“He doesn’t have any parents,” Mollie said absently, still preoccupied by the shirt issue. “He lives with Uncle Curtis just outside of town. I can—”
The sound of the front door flying open and banging against the wall cut off the rest of her sentence.
“Mollie? Where are you, girl? I just heard about Adam.” Uncle Curtis’s deep, gravelly voice echoed through the small house.
“Back here,” she called, the panic in his tone urging her to rush to the surgery door and pull it open.
Uncle Curtis hated to see his kids hurt. Shoot, the man had cried when he’d had to pull a bee stinger from her shoulder when she’d been twelve. Every time she winced he’d apologized, as if it were somehow his fault that the critter had stung her. “Adam’s fine,” she assured him. “He busted his leg, but the new doc set it and has it all wrapped up tight.”
Uncle Curtis lumbered forward, his stiff gait awkward as he maneuvered around the parlor furniture. Mollie took his arm to help him into the room, but he stiffened and halted in the doorway.
He swallowed slowly, his gaze glued to the new doc. A gaze shining with regret and a longing so stark it shocked her . . . and nearly broke her heart. “Hello, Jacob.”
She swiveled her attention back to Dr. Sadler. His face had drained of color, and his hand grasped the cabinet behind him as if it were the only thing keeping him on his feet.
“I thought you’d be dead by now.” The words emerged barely above a whisper, yet Uncle Curtis heard them.
The older man’s lips curved slightly in a sad, lopsided smile. “I can’t tell you how many times I wished I was.”
Uncle Curtis? He was the most hope-filled man Mollie had ever met. What had happened between these two?
Neither spoke again. They just stared at each other, letting the silence grow so oppressive she could feel its weight bearing down upon her.
Enough. “Come this way, Uncle Curtis,” Mollie said, tugging his arm. “I’m sure you’re wanting to see Adam. He’s resting now but should wake soon. Why don’t I bring in a chair so you can sit with him?”
“No!” Dr. Sadler lunged away from the cabinet and blocked their path. “He’s not getting anywhere near this child!”
Uncle Curtis stopped, not a hint of the shock reverberating through Mollie visible on his face. “Jacob, I’m his guardian. He lives at the farm with me.”
“Yeah, well, we lived at the farm with you, too, Uncle Curtis, but you didn’t give two figs for our well-being, did you?”
Mollie frowned at the snide tone. Where had her heroic, dedicated doctor gone?
“You shot Emma!” he shouted.
Mollie gasped. No. Uncle Curtis would never hurt anyone. Never!
“My baby sister died because of you.” His hands fisted at his sides, and he took a single menacing step forward. “Get out of my clinic.”
Uncle Curtis nodded but held his ground. “I’ve been waiting seventeen years for you to get that accusation off your chest, Jake. Maybe now that the boil’s been lanced we can finally see about healing the wound.”
Mollie’s heart beat a painful rhythm against her ribs. Why wasn’t he denying it? That poor little girl. Uncle Curtis couldn’t be responsible for her death. Could he? The man had rescued her, raised her. She knew his character, his kind nature. There had to be more to the story. Some explanation. Maybe . . . maybe there’d been a horrible accident that couldn’t have been helped. Yes, an accident. That must have been what happened. So why didn’t Uncle Curtis just clear up the misunderstanding?
She silently begged him to explain, but the man she loved like a father simply patted her hand and slipped his arm free of her hold. “Watch over Adam for me, my girl,” he called over his shoulder as he limped back through the parlor. “I’ll be back to try again later.”
The clinic door closed softly behind him.
Chapter Four
Jacob sagged against the far wall of the surgery for support as strength seeped from his body. His uncle was alive.
When he’d decided to return home to make peace with his past, he’d wanted to reclaim part of what he’d lost. His parents’ old homestead had sat neglected for eighteen years. He wanted to restore it, bring back the cozy home he remembered—perhaps make it into a place where he could start a family of his own. Doctoring would require him to office in town, but he could work on the cabin in the evenings once he got his practice established.
