Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (40 page)

“What’s that?” Charlie asked.

“It’s the original deed to Eric’s ranch,” she explained.  “Eric’s ranch.  Curtis’s name isn’t mentioned anywhere in it.”

“But doesn’t he own half?”

Amelia shook her head.  “Just another lie.”

Charlie met Amelia’s eyes.  “We have to hurry!” she echoed the urgency Amelia felt.

“Hold up!  Wait for me!” Mabel shouted as she raced after them.  “If you’re gonna do yourself a harm, then I’m going to be there to pick you up.”

Amelia only had time to squeeze Mabel’s hand in thanks.  Mabel helped her into the front seat of Charlie’s wagon and held Eloise while Charlie climbed up to drive.  In no time they were speeding over the rough country roads toward Cold Springs.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The afternoon sun was hot overhead by the time Amelia, Charlie, and Mabel drove into town.  Amelia hadn’t been able to catch her breath or ease the aching in her back and hips since returning from her walk with Hannah.  Sweat poured down her face and it was all she could do to keep herself upright when Mabel helped her down from the wagon.

“You need to rest,” Mabel fretted when she saw the state Amelia was in.  “You look as though you’re about to pass out.”

“I need to find Eric and stop him from giving up hi
s ranch,” she corrected Mabel.

“Let one of us fetch him and tell him what’s happening,” Charlie argued, bouncing Eloi
se, who was beginning to fuss.

Amelia shook her head.  “Curtis used me to drive him away from his home.  I have to be the one to bring him back.”  She started away from the wagon, parked near the train station, and up Main Street.

“Do you know where he is?” Mabel followed, hovering behind as though she would catch Amelia if she fell.

“He’s staying at the hotel,” Charlie told them.

Amelia glanced this way and that, searching the heart of Cold Springs for any sign of Eric as they charged on toward the hotel.  Her steps were plodding and painful.  The town was busy in the afternoon and more than a few people stared back at their odd, anxious group as they ran.

“Amelia, dear, I really think you need to sit down,” Mabel continued to urge her.  “I thought you were damp from the sun, but … but the back of your skirt is wet.  That happened to me with Jimmy.  I – now don’t worry too much – I think the baby might be coming.”

“What?”

But no, she didn’t have time to consider it.  She needed to find Eric, tell him about the mine, and put a stop to Curtis’s schemes.

They reached the hotel and started up the stairs.  Her entire torso ached with such intensity that she paused to clutch her stomach, unsure if she would make it to the porch.  The pain spread through her body to alarming proportions, but she refused to believe Mabel was right.

“Charlie, give me a hand,” she squeezed out the entreaty to her friend.

Charlie clutched a fussy Eloise in one arm and helped Amelia up to the porch with the other.

The hotel lobby door and windows were open to let a breeze through.  Delilah saw them coming and jumped away from her post by the front desk as they stepped in.

“Dear lord, honey, what’s wrong!”

Delilah’s alarm didn’t ease Amelia’s panic in the least.  She rushed to embrace Amelia, steering her toward one of the lobby sofas.

“Where’s Eric?” she asked, wincing through the spasm that wouldn’t ease up.

“He’s at the courthouse, honey.  Roy!  Go fetch Eric!  No, on second thought, go find Dr. Greene!”

“No.”  Amelia struggled out of Delilah’s arms.  “I have to stop them.”

“Stop who?”

“Curtis,” she breathed then swallowed.  “Eric is about to sign the ranch over to him.  I have to stop him.  I have to tell him-”

“Under normal circumstances I would cheer you on, honey, and say it wasn’t a moment too soon.  But you do not look well at all.”  She turned to Mabel and Charlie as the four of them stepped back out onto the porch and asked, “Is it the baby?”

“No,” Amelia answered.  “It’s too soon.”

“I think it is,” Mabel whispered.

“Roy!” Delilah shouted over her shoulder like a fishwife.

Before they reached the bottom of the stairs, young Roy shot out in front of them, holding his bellhop hat to his head.

