Everyone admired the town photo on display at Bray’s Mercantile. "People are always coming in to see it, means more business for me", said Loren proudly.
"People want to see themselves in the photograph, they aren’t buying things Loren!", replied Olive shaking her head at her brother’s comments.
"Good morning", said Michaela as she entered the store, "Loren it’s so nice to have our town picture displayed, especially since it has all the town members in it, don’t you think?"
"I suppose so", replied Loren who picked up his feather duster and started his routine.
Olive chuckled, "Morning Dr. Mike, I think Loren’s slowly accepting our town portrait especially since everyone just thinks it’s so wonderful. So, what can I do for you today?"
"I need to order some bed sheets for the clinic Olive", she replied as she walked towards the bolted material.
"Okay, I’ll be ordering a supply anyway, need anything else?", she asked watching Dr. Mike handle a beautiful piece of cloth.
"Oh no, I guess that’ll be all", she said drawn back from her dreamy state, "Does the town have any special picnic or outing?"
"Other than Founder’s Day, nothing special, why?"
"I don’t know, guess I just miss socializing and getting together with neighbors. Seeing that photograph makes me remember the nice town spirit we all had. It’s too bad we can’t do something to maintain that."
"Well then maybe we should do something to welcome the spring and count all our blessings, the Reverend would probably be willing to help organize it"
"We can all do a part. It’ll be good for town pride", replied Dr. Mike smiling, walking back towards the displayed portrait. She looked at it, especially the way Sully was standing next to her, his hand on her shoulder. She blushed just remembering the way she felt when Sully had done that, so unlike him, but so nice.
"I better get back to the clinic. ‘Bye Olive, Loren", said Dr. Mike as she headed out the door.
"Mornin’ Dr. Mike", Sully said as he approached her stepping off the porch of the mercantile.
"Good morning Sully", Dr. Mike said, and then she stopped hoping he would start a conversation, but he walked right past her towards the mercantile. She sighed and continued on her way to the clinic.
As he got to the doorway, Sully stopped and peered behind him without turning around. He watched Michaela walk to the clinic, then proceeded into the store.
At the clinic, Dr. Mike started to review a medical journal when Hank burst through the door.
"Michaela I need stitchin’, he said as he walked right over to the examination table and sat down.
"Well Hank, what is it that needs stitching?", she started to wash her hands.
"My arm, I was unloading bottles from a crate and scraped up against a nail on the crate. Probably a dirty nail, seeing how it’s whiskey, huh?, he smiled and chuckled.
"Take your hand off your arm and let me see it", she said, "you’ll need to take your shirt off so I can clean the wound and bandage it."
"Okay, Michaela....... now don’t be looking at me", he smirked as he lifted the shirt off.
Michaela sighed and poured antiseptic on a cloth. He winced as she cleaned the wound. She couldn’t help noticing that he was staring at her.
"Why’d you wanna come out here? A civilized woman from Boston, I know Boston ain’t nothing like Colorado Springs. Were you running away from something?", he asked her, his voice deep and throaty.
Michaela was flustered by his comments, "I wanted to practice medicine, be a doctor", she looked into his eyes, "I am not running from anything Hank, why would you think that?"
"Just wondering. So you seeing Sully or what..?"
"I beg your pardon. My personal life is none of your business", she snapped.
"Oh, touched a nerve. If you ain’t seeing Sully, you wanna be, don’t ya Michaela?", he jumped off the table, threw a coin onto the table and walked to the door. He turned around and gave her a wink.
Michaela sighed, shook her head and began cleaning up. The door opened, "Now what..", she snapped, "Oh Sully....."
"Wondered if I could take Brian fishing after school?", he stayed at the doorway.
"Yes, of course, he’d like that", she smiled and walked towards him.
"Good, I’ll make sure he’s home early", and he left. Michaela shook her head and went back to cleaning.
The afternoon went by quickly and Michaela headed out to the homestead. Thinking about dinner, she decided she would try to begin it and when Colleen arrived from school she could help out.
She lit the stove and got the ingredients for biscuits ready. As she kneaded the sticky dough, she thought about Hank and why he would have thought she left Boston to escape something. She wondered if anyone else in town had thought that. The door burst open and Michaela jumped, "Oh hi Brian, Colleen".
