She realized that she loved Emilia. Lily loved her as much as she loved her mother or Eddy or Eli. Her cousin was about to die because Lily had wanted answers about a family that didn’t even know or care that she existed.
Lily realized her error. She saw how terribly awful she must have seemed to her entire family. How could she have thought that it was okay to put them through this for her selfish reasons?
Wave after wave of regret washed over Lily as she watched the sparks float into the sky and the flames grow larger. She was helpless, watching, as the fire grew into an enormous monster that would take her friend’s life away from her.
“Help me, God. Help Emilia. You are the only one who can save her now,” she cried out desperately to the sky.
Chapter 33
Derek spotted the smoke despite the fact that the sun had just risen. At first, he thought that it might just be someone starting a fire to make their breakfast, but as it grew in size, he realized that it wasn’t a natural fire.
He had seen no sign of Lily or Emilia so far. He wasn’t sure if it might be them or not. He didn’t really expect it to be. After all, they’d had such a head start on him that they would likely be in Eagleton by now, if no one had mugged them on the road.
He had stayed late into the afternoon at the Carsons’ ranch the day before, waiting for Emilia to show up. When he had decided to go looking for her, he went into town and started asking around. By the time he’d found the owner to the candle shop, it had been near the middle of the night.
The woman had been most helpful, and from what she had told him, Derek was almost certain that Emilia had gone after Lily alone. It was a terrible decision, but he was able to understand why she would do it. He would have done the same for George.
When he had passed by his house for some supplies, he had found her note. The terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that had formed when he had read her words still hadn’t gone away.
He had been at the Carsons’ farm waiting for her when she had needed his help. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that he was going now and that was what was important, but he knew that the time that he had left her alone might be the difference between her making it home safely or not.
Keeping his eye on the plume of smoke that rose steadily into the sky, he urged his horse to go a little faster. He was a good third of the way to Eagleton and while he hated to turn off of the main road, by the look of that smoke, he wouldn’t be surprised if someone needed his help.
As he grew closer, he was able to hear someone calling for help. He wasn’t positive, but he was fairly certain it was Lily’s voice who was calling out. His heart fluttered and his blood went ice cold. If Lily was calling for help, was she with Emilia? Did Emilia need help?
He dug his heels into his horse’s side and barreled as quickly as he could toward the sound. As the smoke came into view, he realized it was what was left of a cabin that was now burning to the ground. Lily was standing beside it, looking as if she wanted to go back in, her hands clutching her hair as she watched the burning building crumble.
Derek leaped off his horse and ran towards her. “Lily! Where’s Emilia? Is she here with you?” Derek hoped that Lily would say no.
He hoped to heaven that Emilia was not in that cabin, but what he feared became reality as Lily turned towards him.
Tears stained her face and a look of horror was in her eyes. “Sh-she’s in there. A beam fell on her leg. It’s too hot!”
Derek’s body reacted before his thoughts could finish processing. He rushed toward the window that Lily pointed to. Repelled by the extreme heat, he looked around the clearing for something that could help him. His eyes landed on an old pump a few feet away.
He grabbed the handle and pumped it up and down frantically, hoping there was water in the well below. At first, the handle squealed in protest and an empty groan was the only result, but then he heard the sound of water gurgling in the pipe.
Rusty orange water spurted from the iron spout into the old cracked trough positioned below it. He ran to his horse and pulled the blanket hastily from behind his saddle, then plunged it into the water, getting it wet.
He wrapped the wet blanket around himself and bolted to the window. He grabbed the windowsill and swung over it into the house, almost falling as he hastily entered the burning cabin. It wasn’t hard to spot her. Emilia was right there near the window, in a small clearing below the hole in the roof. The fire seemed to be in a ring around her, as if held back by some invisible force. Her location was probably the only reason she was still alive, if she was at all.
The heat engulfed him, and he felt as if his skin was burning off under his clothes.
He brought Emilia’s sweet face, smiling at him, to his mind to keep himself going, pushing against the pain.
Her eyes were closed and her mouth was in a calm smile, as if she had accepted the fact that she wouldn’t be making it up from under that beam. Derek hurried to her side, touching her neck. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. He fought tears of his own as he thought of losing her.
He hurried to put his shoulder under the beam. It took all of his effort and then some. He shoved and, with a grunt, managed to push the beam off of her. He wasn’t sure if it was because some of it had burned away or if it was the frantic energy rushing through him that allowed him to lift something so heavy.
