Chapter Two
Willowbrook, Arizona
“Doctor,” Jonesy said, his voice still dripping with irony—as it had been for the past three years. He’d used the same tone ever since William had come to stay in his boarding house, having sold off his house after deciding that he could no longer stand to be there.
Not after what happened.
Little did William know that deciding to rid himself of the old house would only open his world up to a new headache. Namely, the owner of the boarding house he stayed in, looked at William with a slightly bemused expression once the doctor finally lifted his eyes.
There was something so pointed about the way the man stood over William, grinding salt into the doctor’s orange juice before finally pushing the hangover cure to him.
William could only snort, accepting the drink with a roll of his eyes. “What, nothing to say today?”
“I think you’ve already heard everything I had to say and then some,” Jonesy said, the corner of his mouth lifting—so, he had listened in. Big surprise.
William had been expecting the younger, dark-haired man to do so when his mother first arrived at the boarding house doorstep. Jonesy had been so pointed in the way that he looked from Catherine Ryder to her son, undoubtedly hoping that the woman’s sudden visit would mean something.
Well, it did, William admitted to himself as he took a long sip of the foul concoction that Jonesy had come up with that morning.
The taste of pickle juice and raw eggs hit him immediately, making him wince.
“You know, it’s rude to listen in on private conversations,” William grumbled once he slammed the empty glass tumbler against the bar.
Jonesy only scoffed, raising a brow. “Amongst friends?” he asked.
“Are we friends?” William questioned, thinking of the hefty bill that Jonesy had provided him with last week.
Jonesy only shook his head and got to clean up the bar.
“I think we’re something, considering the number of times I’ve mopped you up.
” Jonesy snorted, shoving a rag into one of the glasses he’d pulled from the sink.
“Suppose I don’t need you to tell me what she had to say to you.
One look at that woman in her fancy carriage with her pink glow…
” William flinched. “And it was clear that your mother went and got herself a new fellow and was just biding her time to come down here and educate you.”
“Educate me on what?” William said, scoffing. “I’m a doctor. What could she know about that I don’t?” William asked, doing his best to bury the lead.
“The joys of remarriage,” Jonesy said easily, and William had to blink.
Well, the man was right, and frightfully so.
William’s mother had come there to extol the virtues of remarriage, reminding William that only a year had passed from his father’s death before his mother moved on. She’d waited a year, of course, before broaching the topic with her son, but even that felt soon to William.
“She doesn’t understand,” William defended, staring at the empty tumbler in his hand and wishing that whatever fantastical concoction Jonesy had come up with would start working quicker.
William didn’t know what was worse—the hangover, or the memory of his mother standing on the boarding house steps, an eager and hopeful smile on her face as she pulled William into her grasp.
“Darling, I’ve missed you,” she’d said, taking hold of his cheeks.
Perhaps William would have said it back, if the golden band on her finger hadn’t glimmered like betrayal every time it caught the light.
“Listen,” Jonesy began, dragging out his words in a long, careful drawl. “I don’t mean to go giving my opinion where it isn’t wanted, but,” he continued, pausing in what seemed to William to be a clear wait for his interruption.
Unfortunately, William was still too hungover for that.
Jonesy took what opportunity he had, dropping his voice down low as he looked to either side of the boarding house bar.
“You were the town doctor and now you sit in my boarding house doing nothing all day,” Jonesy said without so much as bothering to mask his criticism.
“Your father was the doctor before you, well known and well respected—”
“Now well dead,” William said, his voice dripping with disdain for their conversation.
“Let me just be frank,” Jonesy said, scowling down at William.
“The man sitting on this stool before me looks nothing like the man I knew. And while I may not know a whole lot about loss, or about this dead wife of yours,” Jonesy didn’t sugarcoat it at all, “I can’t help but think that all of the people that you used to care about would be embarrassed to see a man of your profession stoop this low. ”
William snorted. “I ain’t a doctor anymore. Hardly had a house call in years, ever since Dr. Everett came to town.”
“Alright, of your former profession; coulda been your current profession, but you went to lazing around feeling sorry for yourself,” Jonesy snapped. “Now, you need to get to picking yourself up again, because soon enough that house money of yours is gonna run out, and then what will happen to you?”
“Hopefully I’ll be out of my misery,” William said sarcastically. “But now, since you’ve soured the mood talking about life and such, you could do well and good by me and poor me a whiskey so we can celebrate for the time being—”
“I ain’t pouring you nothing,” Jonesy said coldly, turning away from William. He set the glass he was holding down with a clink, then grabbed the paper, flopping it in front of William. “Alright, you want to play hardball. Go look through the classifieds, I’m raising your rent.”
“To what?” William questioned.
“To something you can’t afford unless you get a new job,” Jonesy said testily, turning away from William.
Well, shoot. Looked like he wasn’t getting another drink. Not when Jonesy got to walk over to greet another boarder.
“Fine, then,” William muttered, shaking his friend at his landlord and how self-righteous he was being. William doubted anyone in town would want to hire him anyway, seeing as how his reputation had taken a sharp dive after Holly’s passing.
Losing his wife like that? William felt like he had lost his future.
There was nothing to work for anymore, no point in trying unless he was forced to.
He’d attempted to keep it together after Holly had gone, if only for his father, but then the old man had gone shortly after her, passing in the middle of the night.
With his old man, what little remained of Dr. William Ryder went as well. He’d sold off his house, moved to the boarding house, and become a new man.
One who his mother didn’t appreciate all that much, but William felt he could hardly be blamed for that. She moved too fast in this life, and William? Well, William didn’t want to move at all.