"Hi Ma, what’s ya doin’?", asked Brian as he threw his books onto his bed.
"I’ll take over", Colleen said as she tied an apron around her waist.
"Thank you Colleen. Brian, I thought you were going fishing with Sully?"
"I am. He’s outside, just wanted to drop off my lunch pail and books", Brian replied.
Michaela walked over to the door and opened it just a sliver and peered out to see if she could see Sully. Suddenly the door opened as Sully knocked on it and Michaela almost fell backwards. Sully smiled slightly, realizing what she must have been doing.
Michaela was embarrassed, blushing, "Oh, hello Sully".
"Dr. Mike", he nodded.
"Bye Ma, we’ll be back for supper", said Brian as he happily ran past Michaela and out the door.
Michaela shut the door and walked back to the table, "Colleen, how long have you known Sully?"
Colleen shrugged, "I dunno, long time, seems like he’s always been around. He used to help Ma at the boarding house and before that, well, I was too young to remember much more before that. I know my Ma and him used to talk alot. She always felt he was a good person, liked to invite him to supper, but he never talked too much about himself I mean."
"I see. Why did your mother take such a liking to him.?"
"Maybe cuz he was alone. Sully never went to the Saloon like other men in town. He was with the Cheyenne and a few times we went to the reservation with Ma to help with sickness and all. Sully lives out there with them. I think he liked helping Ma around the boarding house, he used to fix things, she needed that."
"I see", Michaela replied obviously thinking about what Colleen had said.
"Dr. Mike, do you think Sully likes you? You know like a girlfriend?"
Michaela blushed, "Oh well, I don’t know, I think I’m too old to be a girlfriend".
"No you’re not, you aren’t married and neither is Sully", said Colleen, "don’t you like him?"
"Well, yes, he’s very nice and he’s been good to all of us............."
Matthew came walking in, "Hi, supper ready?"
"Not yet, go out to the barn", said Colleen her forehead creased.
Matthew was starting to wash, "The barn? Why, what’s the matter?"
"Matthew.....", Colleen said through gritted teeth.
"No, let’s get the table set and then we’ll be ready when Brian and Sully return", said Dr. Mike.
"Sully coming for dinner", asked Matthew.
"Well he and Brian are fishing, so when they return I assume he’ll stay", said Michaela.
Matthew and Colleen exchanged a sheepish grin.
After the table was set, Michaela went outside and sat on the porch steps waiting for Brian and Sully.
Colleen threw the dish towel on the table, "Matthew, Dr. Mike likes Sully!!!"
"Colleen, have you been blind the last few months? Of course she likes him. I don’t know how Sully feels though, when he takes off for days, I think it confuses her", replied Matthew.
"Nah, I think he likes her, you see the way he looks at her. Too bad there isn’t anything we could do", said Colleen biting her lower lip.
"Colleen, stay out of it, they don’t need you playing matchmaker", said Matthew.
"Ma ! Ma ! Look at the fish I caught!", Brian came running up to the house.
"Wonderful Brian, you must have a special trick to catch so many fish in a short amount of time", said Michaela.
"They were hungry today!", Brian said as he went into the door to show off his catch to Colleen and Matthew.
Sully rested his fishing pole on the porch railing.
"Brian certainly loves fishing", Michaela said.
"Yup", said Sully.
Michaela lowered her eyes, "You’ll stay for supper won’t you?"
Colleen came out the door, "Come on you two, supper’s ready".
Michaela and Sully went into the house and took their seats at the table. Matthew gave a quick blessing and Brian started talking about his fishing technique.".........and they just bite and bite, right Sully?"
"That’s right Brian", said Sully.
"I was talking with Olive today about having a town picnic, what do you think", asked Michaela.
"Sounds great, when? Where are we gonna have it?", said Colleen.
"Well in the meadow I assume, we should make it special so we can have it annually. Have games, maybe a presentation from the school children....what do you think Sully?"
"Sounds okay to me. What did Olive say?", Sully responded.
"She thought it was okay too, she’ll speak with the reverend about a time and getting the church involved and the school".
"Can we all go?", asked Brian.
"Yes, of course we can all go", said Michaela.
"Even you Sully?", asked Brian, looking at Sully.
Sully looked up to see all four pair of eyes on him, "Sure Brian, I’ll go".