“I’m going to take Eloise to Michael at the store,” Charlie said, following Amelia down the hotel stairs with worry in her eyes.  “Mabel, don’t you let her out of your sight!”

“I won’t!” Mabel vowed, hooking her arm through Amelia’s.

“I’ll be right back.”

Amelia ignored the fluster around her, turning her eyes and her footsteps to the courthouse.  In her heart she knew that Mabel was right, that she should be looking for someplace safe and quiet to welcome her baby into the world.  The only safe, quiet place she could think of was Eric’s ranch, and if she didn’t do something it wouldn’t be his anymore.

The courthouse was a short walk from the hotel, but for Amelia it seemed to take forever.  Delilah pushed open the doors for her as Mabel supported more of her weight than Amelia wanted to admit to.  Eric and Curtis, Christian and another younger man that Amelia didn’t recognize were grouped around the huge desk at the front of the room.

“Stop!” Amelia called out.  Another spasm of pain hit her and she swayed to the side, grabbing the back of a bench for support.  Delilah and Mabel
held her up from either side.

“Amelia?” Eric straightened from the desk.  His confusion burst into outright panic.  “What’s wrong?”

He dropped what he was doing and rushed up the aisle.  Amelia was too wild with pain and emotion to stop herself from launching into his arms.

“Don’t do it, Eric!” she said, sagging against him.  “Don’t give the ranch to Curtis.  You can’t!  He’s been lying to you!”

“What’s wrong?” Eric repeated, ignoring her plea.  He rested a hand on the side of her face and tipped her chin up to look at him.  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

The fire in his eyes was ferocious, but not angry.  He glowed with a power that went far beyond his arms holding her.  And he was holding her.  Without realizing it, Amelia had lost all of her strength.  The world spun around her.

“What’s wrong with her?” Eric demanded.

“The baby’s coming,” Delilah told him.

“But it’s too early,” Eric said.

“I think the stress of everything has brought it on,” Mabel explained.  “She and Hannah went out for a walk this morning, and when they came back Amelia was upset.  She said something about a mine.”

“If I told you once, son, I told you a hundred times,” Delilah started to scold.

“Eric, we need to get this done!” Curtis cut her off, leaving the desk and marching to Eric and Amelia.  “You’ve got things to do, I’ve got things to do….”

“Don’t listen to him!”  Amelia tried to shout, but the entreaty came out as a strangled moan.

“You wanna let her yank your chain around some more?” Curtis scoffed.  “Think of what you saw yesterday.”

“How dare you!” Delilah snapped.

“Easy!”  Curtis cut off anything else she would try to say.  “Come on, Eric.  It’ll take two seconds to sign your name to the new deed and then you-”

“Amelia’s baby is coming and all you can think about is signing some paper?” Eric roared.  He shook his head and scooped Amelia into his arms, turning his back on Curtis.

Amelia would have burst with pride and relief if her body wasn’t wracked with pain.

“He’s been lying to you,” she panted.  “All this time.  The deed-”

“Forget about the damn deed!” Eric growled.  To the others he said, “We’ll take her over to the hotel.  Somebody’d better fetch Dr. Greene.”

“I’ve already sent Roy to get him,” Delilah said as their group pushed out of the courthouse and into the heat of the afternoon.

“All you have to do is sign, Eric!” Curtis ran after them.  “Everything else is written up and ready to go!  Just come back in here and sign!”

Eric stopped and let out a breath.  He turned back to the courthouse.

“No, Eric, don’t,” Amelia muttered through the haze that surrounded her.  “You can’t.”

“Boy, don’t be a fool,” Delilah added.

“It’ll only take three seconds,” Curtis called.

“No!” Amelia shouted, adding a groan of pain that wasn’t entirely faked.

Her half-ruse worked.

“Hellfire,” Eric muttered, turning back to the hotel.

“Eric!  Come on!” Curtis hollered after him.  “The deed!”

