Wild Western Women Boxed Set Page 28

  When the pageant was over, the last hymns were sung, and the magic retreated to simple Christmas joy, Mark was right by Eve’s side.

  “You were wonderful this evening,” he told her.

  She laughed. It didn’t feel forced or acted in any way. “All I did was tell people where to stand, and that was done days ago.”

  “But you were still amazing,” he insisted. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” His loving expression grew serious. “I don’t ever want to do anything without you again, Eve.”

  Her heart seemed to expand in her chest until it had trouble beating. “Oh, Mark.”

  She leaned closer to him, pressing her lips together to keep herself from kissing him in public.

  They were interrupted by Sadie and Angus McGee, Michael and Charlie West and Lewis Jones close behind them.

  “What a wonderful pageant,” Sadie said.

  “It was right pretty,” Lewis agreed.

  “And so moving.” Charlie dabbed at her eyes with one hand while holding her own baby in her other arm.

  “Thank you,” Mark said for both of them. He slid a hand around Eve’s waist and pulled her close to his side.

  The gesture wasn’t lost on either Sadie or Charlie.

  “My dear,” Sadie said, “I’m beginning to think I may have been wrong about you.”

  “Oh?” Eve asked, confidence wavering.

  Sadie nodded. “I thought you were showy and opportunistic when you first showed up looking so fine and fancy, but I see now that you’ve got a heart as big and golden as your sister’s.”

  “Yeah,” Lewis added, “and I told Paul Sutcliffe to take that poster of you over at the saloon down.”

  Eve blushed with both embarrassment and flattery. “Thank you, Mr. Jones. So much.”

  “Where is Amelia?” Charlie asked, laying her baby against her shoulder and patting his back.

  “She’s gone back to my apartment to lie down,” Mark said.

  “Good,” Sadie scolded. “That was too much to ask of a new mother and baby.”

  “She was happy to do it,” Eve said.

  It was true. Amelia had spent as much time as she could resting and caring for her newborn, but it had been her idea to have her baby play the part of Jesus in the manger. She had insisted, in spite of Eve’s concerns and objections. “I want to do this,” she’d said. “For you.”

  As the church finally emptied, families rushing home to Christmas dinners and private celebrations, Mark whisked Eve aside.

  “We should see if Amelia is feeling up to supper at the hotel,” Eve suggested as Mark closed his arms around her.

  He beamed at her, light and love in his eyes.

  “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know you’ve reconciled with your sister,” he said.

  Eve lowered her eyes and settled her arms around Mark’s waist.

  “We still have a lot to talk about,” she said. “So many horrible things happened to us. It will take more than one beautiful night to put the past where it belongs.”

  “But it does belong in the past.”

  He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her face up to meet his eyes. She smiled at the love she found there.

  “Will you stay?” he asked. His voice was so tender that her heart squeezed in her chest, sending sparks through her body. “Will you marry me, and spend the rest of your life here, in my arms?”

  She knew her answer before he finished his questions but gave him a coy smile nonetheless.

  “Are you sure you really want me?” she asked, confident in his answer. “Are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life with a silly actress?” Her confidence faltered. “One who could never give you children?”

  He laughed, shaking his head and planting a kiss on her lips.

  “Eve, we just organized the most beautiful pageant this town has ever seen,” he chided her with a grin. “Every child in Cold Springs is madly in love with you and likely to stay that way.”

  Her heart filled to bursting. “I love them all too. And perhaps… perhaps they would come to see me as someone they can trust in times of trouble. We need more than just our parents for that.”

  “We do indeed,” he agreed. He tightened his arms around her, kissing her with a comfortable sort of passion. She melted against him, so at home in the heat of his body.

  He broke their kiss and leaned back to look into her eyes with hope. “You’ll stay?”

  She laughed with all the joy she had fought so long to find. “Of course I will. I love you too much to leave.”

  He let out a breath of relief and kissed her again, lifting her off her feet. “I love you, Eve,” he said. “I always will.”

  The End

  About the Author

  I hope you have enjoyed The Indomitable Eve. If you’d like to be the first to learn more about new releases and more, please sign up for my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/RQ-KX And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it!

  Merry Farmer lives in suburban Philadelphia with her two cats, Butterfly and Torpedo. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn’t have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. She is also passionate about blogging, knitting, and cricket and is working toward becoming an internationally certified cricket scorer.

  You can email her at merryfarmer20@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter @merryfarmer20.

  Merry also has a blog, http://merryfarmer.net,

  and a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/merryfarmerauthor

  Would you like to know more about Amelia and Eric?

  You can read all about them in Fool For Love, which is currently available wherever eBooks are sold.

  And now, keep clicking for a special treat that you can’t buy anywhere but here! The following short story, A Hero’s Heart, is your peek into the lives of some of Cold Springs, Montana’s other citizens….

  A Hero’s Heart

  By Merry Farmer

  Nobody in Cold Springs, Montana would have mistaken Lewis Jones for a hero. At least not until the day the express train from Butte to Helena was fifteen minutes early.

