Chapter Text
“I love you. I always have. You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.”
Michaela gave Sully a panicked look before turning to speak to Loren about throwing out the whiskey in Jake’s shop. She went downstairs to show him out the clinic, then wrung her hands as she returned to the room. Jake had said that he loved her. What was she going to do about that? Of course it wasn’t unusual for one to have feelings for someone caring for them. It had happened to her a few times before in Boston. But those incidents were easily solved by her just referring their cases to another doctor. Here there was no other doctor.
Sully was still in the room, looking out the window and not at Jake in the bed. She started to speak but he spoke first.
“I'll be happy to help you, but first I have to go and speak to someone.”
He quickly made his way downstairs and Michaela couldn't help but look through the window to see who he was going to meet.
She could not have been more shocked when he walked across the street and into the saloon. Sully never went to Hank’s. Curiosity got the better of her and she just couldn't resist following.
“Mary? Will you listen out for Mr. Slicker and come get me if you hear him?" She asked the young girl she’d hired to clean up in the mornings.
She grabbed her medical bag for the pretense of checking on one of the girls that had recently been injured by a client, but really, she just had to know what Sully would be talking to Hank about. The two men had very little in common.
Sully was standing at the bar talking quietly with Hank. She paused just out of the door and listened.
“Do you know where she is?” Sully asked pointedly.
Hank looked away and shook his head slightly but didn’t answer.
“Do you know where she is?” Sully repeated more forcibly this time.
Hank sighed and nodded, “Yeah, I know where she is. I've always known, but she ain’t gonna want to come back here, Man. She told him the last time was the last time. She's got a new life, got a new man. She’s happy. She's not gonna drop everything just to come running back to Jake again. She's done it too many times and she's been hurt too many times. A lot of shit happened while you was gone or out in the woods playing mountain man. Let it alone.”
Taking a deep breath, Sully let the insult slide off his back as he continued, “Listen, Hank, I know a lot to ask, but this is serious. Jake may really die this time. Annie has a right to know. She's still his wife and despite their past, I know she would want to be here. You know that too.”
“Get the hell out of here with that dying shit,” Hank snapped. “Jake ain't gonna die. He's gonna sober up, be pissed as hell that Loren poured out all of his booze, then they're gonna bitch at each other for a month, and then let's just all gonna go away. But if it will get you off my ass, then yes, I know where she is. I will go send Annie a telegram. Hell, I'll go to St. Louis and pick her up myself. Bring her back here kicking and screaming. Will that make you happy?”
“Yes,” Sully said calmly, “You go pack a bag and I'll go over to Horace’s to make the arrangements.
Michaela quickly scurried around the side of the building, as she watched Sully leave the saloon and walk toward the Telegraph office before making her way back across the street.
Jake has a wife? No one had ever mentioned it and Hank seemed way too calm about his supposed best friend’s wife being with another man. It just didn’t add up and she could hardly ask Sully and let him know she’d been eavesdropping, but Olive would be coming by in the afternoon. Olive had been around nearly as long as the town had. She’d know what that was all about.