Two weeks later, Henry found himself occupied with a complaining twenty-year-old man suffering his first broken tooth.

Isabella met the delivery boy, signed for crates filled with invitations, and went to work prying them open.

Henry’s forceps slipped on the damaged tooth.

“Doc!” In his outburst, the fellow chewed on Henry’s fingers. “That hurts.”

“Be still. We’ll have this over within a minute.”

Sure enough, by the time Isabella read an invitation in the sunlight, Henry had pulled the hopeless tooth, stopped the bleeding, stitched the man’s gum closed, urged him to keep the area clean, and collected payment.

Henry washed and dried his hands. “Let’s see.”

He wouldn’t have cared if the invitations had been printed on card. But Isabella cared. And he enjoyed her pleasure in something so easily accomplished.

The calico’s blue dots and trailing vines of light green decorated the cream background. As desired, the necessary information stood out in stark relief.

“Well done, don’t you think?” She hadn’t stopped smiling.

“Very nice.” Friday, July 11, would feature the calico ball at the conclusion of a jubilant week. “Congratulations, Dr. Pattison.”

“Thank you.”

He reached for the fabric rectangle, trimmed with a pinking iron, and rubbed it between forefinger and thumb. Nice quality. A decorative frame around the important details gave credit to the Job Office, and recognized both the Blyth and Fargo and A. C. Beckwith stores for their donation of calico for printing.

“Ready for addresses.” From an open crate, she lifted a cardboard box filled with creamy envelopes.

“I have horrid penmanship.”

She laughed with disbelief. “Oh no you don’t. You and I, thanks to Dr. Edwin English, are the invitation committee. Besides, you promised to help.”

“And I will. Beginning day after tomorrow when I’ll hand a stack to the foreman of each mine.”

“That’s helpful, but the northernmost county residents will travel more than two hundred miles. Journeys like that require time, and arrangements must be made. I want their invitations to go out in Monday’s mail.”

Good thing Dr. Pattison made up half of the invitation committee—or he would’ve messed this up. “You’re right. You have the information?”

“You know I do.”

No, he hadn’t, but he shouldn’t be surprised. This woman took responsibilities seriously. He admired that trait.

Within a quarter hour, they’d set a table where light was best. With fountain pens, envelopes, and the list between them, Henry addressed his first invitation.

“What do you think? Acceptable, Doctor?”

She’d completed two to his one, her script perfect and spacing ideal. Lovely penmanship for a lovely woman.

“Yes. Do continue.”

Quiet minutes slipped past, the scratch of their pens the only noise.

“I’ve a question,” she said, “and I’d like an answer, if you’re willing.”

He finished the address and placed a check mark beside the corresponding listing on her sheet. “If I can, I will.”

“Joe and Naomi tell me that you’ve liked Naomi well from the moment you were introduced. Naomi is a medical doctor.”

Guilt pinched, hard. So far, no question, but he knew, when the question came, he wouldn’t find it easy to answer.

“You avoided me quite successfully for nearly a year after I arrived in Evanston. I’m relieved to discover,” playfulness graced her tone, “you’re reasonably nice.”

He chuckled. “Glad to hear it. And I’m glad to discover you’re reasonably nice.”

“Why avoid me?”

He’d been horrid. “I’m sorry for my rudeness.”

“Had I offended you? I ask, because you evidently didn’t like me. You liked Naomi, despite her education and choice to practice medicine, but . . .”

“First, let me assure you that you’d done nothing to offend me.” How could he explain something he didn’t understand? “Mrs. Joe Chandler had been introduced to me exactly as such. A married woman—and a physician.”

“So, it’s unwed women you have no liking for.” Sadness showed in every plane of her face.

“I see now why you called me an enigma. I am quite difficult to understand.”

“Quite.”

Flashes of that first sighting, coupled with sudden and overwhelming attraction, struck him once again. He chose to tell the whole truth.

“I’d noticed you, found you lovely and appealing. Then I overheard you talking to the sign painter, clarifying the spelling of your name.”

“You discovered my profession.”

“Yes. Please understand. It wasn’t you. I saw the world, and everyone in it, through the lenses I’d learned to wear.” How narrow-minded he’d been. “Among my dental college enrollees was one woman.”

Isabella completed another name and address. “You didn’t care for her?”

“Quite the opposite. She was bright, competent, and charming.” He didn’t want to remember the best of Lenora nor the worst. But memories protected him from repeating lessons learned.

