Marry Me by Jo Goodman

“You don’t have to decide this minute. I can hold him off tonight, but know this, Rhyne, I’m not getting you a rub of tobacco to pouch in your cheek or letting you apply dirt and sweat like you were making an entrance from stage right.”
    She didn’t reply. She didn’t think she could make him understand how naked she felt.
    “Eat what you can,” he said, rising. He was all too aware that he’d spoiled her appetite. “I’ll come back to get the tray.”
    Johnny Winslow entertained Cole with a series of circular tales about the denizens of Reidsville. Some were funny, like the time Gracie Showalter locked her husband out of the house buck-naked in retaliation for tramping mud all over her clean floors. Some were poignant, like the passing of Wyatt Cooper’s first wife while he was out in the back of beyond making photographs. Still others were cautionary, as when Foster Maddox, heir to the California-and-Colorado railroad line, tried to take over the Calico Spur and the town rallied to take it back.
    In spite of his flagging energy, Cole remained interested. While his contract with the town was straightforward, the actual arrangement was unique, and so he gathered the threads of Johnny’s stories as material for the tapestry that explained Reidsville.
    The town gave him a home for which he did not have to pay rent. Moreover, at the end of a year, the house would be his outright if he and the committee agreed upon his continued stay. If he left after that, he could sell the house back to the town and was guaranteed a fair price for it. He arrived with his own instruments and a few medical journals, but a reference library, surgery, and examining office were all provided for him. Mrs. Easter had taken great pride, as well she should have, in pointing out the new microscope on his desk.
    “Doc Diggins had one like it,” she’d told him. “For show, mostly, because I never saw him look in it, but one couldn’t help but feel more confident about him for having it.”
    Reflecting on Mrs. Easter’s words now, Cole was reminded how true they were. Too often doctoring was more showmanship than science. It was Cole’s aim to change that, at least in Reidsville.
    “You look about ready to call it a day,” Johnny told Cole. “You want me to get Runt’s tray?”
    “No, I’ll do it.”
    “Okay.” Johnny stood and began clearing the table. He was almost done by the time Cole got to his feet.
    Rhyne looked up when Cole slipped into the room. She held out the tray. “He’s going to think I didn’t like it.”
    “I’ll tell him you just weren’t hungry. That’s true,
    isn’t it?”
    “It’s true,” she said. “But I want to tell him myself.” Cole arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
    She nodded. “I’d rather do it without an audience. Johnny and me. Alone. He never paid much notice to me when I was in town. He was polite and all, just not one of the ones who liked to rile me and stir things up.”
    Now it was Cole who hesitated. “If you’re sure.”
    “I am. Go on. Send him in.”
    Cole set the tray down. “Not until I bandage your shoulder.” When she looked at him oddly, he explained. “It was Will’s idea to tell folks you were shot. He came up with that to explain why I stayed back and he returned to town.”
    “Shot?!” Her dark eyebrows darted toward her cap of badly cropped hair. “Who shot me?”
    Rhyne’s clear indignation was not unexpected. Cole held up his hands, palms out, absolving himself of responsibility. “Miscreants, Will said.”
    “He’s ridiculous.”
    “Maybe, but he warmed to the story so quickly there was no turning him from it. I’m just going to put a sling on your right arm and shoulder. Keep it still and don’t let Johnny get too curious about your wound. What you want to tell him about the miscreant that shot you is your business. My advice? Say the least you can. He’ll have no difficulty making the story his own. You won’t recognize it when you hear