Until he started looking through the classifieds and getting ideas in his head. Ones that centered around being somewhere, anywhere else. Anything was better than living in that town, feeling people watching him as he walked down the street, pitying him and talking about the man he used to be.
Maybe it was time for a change.
William picked up the paper, flipping to the classifieds section. He scanned it for only a minute, impatient as ever.
Then his eyes landed on it.
He snapped the paper down; finger pressed to the address on the listing and mind racing. “Found it,” he proclaimed sarcastically, inviting Jonesy to peer back over to him with a concerned expression. “Everything you would want for me.”
“And what’s that?” Jonesy asked, brows knit together in confusion. He tore himself away from his customer, walking back over to William.
“According to you, the answer to all my problems,” William said almost ironically, digging in his pocket for some coins to flip to Jonesy. “A new wife, job, and life—all in one go.”
His landlord barely so much as looked up at him. No, he was too busy bending over the side of the bar and straining to understand what had compelled William so suddenly.
“One large ranch,” Jonesy read out, “price: one husband.”
Jonesy looked back at him with wide, concerned eyes. William held his own with a defiant stare.
That would teach him to mind his business.
“Y’all gotta be crazy to go for that,” Jonesy said, the slightest laugh to his voice indicating that he didn’t quite believe that his old friend and tenant was so much as considering the idea.
William wasn’t, at first, but he found himself reexamining the ad as Jonesy pressed the paper toward him.
Maybe the idea wasn’t as ludicrous as William had first thought.
“Doc,” Jonesy said, cocking his hip as he leaned against the bar. “It’s six words in the paper—twelve if you’re generous and count the address. It’s either a joke or an ad placed by the cheapest person alive—I don’t know which is worse.”
“No one would give their address if it was a joke,” William pointed out, already more than determined to make this new future work.
“It’s not just a free farm,” Jonesy began slowly, looking up at William.
“I know that,” William said with a snort, and Lord was he aware of what else that farm entailed. A wife.
Not exactly something that William was looking for.
But whoever had posted the ad was desperate; that much was plain to see.
There was a chance that William could somehow weasel his way out of marriage, take what money he had and offer a good enough price for the farm that whatever rancher was in charge of it would be willing to set aside some of the land.
“You’re not a farmer,” Jonesy said after another minute of scanning through the ad, his voice just as incredulous as ever as he looked up at William with what seemed to be skepticism.
“I’m not, but maybe you and my mother were right. Maybe I need a change. Some new scenery, a new identity.” A place where no one came around expecting him to have the answers to everything anymore or looking at him with disappointment when he couldn’t solve the world’s problems.
He’d always found it empowering before, being the town doctor that everyone knew.
But that was when Holly was alive, and the two of them were eagerly looking toward a future together.
Now? Now, William didn’t have much of anything to keep looking toward, and his identity as the town doctor in a town that had known and depended on his family name since long before he or his father were born? Well, it wore on him.
“I could work on the land, use my hands, connect with nature,” William said, mentally crafting a new sort of lifestyle for himself—one that didn’t depend on heavy textbooks or memorized theories.
Jonesy only snorted at the idea. “You’ll be back here in a week, maybe two if you’re lucky,” he said, shrugging off the idea entirely as he turned away from William.
“Or maybe I won’t be back at all, and you’ll have to fill my room,” William said stubbornly, making up his mind. “Whoever this is, I’m writing them, and I’m giving it a chance.”
“You’ll be lucky if anyone writes back,” Jonesy dismissed.
***
Much to William’s surprise, someone did write back.
Not a long letter, no. There was scarcely any detail to be found in the short, three-sentence missive that William received.
Simply a note that his application, short as it was, was accepted, and he was to go to Redflower, Arizona and meet the writer at the train station, where they would further discuss his possible marriage.
William had, of course, packed nearly everything he owned, taking care once he was done to walk across the street from the boarding house to the bank, where he took out every dollar he had.
The letter’s writer had said nothing about William buying him out of his ranch, nor had William indicated that he had the interest, but William was sure that if he showed up with the money and a plan, whoever it was would have to agree.
Big farmers didn’t like the idea of selling off their daughters all that often.
And so, William bought a ticket to Redflower, Arizona, boarding a train and finding himself poked awake by a solemn old man after hours of riding on a worn-down bench with the smell of coal leaking into his lungs.
Case in one hand and letter in the other, William squinted at the words on the page as he stood on the station platform.
The writer hadn’t given him much of anything to identify them once he arrived, little more than a time and a place.
He frowned as he lowered the letter.
The Redflower station was one of the smaller, connecting stations in Arizona, attached to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of town.
William had traveled through the town once or twice before, back in the old days when he prided himself on his medical prowess and used to go out of his way to learn more about how to care for the people who depended on him.
Somehow, he was convinced the town had gotten even smaller since then. The train station, what with its tiny platform and peeling red paint, seemed indication enough of that.
Gruff farmer after gruff farmer passed William by, shoving their way to the train doors to get the goods that had been shipped to them.
He was one of three people to get off at that stop, the others being an older woman and a little girl in her care.
Anyone who was looking for him would have likely recognized him quick enough because of that, seeing as how all the farmers from the town seemed to wave and nod at each other as they pushed for the train.
But after twenty minutes, the train had been practically emptied, and William was left standing on the platform, his hope wearing thin. Perhaps it had all been a joke, he thought, stomach dropping.
Then A short, brown-haired woman with ample hips, pink cheeks, and a face sweet enough to make William drop his bag hurried forward, pushing onto the station platform in a of rush.
“Mr. Ryder!” she called, having barely stepped foot on the platform, much less looked around before calling his name.
All William could do was blink, slowly raising a hand in greeting as he looked at the woman who may very well be his next wife.