“You felt threatened?”

“Oddly, no. I found her intellect stimulating. Much as I do our conversations and debates.” He joyfully anticipated time with Isabella. Infinitely more than with Lenora.

Interesting, the discovery he could remember Lenora without pain. Though he’d believed he’d love her forever, his love for her had faded into the past.

Isabella listened with her eyes, ears, and soul. “She returned your regard?”

“Yes, I thought so.” He beheld this woman who’d become dangerously dear. “Love wasn’t enough. She wanted to be a dentist more than she wanted me.”

He searched her face, desperate to glimpse understanding. He must try harder. This painful past had driven him to state that women do not belong in dentistry, and that misstep had provoked Fisher to publish embellishments.

If anyone deserved an honest explanation, Isabella did.

“When news of my father’s death came, I was inconsolable. I’d been born to parents who loved me and did their best. I was alone.” He glimpsed understanding in her eyes. “Every day spent in school, rather than the mines, distanced me from former friends.”

She nodded, waiting.

“In my destitution, I craved someone to call my own. I wanted marriage and family. At the cusp of graduation, I acted in haste and asked Lenora to marry me.”

Her rejection had stolen his last spark of hope. As if the loss had been yesterday, the pain resurfaced, a tight fist about his throat.

He’d already voiced the hardest part. Lenora hadn’t loved him enough.

“I’m sorry.” Isabella whispered without censure. “Perhaps she believed marriage and career are mutually exclusive.”

Weren’t they? What dentist-wife could embrace both loves? No woman could keep a comfortable home and treat patients.

Home.

The immense craving resurfaced. Husband and wife, father and mother. Precious bonds between people committed to one another. He had to believe he’d find that miracle. Somewhere, sometime.

As he tended to do when he ached for that elusive dream, he fingered the watch chain given to him by Dr. Ullman. While a student, he’d been invited a handful of times to dine in the professor’s home. Not only was the household well-run and comfortable, but both Dr. and Mrs. Ullman showered their children with unabashed affection. Dr. Ullman attributed the success of his marriage, home, and children to his wife: the mother is the heart of the home.

With each visit, Henry had become more and more certain that he’d glimpsed heaven.

As Lenora Baily didn’t want what he did, he’d determined to find the right kind of girl, one who cherished the same priorities as he. But not until the right time, when his business was established and he had the financial security to support a wife and children.

“Do you?” Isabella tipped her head to the side. Sunlight turned her tight brown curls to bronze.

Did he what? Where had the conversation been? Oh, yes, that elusive sense of home. Of course he wanted that. With all of his heart. “Yes.”

She might want those things also.

She capped her pen, and set it beside the stacked envelopes. “I believe you’ve opened my eyes.”

He waited, his heart pounding.

Isabella turned in her chair, to face him. “Are you aware that Joe sent for Naomi, as a mail-order bride?”

“Yes.” Joe had spoken of his happiness with Naomi and the circumstances that brought them together.

“In contrast, consider Sophia and Chadwick. He’s an unusual man, one who sees no lines between women’s work and men’s.” She studied him. “I’m startled, and a bit ashamed, to realize I’d not recognized yet one more school of thought.”

His heart pounded, harder. What school of thought?

She examined him with care. “I believe I see your view.”

“You do?”

She seemed ready to reply, as if something wonderful were nearly said . . . but not.

After all they’d shared, the secrets he’d told no one else, every hour in the wagon, discussing similarities and differences of medical opinion, setting up adjoining businesses . . . he’d taken her into his confidence. He’d trusted her with everything.

For so long, he’d believed he wanted a traditional wife, but the past months had reopened his eyes to the joy found in a woman with a quick mind. After meeting and coming to care for Isabella Pattison, could he be happy with anyone else?

Dare he open his heart to the possibilities?

“Please. Call me Henry.”

“Oh no. If you are now Henry, you must call me Isabella.”

“Not Izzy? Not Belle?” He squinted at her. “Isa?”

She laughed—sudden and intense joy. “My name, Henry, is Isabella.”

“Might I call you Bella? Is that better than Belle?”

“If you stoop so low,” teasing restored to her light tone, “I will address you as Hen. You’d like that.”

He chuckled. “Understood. You were saying?”

“Henry.” Her smile was bittersweet. “I believe, at last, I see.”