And the graves of his family. They needed to be tended by someone who’d loved them, not strangers. He’d thought he was ready to face the memories, to let go of the bitterness he’d carried for so long. But then again, he’d also thought he’d only need to mumble a few words of forgiveness over Curtis Sadler’s grave to be done with it. He never imagined coming face-to-face with the man.
Jacob rubbed a trembling hand over his face as he struggled to regain his emotional footing. The eruption of rage had taken him by surprise.
So did the small fist that collided with his chest.
“You cold-hearted scoundrel.” Another fist connected. “No one treats Uncle Curtis like that in my presence,” Mollie stomped on his foot to punctuate her assertion. “Not even you. Tossing him out like someone’s garbage, refusing to let him near Adam. It was disgraceful, and I won’t stand for it. Curtis Sadler is the most decent, God-fearing man I know. He—”
“Curtis Sadler is a roaring drunk and a child killer!” Jacob shoved away from the wall and raised himself to his full height in order to glower Mollie into silence.
It didn’t work.
“I’ve never seen Uncle Curtis drink so much as a drop of spirits.” She glowered right back at him, apparently not caring a whit that she had to crane her neck to do so. “He won’t even keep a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cupboard for medicinal purposes.”
That sounded nothing like the uncle he remembered. But what difference did it make if the man had sobered up? He’d still killed Emma.
“I don’t know what happened to your sister, but I’m sure it had to be an accident.” Her tone softened and for a moment he thought she might try to offer him comfort, but he shoved away from her before he could find out.
“Uncle Curtis loves children,” she insisted, her voice following him, making his head pound with words he didn’t want to hear. Jacob turned his back and braced his arms against the counter. “He would never intentionally harm a child,” she said. “He saves them. He rescued me from Galveston when I was nine and brought me here. I was an orphan, living on the streets. He fed me, clothed me, took me to church every Sunday, saw to my schoolin’. Once I was old enough, he found me a job with Mrs. Peabody. I clean for her and fix her meals in exchange for room and board and a few coins at the end of each month. Don’t you see? He’s treated me like family. He does the same for Adam and the other kids out at the ranch.”
“Well, then, he’s been more family to you than he ever was to me.” Jacob’s muscles bunched so tightly, he feared they’d snap. The man she described sounded too much like the Thorntons. He refused to lump Darius and Nicole, the kindest people he’d ever known, into the same category as Curtis Sadler. The picture Mollie painted of him—all light and flowers and happiness—was wrong. It needed a slash of darkness, of reality.
“My mother and father contracted influenza the year I turned eight,” he said without turning to look at her. “They died, leaving me and my sister to live with Uncle Curtis at his farm. He’d been close to my dad and took his death hard. Emma and I reminded him too much of our pa. To the point he could barely stand to look at us. So we learned to stay out of his way, especially when he turned to drink for comfort. Which happened more and more often as the weeks went by.
“The farm suffered from neglect. As did we. Uncle Curtis started spending his days at the saloon in town, leaving us to fend for ourselves. I did my best to look out for Emma, to take care of her, but one day Uncle Curtis came home earlier than expected. Drunk as usual, he slid off his horse and started hollering about
a coyote that he’d heard was in the area and how we had to protect the stock. He staggered around the yard and pulled his gun, aiming at imaginary coyotes. He shot once in the air, and Toby, his old hound dog, loped out of the barn and started barking. Emma ran after the dog, trying to get him to hush.”
Jacob closed his eyes. The scene emerged behind his lids as it had unfolded that day, every horrifying detail burned into his memory as if a hot iron had seared it there, leaving a permanent scar. Emma’s dark hair blowing in the wind, her chubby little hands reaching desperately for Toby’s neck, the tears running down her cheeks.