He scooped Emilia up into his arms. She was lighter than he thought she would be. She fit against him perfectly, her peaceful face resting against his chest and her unmoving lips looking as if they would open and speak to him at any moment. Her face was red from the heat, as if she had a bad sunburn.
Derek managed to get them both through the window in an awkward way, first her and then himself. Once they were outside, he picked her up once more and carried her a good distance away from the cabin to the grass. Just as they reached a safe distance, the last of the roof fell, sending up a huge cloud of flames and sparks as the fire claimed what was left of the cabin.
Derek laid Emilia down gently on the ground, smoothing her hair back from her face. She looked so calm, as if she were taking a rest on a Sunday afternoon. Only the black smudges betrayed the fact that she had barely escaped the raging fire.
“Emilia, wake up.” Derek’s voice trembled as he took her hand.
“Is she…?” Lily asked, from a few feet away. She sat on her knees as if she had no strength to stand. Derek knew what she was trying to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish her sentence.
He looked up at her quickly and then back at Emilia. She couldn’t be. She just couldn’t be dead. He placed his hand gently against her chest, right below her neck, and breathed a sigh of relief as it moved up and down. She was breathing—just barely, but she was indeed breathing.
Derek let out a puff of air mixed with a chuckle. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. He wasn’t sure when the last time he had felt this way had been. He didn’t know how to react. The sheer joy of knowing that she had a chance to pull through overwhelmed him.
“She’s alive. My goodness, she’s alive. Get some water from my canteen,” Derek instructed.
Lily hurried to follow his direction and brought over the canteen. Derek lifted Emilia’s head and poured a bit of water into his hand, which he wiped gently across her face.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to go in after her, I really did. I just couldn’t. I tried…” Lily was crying and trying to talk at the same time.
“It’s not your fault. I understand.”
“She saved me. She pushed me out, and because of me, she got trapped in there. Is she going to be all right? This is all my fault.” Lily’s tears continued to stream down her cheeks as she sat down nearby.
“I think she is going to be all right. I got to her in time. She wouldn’t want you blaming yourself like that, okay?” Derek gave Lily a stern look. He needed her to be strong. They needed to get Emilia back to town to see the doctor.
A bit o
f blood was on her dress where the beam had been. Derek was certain that her leg was going to take some time to heal. There were some burns on her dress, too, a couple on her arms and one on her waist.
Derek knew that while Emilia was alive, she was most certainly hurt, probably quite badly.
He scolded himself yet again for not arriving sooner. He began to examine every single part of the day before. He was angry at himself for every second of time he’d wasted wasted that might have helped him arrived faster, should he have saved it.
He stared down at Emilia’s face, realizing just how much she meant to him. He didn’t know when it had happened, exactly. Maybe it had just grown slowly, as he’d gotten to know her. But he really loved her. The feeling of almost seeing her die in that fire had made him see just how much he cared for her.
The idea of losing her, of never seeing her again, nearly ripped his heart from his chest. He needed to protect her, he needed her in his life. As soon as she woke up, he planned to tell her just that.
Derek took in a ragged breath. He had come so close to losing everything today. He had almost lost his second chance at love and life. If he had gotten there too late, if Emilia had died in that fire, he never would have been able to forgive himself, and he wasn’t sure he would have been able to keep living life the same.
He reached out and pushed a strand of her soft hair behind her ear to join the others. He still wasn’t sure she would be completely all right, but he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that she was.
Chapter 34
The feeling of fresh cool water on her lips jerked Emilia to wakefulness. She looked up to see the one person that she had least expected to see. For a moment, she wondered if she really had died and was dreaming before she went on to heaven.
Derek was there, looking down at her as if he was depending on her to wake up.
“Derek?” she whispered. The effort of speaking felt as if the fire that had been consuming the cabin was inside her throat, and she was quickly overtaken by a fit of coughing.
“Shh, don’t worry about talking. Just relax. I’m really glad you’re awake.” His voice was thick with emotion, and it sounded as if he meant every single word.
Emilia smiled. For a moment, she forgot the words he had told her back at his ranch. For a moment, she forgot every single thing she’d been thinking about him since she had seen him the day before.
“Are you really here?” she croaked, her voice full of wonder. Why had he come? He had sounded so sure that he wasn’t going to. “What changed your mind?”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I have come? I saw your note and I came right away. I’m sorry it took so long. I actually went into town looking for you, I couldn’t believe that you set out alone to find Lily. Do you know how dangerous that was?”