  “That’ll be a dollar and five cents,” Lewis said to Michael West as he finished sending his telegram. Lewis stood straight and proud—tall and gawky, his sister Viola would have called it—behind his desk in the stationhouse and smiled at the baby boy bundled in Mr. West’s arms.

  “Many thanks, Lewis,” Mr. West said as he fumbled for his wallet with one hand while holding the squirming boy in the other. Thomas, the newest of the West children was already more of a handful than most of the other babies in town, but Lewis liked that. He liked a child with spunk.

  Lewis sighed and glanced away from the baby, out the window. It would have been nice to be a father, like Mr. West. He would have put up with a dozen squirmy, noisy babies without a single complaint. But he was getting up in years, and as Viola always said, what nice young girl in their right mind would want to marry a fool with big ears and a long face?

  A flash of movement on the tracks just beyond the train platform caught his eye. He peeked at the clock on the wall behind where Mr. West was counting out his money for the telegram. It was only 2:15. The express train wasn’t due to zip through Cold Springs for another half hour. None of his porters should have been out on the tracks.

  “Here you go.” Mr. West handed his payment over. When Lewis took it with an absentminded frown, still looking out the window, Mr. West said, “Something wrong?”

  Thomas gurgled as though he was asking too.

  Lewis forced himself to pay attention. “I don’t think so. Just someone on the tracks when they shouldn’t be.”

  “Maybe they’re just crossing over?” Mr. West suggested.

  Lewis nodded, uncertain. “That’s not the crossway, though. Let me walk
you out and I’ll see what it is.”

  He skirted around the edge of the counter, nearly knocking a stack of telegram papers off in the process. As he caught them and straightened the pile, a pencil rolled off the desk. He bent to pick it up and bumped into the small bookshelf behind the desk, sending half a dozen books toppling to the floor.

  “Oh,” he huffed at himself in frustration, “I’ll get that later.”

  Viola was right. He was all arms and legs and no brains.

  The autumn sunlight slanted cheerfully down from a clear blue sky as he and Mr. West and little Thomas made their way out to the train platform. It would be bustling with activity when the five o’clock train from Anaconda made a stop, but for now it was lazy and quiet. All except for a round puff of calico and ribbons smack in the middle of the tracks a few yards down.

  The puff straightened into a woman with a flowery bonnet. She huffed and strained as if she was trying to dig something out of the rails.

  “Looks like she could use some help.” Mr. West nodded to the woman.

  “Looks like,” Lewis agreed.

  He straightened his vest, brushed off his trousers, smoothed a hand over his hair, and strode across the platform and down the stairs near where the woman stood. He may have been clumsy and not much to look at, but when it came to doing his job and taking care of anyone who had anything to do with the trains or the tracks, he was as serious as they came.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. Is there something I can help you with?” he asked as he approached the woman.

  She jerked her head up. Her round face was flushed red and streaks of tears ran down her cheeks. When she saw Lewis she gasped and began wiping her face with a wrinkled and damp handkerchief.

  “Oh dear,” she wailed. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

  Lewis’s heart bounced down to his gut and then up to his throat. He swallowed. “Aw, don’t cry.” He reached out for the woman, but pulled back. They hadn’t been properly introduced. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.”

  “You’re kind,” the woman squeaked, “but it is that bad. Oh, it is.”

  She was plump and a little on the short side. Her hair was a mousy brown, pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck under her bonnet. She looked to be in her thirties, not too old, but no spring chicken either. Her flowery dress wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, but he’d never had much of an eye for dresses anyhow. All he really cared about was how sad and sorry she looked.

  He took a deep breath, standing taller, even though he knew it would make him look like a scarecrow. “My name is Lewis Jones, and I’m the stationmaster here.” He thrust out a hand, full of purpose.

  “Polly Hemmingway,” she answered. She took his hand in her gloved one. Her hand was warm and soft and somehow it made Lewis smile.

  “There. Now that’s done. What seems to be the trouble?”

  “Everything, Mr. Jones. Just everything.” She burst into a sob.

  His throat squeezed tight. He hated to see a woman in trouble. Without giving it much thought, he touched her arm, rubbed it in support.

  “Well, how ’bout you tell me one thing that’s wrong and I’ll work on that first,” he said.

  Polly sniffled and turned her wide eyes up to Lewis. He was over a foot taller than her and the look she gave him made him feel like he could solve any problem. Her bottom lip quivered.

  “I have nowhere to go,” she said in a small, breathless voice.

  “Nowhere at all?”

  She shook her head. Her eyelashes were clumped with tears, but he noticed that her eyes were a pretty blue, kinda like the ink in his postal stamps.

  “I came out here to answer an advertisement,” she said and swallowed. “An advertisement for a bride.”

  “I see.” Lewis nodded.

  “It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done, Mr. Jones,” she went on. “Or maybe the most foolish.”

  Her mouth turned down and she lowered her head.