“Uncle never saw her. All his alcohol-laced mind could see was a wild coyote coming to kill his chickens. He shot at Toby and hit Emma. She died instantly. I left the same day and never looked back.”
“How horrible.” The shocked whisper brought Jacob’s head around. “I can’t even imagine . . .” She wiped a tear as it rolled down her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.” Mollie touched him then, her hand gentle and light on his arm. He flinched but didn’t pull away. “For you and for him.”
What? Jacob jerked away from her touch. The soft comfort of it had turned to scalding fire at her words. “Sorry for him?” How could she say that? He was the one responsible. He didn’t deserve sympathy. He deserved punishment. “It’s his fault Emma is dead!”
“Yes.” Her eyes pled with him to understand. “Can’t you imagine how much worse that must have made him feel? Not only did he lose his beloved brother’s child, but he pulled the trigger. The guilt must have nearly killed him.”
“I wish it had.” The bitter words escaped before he could stop them, and the shock of hearing them aloud made him stagger back a step. He was a doctor, one who saved lives and fended off sickness. How could he wish death on someone? It violated everything he believed in. Yet for one vile moment, he’d meant it. God forgive him.
He hung his head and covered his face with his hand, half expecting his uncle’s defender to start pummeling him again. Heaven knew he deserved it. But she didn’t. No, she actually stepped closer and touched his arm again.
“Why’d you take the doctorin’ job here in Cold Spring?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t trust himself to hold back from spewing more poison.
“You returned for a reason, didn’t you?” she prodded, compassion lacing her voice. Yet there was a note of challenge there, as well. “To put your past to rest.”
Again he held his tongue.
“God has blessed you with the chance not only to forgive the wrong done against you, but to mend what was broken.” Her hand slipped from his arm. Soft footsteps echoed behind him as she moved toward the surgery table. “Just as you brought together the broken bones in Adam’s leg, God has brought you and Uncle Curtis together. It will take time, but healing will come if you let it. If you keep your heart clean from the dirt of bitterness so that infection won’t set in.”
Ha! It was too late for that. Infection had festered in his heart for seventeen years.
“Jesus can heal any wound, redeem any past,” she said as if she’d heard his thoughts. “That’s what Uncle Curtis taught me.” Her shoes clicked lightly against the floorboards again, this time heading for the door. “That’s what Uncle Curtis shows me, every day. He’s a changed man, Jacob. A godly man. A man consumed with doing good.”
The door creaked on its hinges when she eased it open. Jacob waited for the sound of her footsteps walking through it, but it didn’t come.
“You know,” she said. “A sinful woman with an ugly past once anointed Jesus’s feet in the house of a religious man, and when that man scolded the Teacher for allowing someone so sinful to touch him, Jesus told him that those who have been forgiven much, love much; and those who have been forgiven little, love little. Uncle Curtis loves much, and that includes you, Jacob Sadler. Don’t amputate when a little carbolic acid solution has the power to preserve something precious.”
And with that clever twist of his words, she left.
Mollie spied Uncle Curtis’s wagon exactly where she expected it to be, in front of the Cold Spring church. Unlike the abandoned building outside of town that was falling apart, this red brick church with its gleaming white steps and modest steeple seemed to throw its arms wide in welcome to any who might pass by. Mollie opened the door and slipped inside. With it being a Monday, the place stood empty. Except for the man in the third pew on the right.
Making her way down the aisle, Mollie smiled at the circular hat mark creasing Uncle Curtis’s salt-and-pepper hair. She’d always known something awful lurked in his past. He’d hinted at it but never told her the details. Now that she knew, she needed to show him that her affection for him hadn’t changed—that he was still her Uncle Curtis and always would be.
Hesitating only a moment, she slid into the pew beside him. His head was bent, his eyes closed. She folded her hands in her lap and joined him in prayer—first for Adam’s recovery, then for the more delicate mending of two men broken apart by tragedy.