Emilia nodded and a giggle almost escaped her throat. It would have, if her throat wasn’t in so much pain. She felt miserable and giddy all at the same time. “I know it was dangerous, but there was no one else. You said you wouldn’t come.”
“What do you mean, I said I wouldn’t come? Why wouldn’t I come?”
Emilia was surprised to see confusion on Derek’s face. “You said you were going home to Ohio and that Janie was going with you.” The words hurt to say just as much emotionally as they did physically. The coldness she’d seen in Derek’s eyes when they had spoken the day before still haunted her.
“I don’t know what you are talking about—” Derek stopped and realization suddenly dawned on him. Emilia could see it happening in his eyes. “Oh, Luke.”
“What? What about him?” Emilia remembered his twin, the one he had told her about. She wasn’t sure what he had to do with what she was talking about, or with what Derek had said he was going to do.
“You must have spoken with Luke. I am so sorry, Emilia. That’s what I was coming to tell you when I went to look for you at the Carsons’ ranch. I wanted to tell you everything, about Luke, about how I feel…” Derek stopped and took a big breath. “Luke has been in town for a little while.”
“What? Why is he here? I don’t understand. Are you saying he was the one I talked to yesterday?” Emilia wasn’t sure if she could believe him. She wanted to, she really did, but a small part of her brain was telling her not to. The cautious part, the part that didn’t want to believe that someone like Derek really did care about her enough to come after her and make sure she was all right.
“Yes, he came into town to convince me to go back home and help him and my father with a new business venture. When I refused, he said that he was going to convince me to come by making me lose you. I told him that would never happen, and I wanted to come to find you to tell you, in case you spoke with him.”
It made a lot of sense. Suddenly, Emilia realized why Derek had seemed like a completely different person. He had been a different person. The man she had spoken to outside of his ranch the other day had been the same one who had teased her about her father in front of everyone at the gathering back in Ohio. How had she not noticed that sooner?
Guilt for not realizing that Derek would never treat her that way washed over her. She felt silly now. She should have realized that it wasn’t Derek. “I-I thought that it was you. You—I mean, him, he said such terrible things. And he looks like you, except he seems like he is filled with hate.” A tear of relief escaped Emilia’s eye as she remembered some of the words that she had thought were from Derek. Even thinking of them broke her heart.
She had been avoiding dwelling on them, locking them up while she focused on Lily, but now that was all over. She was safe from the fire, Lily would be coming back home, and here was Derek, telling her that it had all been a misunderstanding. She couldn’t have been more relieved.
“Emilia, whatever he told you, it wasn’t true. My brother would say anything to hurt you because he thinks that will hurt me. I am sorry that you had to go through that.”
Emilia shook her head as she sat up, “I’m just glad it wasn’t you… I thought you didn’t care about Lily, or me.”
“I care about Lily, but I really care about you, Emilia. I love you.” Derek looked at her with a sincerity that made her heart ache.
She felt as if she couldn’t be happier. All the pain that she had felt when Derek hadn’t expressed his feelings to her when she had admitted hers to him disappeared.
“When I found out where you had gone… I thought I might lose you. It drove me crazy to know that you were in danger and there was nothing I could do. I came as fast as I could. I just had to make sure you were safe and bring you back home again.”
Emilia smiled. “Thank you for coming for me. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have made it out of that fire alive.”
Derek shook his head and looked at her somberly. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Emilia, I really don’t. I know that after yesterday and that day when you told me how you felt at my house, I don’t deserve another second of your time, but I have something to ask you.”
Emilia didn’t break her eye contact with Derek as he spoke. It was almost surreal to have him here in front of her. It felt as if she was dreaming the perfect dream.
“What is it?”
“Emilia, will you marry me? I know I don’t deserve you. No man does, but all I am asking is that you give me a chance to show you how much I love you, and to take care of you as long as we both live.”
Emilia couldn’t contain the grin that spread across her face. She knew that she had been so negative with both her sister and Lily about marriage, but suddenly, she understood that feeling they so eagerly sought.
“Yes! Yes, Derek. I’ll marry you.” She felt such peace and happiness as she said it, and as Derek wrapped his arms around her in a quick embrace. She couldn’t stop smiling. “I don’t know what else to say.”
An Enduring Love to Heal Her: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 25