Liz Ireland (17 page)

“I’m well enough to travel. I should have left a couple of days ago. I’m just putting you in danger if the sheriff finds me out.”

She didn’t give a damn about the danger. “Let me go with you, then.” The words had just popped out of her mouth, but after she had spoken them, the crazy thought
took root in her frantic mind. She grabbed his arms. “I’ll go with you!”

“No.” The answer was emphatic.

“Why not?”

“Because everything you want is right here. Your house, your land, the hospital you were going to open. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Not if you’re not here!” She couldn’t believe she was speaking the words and throwing herself at a man, an outlaw, who didn’t—judging by the unhappy frown on his face—even seem to want her. “Please take me with you, Lang.”

He stared at her long and hard, a kaleidoscope of emotions in his expression. Finally he shook his head. “I couldn’t. You would regret it.”

“I wouldn’t!”

He laughed. “Do you remember what I looked like when I landed on your porch, Emma? That’s what running from the law does to a person. You can’t relax, you have to be careful going into towns, a night in a hotel is a luxury you can’t afford.”

“I have money.”

His lips thinned. “It’s not just money, it’s the threat of being discovered. You can’t risk being seen by the wrong people. And even beyond your comfort, I couldn’t let you give up your birthright, Emma. You’d miss home, I can assure you. If I had a home this nice, I know I would.”

She was losing him. She couldn’t let that happen. “But I love you.”

He looked at her, swallowing so hard she could follow the tortured trail of his Adam’s apple up and down his throat. For a moment, it looked as if he might reply in kind to her statement, but he stopped, tilting his head and regarding her some more.

He didn’t love her
. His silence made that perfectly clear. She’d blurted out her confession and now it didn’t even matter. He didn’t want her along because he didn’t really care about her. Not deeply.

Her shoulders sagged in defeat.

He didn’t touch her—no fraternal pat on the shoulder, no reassuring squeeze. “Maybe it’s just that I’m something different that’s come your way. A little excitement, a man who’s paid attention to you when you most needed it. But in a month or so, you might realize that there’s less to me than meets the eye, and Lord knows, what meets the eye isn’t that great. I’m just a worker, Emma. I have no home. Right now I don’t even have a good reputation, or a name. Is that what you want to saddle yourself with?”

She couldn’t look at him any longer. Her eyes focused on the fringed ends of the carpet at her feet, which she nudged with the toe of her boot. She tried to swallow back her humiliation—rejected by an outlaw. Somehow it was fitting, in a way. Just another milestone in the hard-luck romantic life of Emma Colby.

She bit her lip hard, and for a moment the metallic taste of blood was in her mouth. Better not to cry at this point, she decided. She’d have plenty of time for tears later. “Please try to tell William as much as you can about what needs to be done.” Normally she would have asked him to tell her, but she didn’t think she could stand talking business now. “And please remember to say goodbye to me before you go.”

“Emma—”

She fled the room before she burst into tears.

“N
ow, how could I have misplaced a whole basket of fried chicken?” Lorna wondered aloud, rushing around the kitchen. Though her hair was up and she was wearing her best dress and bonnet, she looked pinched with anxiety.

Instead of confessing to chicken theft, Emma merely shrugged. Lorna’s savory bird was more useful in Lang’s saddlebags than at the picnic.

Lorna put her hands on her hips. “It couldn’t have just walked away!”

Davy, sitting at the table nearby and eating a pilfered piece of pie as compensation for having to stay home with Rose Ellen, swung his feet and howled with laughter. “It might have if you didn’t cook it enough!”

Both women shot the boy long-suffering glances, which delighted him even more. When Lang appeared in the door, Davy laughed and asked, “Couldn’t a chicken walk away if you didn’t cook it enough?”

Lang appeared appropriately mystified by the question, and by the fact that Lorna was on the verge of a breakdown. “Is something wrong?”

“I can’t find my fried chicken!” Lorna exclaimed, gesturing
to her basket. “Now all we’ll have to eat is pie and biscuits—if Davy doesn’t eat even that before we leave.”

Lang glanced at Emma, who had just delivered the chicken to his room announcing that he would need it for his journey. His brows shot up quizzically, and she looked away. She couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to him.

“We should be leaving now,” Emma reminded Lorna.

Lorna stopped, tears gathering. She stood in the middle of the room and flapped her hands in frustration. “Oh, I shouldn’t even be going!” she exclaimed. “I knew it was a mistake. I look terrible! People will be talking about me something fierce!”

“Nonsense,” Emma assured her. “William wants to show you off.”

“You look beautiful,” Lang said. “You both do.”

Emma, her face burning, her heart aching, forced her gaze to meet Lang’s. His compliment was a lie. She had spent a sleepless night, and now her face was pale, her eyes puffy, and her hair lackadaisically put up in her standard bun. She was wearing a gray dress that had been her Sunday best a decade ago. It was a strain to keep her voice steady. “I wish you were coming with us, Mr. Archibald.”

Though they had agreed to keep up Lang’s fictitious identity in front of everyone, Emma was sorely tempted to break that pledge right now, and throw herself at him yet again. But Lang didn’t want her. He’d made that abundantly clear yesterday.

