.

Adam stepped inside with a doctor’s instant familiarity, bag in hand. At a glance he took in the scene, then crossed to Del and the woman on the pallet, bestowing a nod and smile on the children. They stared up at him soberly, no doubt waiting for whatever made their pa regard doctors with such suspicion.

Del scooted back and rose to make room for Adam. “I’ve gotten her to eat a bit, and her pulse has steadied some. No fever that I can tell.”

Adam felt the woman’s wrist, then listened to her chest. “Still rapid, and shallow breathing. Do you have trouble drawing a full breath, Mrs. Kinsley?”

She nodded. “I had that with . . . John and Bethany at the end too. But it seems worse . . . this time, though I’m not as far along.”

“When do you expect your baby?” Gently the doctor drew back the quilt and palpated the woman’s abdomen. RJ averted his eye.

“Maybe January, I think.”

The doctor felt Mrs. Kinsley’s hands and feet and examined her face in the light of a lamp drawn near, then tucked the quilt back around her and stood to confer with Del.

“She’s weak, and her skin is cold and a bit yellowed, though it’s hard to tell in this light. But I agree with you, no sign of infection. She needs nourishment more than anything, greens and beef and liver, if she can get it. That and rest.”

“That’s hard to find on a farm and with a husband like that.” Del’s lips pressed in a thin line.

The doctor sighed. “I guess I’d better see to him next.”

“Would you take a look at the children first? Bethany has a black eye, and John’s leg has been troubling him.” Del gave a significant tip of her head toward the bed.

Adam’s jaw tightened under his beard. He turned to the children. The boy sat slumped in his chair, eyes on the table, while the little girl stared up at him with an unveiled mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

The doctor examined them, his voice low and reassuring, as best he could by the dim lamplight. Del stepped close to RJ by the door, rubbing her arms.

“Cold?” RJ touched her shoulder.

“I’m all right.” A shiver belied her words.

RJ found her coat thrown over a chair and draped it around her. “There.”

“Thank you.” Her brief smile did something strange to his insides.

Adam had moved on from the children to the man snoring on the bed. None too gently, he used his knee to prod the man’s extended leg.

“Tom Kinsley? Wake up.”

The man snorted, groaned, and rolled over—completely off the bed, landing with a thump on the dirt floor. Both children flinched. Cursing, Tom pushed himself to a sitting position and scratched under the arm of his wool union suit.

He peered at the assembled gathering, squinting against the firelight. “Wha’s all this?”