Not wanting to disturb him, she held her tongue, choosing instead to reach between them and clasp his hand. His knuckles were rough and dry, his skin weathered from a lifetime of farm work, but when he squeezed her fingers, she couldn’t think of anything that felt more wonderful.
“It’s true, Moll,” he murmured, his fingers tightening even more around hers. “I was a drunk, and I killed my own niece.”
“On accident,” she insisted.
He finally turned to look at her, his face more haggard than she could recall ever seeing it. “Don’t let me off the hook so easily, gal. Emma died because of choices I made. Choices to drown my grief in whiskey instead of turning to God for comfort, choices to hide from my responsibilities instead of facing them like a man, choices to let two innocent children—my brother’s children—pay the price for my weakness. I might have been crazy with drink when I pulled that trigger, but I was of sound enough mind when I made the choices that led up to that moment. Everything Jacob said about me was true.”
He pulled his hand free of her and braced his forearms across his thighs. He hung his head low, reminding her of the way Jacob had acted after saying those horrible words she was sure he regretted.
“It might have been true then. But it’s not any longer.” Mollie turned sideways in the pew to face him more fully. “You aren’t that man anymore, Uncle Curtis. You aren’t the man who took Emma away. You’re the man who gives lost children a home, the man who rescued me.”
“Ah, Mollie. How did this worthless reprobate ever manage to find such a gift of sunshine as I found in you?”
She grinned and slid her fingers into his pocket. “I believe I found you—or your watch, anyway.” Mollie deftly pulled his watch from his vest pocket and held it out in front of him.
Uncle Curtis laughed and leaned back against the bench. “That you did, you little scamp.” He snatched the timepiece from her palm and shoved it back into his pocket. “One of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Mollie smiled. One of the best things that ever happened to her, too.
“It had been nearly a year since Jacob left,” Uncle Curtis recounted, “and I had finally started getting my life together. The first few weeks had been torture, trying to break myself free of the whiskey. Then without the drink to numb my mind, the guilt nearly did me in. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about putting an end to my miserable existence.”
Mollie closed her eyes and hugged hers arms around her middle, trying to ward off a sudden chill. She couldn’t imagine her life without Curtis Sadler in it and thanked God he hadn’t followed through on any of those grisly thoughts.
“But then I found that verse in Corinthians. Remember, the one I taught you about inheriting the kingdom?”
“‘Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?’” she quoted softly. “‘Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters . . .’”
Uncle Curtis joined his voice to hers as
they continued to list the sins, each giving special emphasis to the ones that fit their experience. “‘. . . Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.’”
The same awe that filled her the first time he shared those words with her flooded back into her soul. She was washed, sanctified, justified because of Jesus’s love and sacrifice.
Uncle Curtis continued, “‘For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.’” He shifted on the seat to face her. “That’s when I realized my life wasn’t my own to throw away. It belonged to God. Bought and paid for, despite my unworthiness. He didn’t ask me to wallow in guilt and sadness over my past misdeeds and sins. He called me to repent, to change, and to spend the rest of my days glorifying him.
“I thought I was supposed to do that by finding Jacob and making things right. So I set out to look for him and found him in Galveston. He’d already been taken in by a wealthy couple. They cared for him, provided for him, and gave him a home free of all the bad memories that tied him to me. So I let him go, knowing it would be in his best interest. But that left me at a loss as to how to follow God’s call on my life.
“Not knowing what direction to take, I went to work cleaning up the ranch. It took several years before the place turned a consistent profit, but during each of those rebuilding years, I made a trip to Galveston to check up on Jacob. And each time I stepped foot on that island, I asked God to show me what he wanted me to do for his glory. During my fifth visit, you picked my pocket, and everything became clear.” He smiled, the same smile he’d given her the day they’d met, the one that instantly made her feel safe.
“I love you, Uncle Curtis.”
He pulled her into a hug. “I love you, too, Moll.”
She flung her arms around his neck and held on tight.