His dark eyes looked at her with understanding. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much of a dancer in my present condition,” he answered, gesturing with his cane. “But when you’re whirling about today, Emma, think once of me.”

Once? She would never stop thinking about him, from the moment she left till the time she returned home to the
empty house. Because, no matter how many people were living here, that’s how it would seem without Lang. Empty.

Unbidden, tears appeared in her eyes. “I will.” Her voice cracked from the tension.

Lorna whirled on her, surprised, then her own nervous tears began to spill over.

The two of them were standing sniffling in the middle of the kitchen when William appeared at the door. “Wagon’s ready. If you—” He stopped, taking in the sight of Lorna and Emma both reduced to tears. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down nervously. “What in the name of Christopher Columbus happened?”

Emma shook her head. “We misplaced the chicken.”

William shifted in confusion, not certain how seriously to take the chicken crisis. “Well…we need to get a move on.”

Emma couldn’t believe that her last moments with Lang were going to be spent in front of all these people, but now she couldn’t see a way to avoid it. She watched him sit down at the table; Davy ran over and jumped into his lap, making Emma, if not Lang, wince at the pain it must have caused him.

“Women cry all the time, don’t they, Mr. Archibald?” Davy chattered. “My sisters always do.”

Lang had taken to both Davy and Annalise so easily, so naturally, and in the few short days he’d been up and about, he’d become their favorite adult confidant. Both children would be devastated when they discovered him gone.

Or, more likely,
she
would be devastated. Even watching Lang and Davy together she felt as if a rope were being squeezed around her chest. It was so unfair! Lang was so good with children, he should be able to settle down and have a whole houseful of his own.

He should be able to settle down with her.

“Emma?”

She started, realizing she’d been gaping at Lang and Davy.

“You coming?” Will asked.

She nodded, and was surprised when her feet actually moved. “Goodbye,” she told Lang, as informally as she could. The word was so simple, but choking it out was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. It didn’t come close to expressing all that she wanted to say to him, but her tears, at least, spoke from her heart.
Be careful
, they said.
I love you
. Nothing would ever change that.

His dark eyes followed her as she scurried out of the room.

Lorna was right to be worried. It seemed every man, woman and child was gathered at Midday’s church, which rested on a hill above Wally Creek, a thin strip of water that created problems in the springtime. By August, the creek was usually little more than a trickle. At the bottom of the hill, older children played a raucous game of prisoner’s base, while at the top of the hill, cloths were laid out in a patchwork quilt of picnic areas, where practically every person in Midday was seated. All eyes watched with interest as Emma’s wagon approached, and when William, then Emma, then Lorna disembarked, a low rustle of murmurs fluttered through the crowd.

“Oh, Emma!” Lorna whispered. “They’re already talking about me something fierce.”

Emma looped her arm through Lorna’s and sent her a reassuring smile. “But by the end of the day they won’t be. That’s what this is all about.”

But Lorna’s blue eyes told her clearly that the younger woman wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. And
who could blame her? All the glances they received as they turned to begin the task of setting out their blanket and food were disapproving, if not downright hostile, and the look that Mrs. Dunston threw them could have turned them to stone. Emma had thought that William’s bringing Lorna into town would begin to put an end to Lorna’s ostracism, but now she began to wonder if perhaps she’d been too hopeful. She ached for the writhing humiliation Lorna must be going through. And now she wondered what on earth had made her convince her friend to come. Lorna’s best dress still tugged tightly against her middle, and her bonnet, which Lorna so prized and had decorated for this occasion, looked worn-out and limp. She’d always thought Lorna pretty and sweet, but now, with her head hung low, her belly bulging and tears of terror brimming in her eyes, doom struck in Emma’s heart. The fire-and-brimstone preacher Reverend Cathcart had brought in for the occasion would have a field day with Lorna. She looked like shame personified.

Emma tried to busy Lorna with setting up their picnic blanket, and was relieved when a few more wagons came up, distracting everyone’s attention temporarily. She attempted to avoid the eyes of the disapproving crowd, though she did make brief eye contact with Barton Sealy, who was leaning against a nearby tree, apparently enjoying her discomfort.

“Emma Colby!” someone yelled from behind her. “Just who I needed!”

Emma turned in time to see Constance O’Hurlihy bearing down on her. She suppressed a shudder.

Constance was outfitted in a sailor motif—blue serge with big brass buttons, white piping and a matching hat that looked like a French beret, the headband of which was pulled down squarely to the middle of her forehead. She
stopped inches from Emma’s face and began speaking in a rush. “We are just
besieged
with people needing help! Mr. Howard can’t hear
and
he’s got an uncomfortable boil on his neck that’s bothering him, but if you’ll take him I’ll deal with old Mrs. Pettibone. I know you can’t stand the way she fusses over every little thing, but then again, I’m a little more patient, I guess.”