  Lewis scrambled to salvage the situation. “I’m sure it takes a lot of courage to up and leave your home to come all the way out here to marry a man you’ve never met. In fact, I’d say that makes you very brave indeed.”

  For half a second, she smiled up at him. That smile died in a hurry. She sniffled as though she would break down again.

  “The man who placed the advertisement, Mr. Kenny.” She lifted her sodden handkerchief to her face in time to mop up a tear. “He was waiting here for me at the station this morning.”

  “The ten-twenty from Idaho Falls?” Lewis asked.

  Polly nodded, deflating. “I was holding a pink handkerchief, just as he asked me to, so that he’d know me. And he was wearing an orange chrysanthemum in his lapel, like he said he would. I stepped off the train and spotted him right away. He was waiting, looking.” She took a breath, shaking her head. “He took one look at me and his smile vanished. He turned and walked away.”

  Lewis’s jaw dropped. He knew Harlan Kenny. He was a miner who lived part time in town and part time up in the hills. He hadn’t thought much of the man before and thought even less of him now.

  “The nerve of him,” he growled. “Treating a fine lady like yourself that way.”

  Polly shook her head and sighed. “I’m not a fine lady, Mr. Jones. I’m just an ordinary, fat, plain spinster.”

  “I…I don’t know that I’d say that.”

  “It’s true, and now I’ll never be anything different.”

  If it was possible for Lewis’s throat to squeeze tighter in sympathy, it did. He inched a step closer to her across the railroad ties.

  “My ma always used to say that you never know what tomorrow will bring,” he told her. “Sure, my sister, Viola, keeps telling me that’s a load of hogwash and some folks is just cursed, but I never believed it.”

  “You didn’t?” Polly glanced up at him again. Her face was so full of hope, those blue eyes of her so bright, that he considered that she might just be pretty after all.

  “No, ma’am.” He shifted, puffing his chest out. “Just look at me. Viola keeps telling me I’m a no good fool and clumsy to boot, but I worked my way up from being a railroad porter to an assistant conductor to a stationmaster. There’s nothing a man can’t do if he puts his mind to it. A woman too.”

  “Oh,” she said, and if he wasn’t wrong, said it with admiration.

  All too soon, she sagged. “I don’t think it works that way for everyone, Mr. Jones.”

  “Why don’t you call me Lewis,” he said. He smiled along with the sunlight.

  “Thank you, Lewis, but I’m afraid there’s not much hope for me now. I used up all of my courage coming here, and now…now I’ve got nothing left.”

  “Could you…could you go back?” he suggested. He didn’t like the sound of the idea at all for some reason.

  Polly shook her head, then pinched up her face like she might cry again. “I don’t want to, but I’m afraid I’ll have to. And how my sister-in-law will laugh and laugh at me!”

  “Now why would anyone laugh at you?” The very idea made him want to give someone a strongly worded piece of his mind. This sister-in-law of hers, for one.

  She glanced warily up at him. “Spinsters are dependent on their family for help,” she explained. “I’ve been living with my brother and his wife for the last five years, since Father died. I’m afraid Elizabeth doesn’t like me at all. She says I’m just a useless cow who can’t ever get anything right.”

  Lewis clenched his fists and huffed out a breath. “That’s just wrong.”

  “I have no choice but to go back and face that music,” she said. “How Elizabeth will rail at me!”

  The thought of sweet Polly and her blue eyes having to go back to a mean old sister-in-law with her tail between her legs was more than Lewis could bear.

  “I tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you stay here anyhow. My sister, Viola, runs a boarding house at the edge of town. I’m sure I could convince her to give you a room until you can f
ind a job or a new beau.”

  Polly gave a forlorn laugh. “I never was much good at cooking or sewing or…or anything. Who would want to hire me?”

  Lewis scratched his head, eager to come up with something, some way to help her. “Maybe not a job then, but I’m sure there are plenty of men who would line up to court you.”

  She blushed and turned her head away. “I’ve already had one man run at the sight of me. Why should I think that any other man wouldn’t do the same?”

  He didn’t like that idea at all. In fact, he would be willing to trade words or…or even blows with any man who would turn Polly down. Why, he could tell from the strength in her shoulders and the set of her jaw that she was strong underneath it all. She may have been round, but a man liked a woman he could hold onto and feel his arms around. She was brave enough to come all this way, too.

  “Anyone who wouldn’t be there for you is a fool, if I do say so myself,” he said.

  She took in a breath, studying him. The rosy blush on her cheeks made him think of sweet apples. When she smiled, it made him feel confident.

  “You know, Lewis, you may be right. Maybe I can make a life here after all,” she said.

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “I came all this way. I have two strong arms. I can learn to do a job I don’t already know.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  Her eyes lit with the spark of an idea.

  “I’m good with children.”

  “You are?” His heart gave a strange lurch in his chest.

  She nodded, beaming now. “I’ve been taking care of my niece and nephews for years. I could hire myself out as a nanny. I know I could.”