Michaela smiled at him and he smiled back.
After supper, the children cleared off the table and told Dr. Mike and Sully to go outside, they’d take care of cleaning up. Michaela blushed, "Well, all right", and she went to the door. Sully followed then closed the door behind him.
"Sully, has something been bothering you?"
"No, why do you ask me that?", Sully replied softly.
"No reason, well I guess you’re just quiet that’s all", she said, with a slight nervous laugh.
"I’m always quiet aren’t I?", he said looking away towards the woods.
"Yes, I suppose so", she turned to go back inside.
Sully winced and then grabbed her arm, "Wait.....please..", he said.
Michaela turned slowly to look at him, he had a slight smile on his lips as he looked at her. She looked into his eyes, wondering what was going on behind them. Sully stared back at her, thinking he’d never known anyone like her. He was unsure of the feelings she was making him feel.. These feelings were new, different, even a little frightening to him. He tried so hard to ignore them, push them away. He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them slightly as he squinted his gaze into her eyes. One part of him wanted to just pull her close, kiss her, hug her. He knew he shouldn’t do that, but that was one of the feelings he felt when she was near him, especially if she looked up into his eyes.
Michaela smiled, looked down but then looked back up into his blue eyes. It seemed he was searching her soul, looking for some reaction from her. She thought how safe she felt when he was nearby, but when he was this close, looking into her eyes, she felt her heart pound and her hands shake. Why did he elicit these feelings in her? She was afraid of these feelings, mainly because she didn’t know what to do. As she looked at him, she hoped he would kiss her again, like on her birthday. She wanted to hold him close, to feel his arms around her. She looked down at his hand on her arm, she gazed up his arm to his face and then she glanced down at the ground trying to hide the blush that was rising on her face. She lifted her shoulders slightly, trying to shake the feeling, and then Sully dropped his hands from her shoulders and turned around.
"Sully?.......", she said softly as she put her hand on his back.
"Huh...", he replied as he turned around.
"Is everything okay?", she asked.
He raised his hand to her cheek, "Yeah, fine......I better go, thanks for supper".
She stepped forward wanting to say ‘no don’t go’, but she stopped knowing he was dealing with some feelings of his own. "Good night", she said softly. He smiled and left.
The next day at the clinic, Michaela was absorbed in thought’s of Sully. He was mysterious and she liked that in some ways.......
"Dr. Mike? Good morning, do you have a minute?", asked Olive coming in and sitting next to Michaela’s desk.
"Good morning Olive, I have always have time for you", smiled Michaela, glad her thoughts were interrupted.
"I’ve been having stomach pains and I was wondering if you could recommend something for it?", said Olive rubbing her stomach.
"Certainly Olive. Have you had the pains long?"
"No, just since yesterday really, but they sure are uncomfortable."
After a quick exam Michaela gave Olive a small bottled remedy that would help. "Olive, before I came here who would you have gone to if you were ill?", asked Michaela.
"Well, most of the time we all just treated ourselves as best we could. Of course Jake always did a lot of stitchin’ folks up, why?"
"Just curious", replied Michaela.
A knock on the door startled them both. "Hello......", a voice said from behind the door. Olive slipped off the exam table and Michaela went to the door and opened it to a smiling Hank. "Good morning ladies", he said.
"Hello Hank. I’ll be going, thanks Dr. Mike", said Olive as she passed Hank and headed back to the store.
"How’s that arm Hank?", asked Michaela.
"Okay, but I want ya to change this bandage", he said fumbling with the tattered ends of the bandage.
"Fine, let’s look at it", she motioned for him to sit on the exam table.
"I gotta take off my shirt first...", Hank said. He struggled with his shirt and then hopped up onto the table. "Should I have the bandage changed everyday?"
"No, well as long as it isn’t bleeding and doesn’t get dirty. It’s not bleeding now", she replied looking at his arm wound., "it actually looks pretty good".
"That’s because you’re a good doctor, Michaela", smiled Hank.
Michaela felt uncomfortable and quickly replied, "Look’s good, you don’t need to come back unless it causes you pain".
"Nothing causes me pain Michaela", he said.
"You are fortunate Hank, most people feel pain at one time or another", Michaela said looking at him.
"I ain’t like most people am I?", he walked out the door.