Emma listened to Constance, feeling sick as the words began to sink in. She was being requisitioned into spinster duty. She’d never minded it before, but something about Constance’s bare assumption that she would drop everything to tend to Mr. Howard and his boil made her feel sick with dread.
This is how life is going to be from now till doomsday
. Looking at Constance’s thin, horsey face, her nervous eyes, the sadly overdone outfits she worked on to make herself stand out, she was looking into her own future.

Except
she
didn’t even have the outfits.

She glanced pointedly at the cloth she and Lorna were setting up. “I’m rather busy….”

Constance stared at her stonily. “Well! If you don’t
want
to help out, I suppose I can just take care of everyone myself. But I’ve never known you to be so selfish, Emma.”

Emma was about to suggest that perhaps Constance should stay with her, and have fun at a public gathering for once, when their conversation was interrupted.

“I have an announcement to make.”

At the sound of the familiar but uncharacteristically booming voice, everyone pivoted toward William, who had surreptitiously positioned himself at the stairs leading up to the church. His slight frame looked as if it could blow over with a breeze, yet he stood erect, and waited for
everyone to focus their attention on him. Which didn’t take long.

“I know some of you disapprove of Miss Lorna McCrae’s coming here, this being a church function and all….”

His voice was quavery but determined, though Emma’s knees knocked with anxiety for him. She could only imagine how poor Lorna was feeling! What did William think he was going to accomplish by bringing even more attention to them?

“And I agree, what’s happened with Lorna hasn’t been right.” William paused, looking into each and every face. “But what I’m here to say is it hasn’t been Lorna’s fault. It’s been mine. But now, if she’ll agree to it, I intend to make it right. If she’ll have me, I intend to marry Lorna McCrae on Monday, at Reverend Cathcart’s.”

His pronouncement was met by one sob of happiness. He walked toward Lorna through the stunned silence, although just as he arrived to give his bride-to-be a joyous hug, murmurs began again. But this time Lorna didn’t hear them; she was too wrapped up in her own felicity to worry about what other people thought.

She didn’t hear the approaching footsteps of Mrs. Dunston, either. “Congratulations, Lorna,” said the woman who had probably not so much as nodded in passing to Lorna McCrae before. “When is your baby due?”

Lorna blushed. “In three weeks.”

Mrs. Dunston nodded curtly. “That’s fast, but you never can tell about those first babies. They’ll come at any time. After that, it takes nine months.”

Lorna stood blinking at the woman for a moment, then, when the joke finally sank in, laughed.

After Mrs. Dunston’s tacit approval, a steady trickle of townsfolk began making their way over to Emma’s blanket,
congratulating the couple. For Lorna’s sake, Emma hid her own personal sorrow over Lang as best she could. Still finding herself at another town function, talking to old folk and keeping an eye on Annalise as she quietly drew sketches, brought home how empty her life felt now that Lang was gone. Yes, she would have her farm, and maybe her little hospital, if things worked out as she hoped. Maybe she would even try to go east for a while, and study at a real nursing school in Philadelphia. But even so, would she ever be as happy as Lorna looked right now?

Charlie Atwater was just warming up his fiddle for the dancing, playing a snappy tune that eager young folks were already starting to move to, and Emma could only sip her warm lemonade and stare at them wistfully. This would be yet another function where she stood on the sidelines, wishing.

“Look, Aunt Emma—I drew Mr. Archibald!”

Emma looked at the picture, rendered so realistically by such a young hand, and felt a stabbing pain in her heart. She marveled at how well her niece had captured Lang. His eyes were the same eyes that had looked at her, his lips the same lips that had kissed her. His hair appeared to be the same unruly collection of soft dark tufts going every which way, refusing to be tamed. Emma smiled in spite of herself.

Lorna, who was leaning against William’s chest and munching on a piece of pie, studied the picture with a frown. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Annalise?”

Annalise inspected her masterwork with a critical eye, then let out a breath. “Mr. Archibald’s got a dimple!” She reached down and with a single masterful stroke added the cleft in the chin.

“That’s him exactly!” Lorna exclaimed admiringly.

The sheriff pushed away from his tree and came to inspect
the picture. Emma paled, and, without knowing what else to do, dropped her glass of lemonade right onto the drawing. Everyone on the blanket sprang to their feet.

“Oh, how silly of me!” Emma said, hopping up and snatching the picture away. She shook it out, then folded it and tried to tuck it away, but when she glanced up, Barton was staring straight at her, his eyes wide with disbelief.

It was all over.

Shaking, Emma grabbed her glass and decided to refill it from the large bowl put out by the church ladies. Lorna and William were trying to pat dry the blankets with napkins, and she stepped by them as quickly as she could—but she wasn’t fast enough to evade the sheriff.

“Allow me to escort you,” Barton said, taking her arm.

Though he didn’t exert undue pressure, Emma winced. Why hadn’t she been paying more attention to what Annalise was doing, and where the sheriff was? She’d known Barton had been hanging around, apparently waiting for her to change her mind and invite him to share their lunch. Now she’d given Lang away.
Oh, Lang!
For the first time she hoped he’d left already—that he was miles away.

When they reached the table set up with water and lemonade, Barton took the glass out of her hand and looked at her, his eyes flat and serious. “I feel like a dance,” he said, setting the glass down.