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sisters.” He reached over, gently stroked the kitten, and said in a somber tone, “You’re a fine woman, Mercy Stein. Aye, you are—but you’re going to have to lean on God and others to help you through all that lies ahead.”
    She started to tremble. “I must leave now.”
    He took the kitten and gently put it with its littermates. “I’ll walk you out.”
    It would be rude to refuse his assistance rising from the veranda. Once she was up, Mercy snatched back her hand. Her plan was to dash down the steps and go around to the front, but the doctor stopped her.
    “We obviously have a mama skunk close-by. Go back through to the front.” As she started through the doorway, he added, “Is there anything I should put out to entice that mother to come get the kit?”
    Relief flooded her. She could salvage her pride by leaving on a better note. “What did you have out last night?”
    Chris must have overheard her, because he started to chortle.
    Mercy gave the doctor a questioning look.
    His neck and ears went red. “Leftovers.”
    “Dinna believe him.” Chris served his brother a wallop on the back that would have felled a smaller man. “Rob tried to bake beans. I’ve chewed on softer bullets.”
    It’s my fault. I was rattled yesterday and didn’t send food home with them
. She stared at the far wall and said, “Eggs. Skunks like eggs.”
    “How many?”
    “I’d suppose you have only one female and her litter of kits.”
    Doc chuckled. “One’s more than enough. I meant, how many eggs should I put out? Half a dozen?”
    “One or two.”
    He looked uncertain. “Fried?”
    “Raw.” She hastily added, “Still in the shell.”
    Christopher seemed to find the whole exchange vastly amusing. Until today, he’d always been so stern. Discovering it was nothing more than bluster made her bold. Mercy walked toward freedom and called back over her shoulder, “Christopher Gregor, you owe me for helping you out. It’s going to cost you.”
    “Is that so?”
    “Ja.” She turned to the doctor. “I count on you to make sure he pays this debt.”
    “You just name it,” Doc said.
    “I can hardly wait.” Christopher looked too smug.
    She gave the doctor’s brother the same look she used on Peter when he misbehaved. “Gingerbread.”
    “Uh…I’m not any better at cooking than my brothers.”
    The doctor tried to smother his laughter with a cough.
    Mercy cast him a quick glance, then mused, “But you are good at building things?”
    “That’s a fact.” All of a sudden, Christopher’s face contorted. “Not my house!”
    “Our house,” the doctor corrected. “Miss Stein, what will satisfy the debt?”
    “I’m a fair woman.” She ignored Chris’s rude snort and continued. “The fan-styled inset at the apex of the eaves. And if the mother returns and takes away the kit, whichever is cheaper: a spindled veranda or scalloped clapboards for part of the building.”
    “If the skunk is gone, you’ll have both, and we’ll be coming out better on the bargain.”
    “You’re demented.” Chris shook his head. “Any sane person would want a skunk as far away as possible, and you’re trying to get it to come up on the porch!”
    “You suggested I bring a skunk into my office and perform surgery on it!”
    Mercy left, surprised she was still smiling at the Gregor brothers’ antics. But she’d ridden no more than five feet before it happened again. Women gave her pitying glances and turned away. The tiny bit of happiness she’d had withered, and misery swamped her.

Chapter 8
    N o gingerbread. Not a stick.” Chris stomped into the surgery and half bellowed, “Did you hear me?”
    “Half of Texas heard you.” Rob calmly placed a bottle of arnica on the shelf and shut the door to his pharmaceutical cabinet. “I take it we still have the skunk?”
    “No, we dinna.
You
now have two!” Chris glowered at him. “I’m working at the farm today. You and Duncan can find a way to rid us of those