“We’ll worry about that later!”

It wasn’t a promise not to sign anything, but for the time being it would suffice.  Amelia squeezed her eyes shut and clutched Eric’s shirt as another stab of pain filled her.

By the time they made it back to the hotel and up the stairs into the lobby, enough of the residents of Cold Springs had seen them that a small following trailed them.  Amelia barely registered the concerned faces as Eric searched through the lobby.

“I’ll take her up to my room,” he said, mounting the stairs two and three at a time.

Mabel and Delilah followed up to the second floor to the room closest to the stairs.  It was a small and stifling in the summer heat.  Eric’s clothes lay scattered around.  Delilah and Mabel rushed to open the windows while Eric carried Amelia to the bed.  He pushed his carpet bag off the foot of the bed and lay her down, sitting bent over her.

“How bad is it?” he asked, far more controlled than Amelia expected him to be.

“It’s not so bad,” she lied, squirming against the pillows to find a comfortable position.

“Someone bring me more pillows!” Eric shouted over his shoulder.

“I’ll get them from the hall.”  Delilah dashed out of the room.

“And what’s holding up Dr. Greene?”

“I’ll go find him,” Mabel answered.  She sent Amelia a hopeful look as she left the room.

They’d deliberately left her and Eric alone.

“Eric, you can’t give the ranch to Curtis,” Amelia panted, clutching at his arms.  “He’s deceiving you.”

“Is that so?”  A cold thread wound its way through his voice.  He didn’t quite meet her eyes.

“He’s trying to push you off your rightful land so that he can have it all for himself,” she tried again.

“Yeah?  Like he tried to have you all for himself?”

Amelia burst into tears.  It was too much to bear.  The pain of her child trying to come into the world before it was ready, before she was ready, the look of frustration in Eric’s eyes, the deceits she had fallen into and been unable to get herself out of.  She was helpless against the evils that surrounded her and always had been.

When she opened her eyes Eric was watching her with wounded worry.  It twisted her heart.  She took the last chance she had.

“Curtis tried to proposition me, it’s true,” she wept even as another contraction hit her, “but I never returned his attentions.  I never-”  Her words dissolved into a grunt.  She curled her hands into fists in Eric’s shirt.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Eric soothed her, sliding closer and holding her.  “The doctor’s gonna be here in a minute and it’s all going to be okay.”

“No,” she whimpered, “no it’s not.  You’re going to give up everything you love because Curtis manipulated you.  He’s a liar.”

“He’s been a liar his whole life, Amelia, and don’t I know it.  Now settle down, it’s going to be all right.”

Still she shook her head, sweat streaming down her face and back.  “No, no it isn’t!  I can’t let you do this.  I love you too much.”

“You what?”

The pain of the contraction had eased up but the pain in her heart swelled.  “I love you!  I always have.  The only reason I let Curtis touch me that day was because I was trying to hide the deed from him.  Your deed isn’t lost, Eric, he’s had it this whole time.”

“Is that what that was tucked into the back of your dress yesterday?”  His voice was as soft as a summer morning.

Her eyes flashed up to meet his.  “You saw it?”

“Yeah.  What do you want with the deed to the ranch anyhow?”

“I want to stop you from giving up the home you love!  That land is yours, Eric, all yours.  Curtis only wants it because-”

“Because he’s got a mine running on the back hills?  Yeah, I know.”

Amelia blinked.  All of the energy and tension of the situation froze.  She gaped at Eric, beyond stunned.

“You knew?”

“Amelia, I grew up on that land.  Me and Curtis used to play back there when we were kids.  We used to explore the caves and swim in the stream and all that.  Who do you think found the gold in the first place?”

“You knew?” she repeated.  “But why didn’t you do anything about it?”

Eric shrugged, brushing damp tendrils away from her face, eyes smiling.  “Rocks are cold, dead things.  I much prefer the company of a couple hundred head of cattle.  They can be just as valuable and far more entertaining.”

“But….”