Angel's Embrace

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Hard to believe he was leaving them, bound for St. Louis with Agatha Vanderbilt, who’d arranged an apprenticeship with a prominent lawyer there while Gabe continued his schooling. Just thinking about all that book work gave Emma a headache, but Gabe was perfectly suited to the scholarly life.

  “Finished pouting yet?” he teased, halting his horse in front of her. His dog immediately sat down beside Boots, where they both followed the conversation intently.

  “You have no idea—” She swatted at him, but he backed his horse a couple steps, still grinning.

  “I asked because your behavior surprises me,” he continued, arching an eyebrow. “The Emma Clark I know would’ve kicked Billy’s butt to Kingdom Come when he postponed the wedding. It’s not like you to wander off by yourself, when you could be making your displeasure known.”

  She blinked. Sometimes Gabe used such high-and-mighty phrases, in such an eloquent tone of voice, she wasn’t sure when he was insulting her.

  “I like it here at the house. Our house,” she replied. “No point in staying there with Daddy, when he’d constantly remind me of my sorry state of—”

  “For him, cuz, everything’s in a sorry state. I doubt he’ll ever recover from your mother’s death, and I’m sorry he takes out his frustrations on you.”

  Gabe studied her, his brown eyes missing nothing from behind those spectacles. “But you can’t hide forever. I’m going to the Triple M now, so Billy can drive Miss Vanderbilt and me to the train station. I was hoping you’d go with me, since—well, we’ve been like brother and sister for half our lives. I’m excited about going to St. Louis, but I’ll miss you, Emma.”

  His raw emotion caught her by surprise. Her hand fluttered to her mouth, and she swallowed hard to prevent a whole new crying fit. He’d been scared mute—only eight years old—when he’d witnessed the Indian attack that claimed his family. It was Billy Bristol who’d coaxed little Gabe out of his silence by giving them the border collie pups who were still their constant companions.

  To keep from blubbering, Emma sat on the top step to stroke his dog’s soft black coat. “Hattie and I’ll miss you, too, Gabe. We’ll look after each other till you get home again.”

  Those words stuck in her throat: could be, after he got a taste of life in St. Louis, Gabriel Getty wouldn’t return to these Kansas plains. In her excitement and preparations for the wedding, that thought had escaped her.

  Gabe’s brave smile didn’t fool her, either, but she didn’t have the heart to tease him about getting homesick. Now that Mama was gone, and Billy had stood her up, and Gabe was leaving for greener pastures, it seemed the two dogs were the only friends she’d have as she faced certain spinsterhood.

  Boots nudged her sharply. Those keen brown eyes looked into hers as he let out a woof, as though the border collie knew something she didn’t.

  “I think the dogs want to go with us,” Gabe translated. “When I told Hattie I was going away, she acted like she might grab her blanket from the barn and come along. Maybe you’d better accompany us, to be sure these two don’t follow me into town.”

  Emma saw a challenge in his expression that had nothing to do with the dogs—a shine in his eyes and a tilt to his chin, which meant he was thinking way ahead of her. As usual.

  “Why would I want to go to the Malloys’? That girl and her baby are probably the center of attention—”

  “How do you know they haven’t left by now? How do you know Billy’s mother hasn’t shooed them off?”

  There was a thought. Virgilia Bristol Harte manipulated every situation to be sure things worked out for the best where her boy was concerned. Surely she’d seen through Eve Massena’s story. Surely she’d recalled the wrong Eve’s daddy had done her family, and wanted nothing to do with that wanton young woman. Why, Eve’s own mother had put her out! There had to be things the pretty, educated brunette wasn’t telling them—parts of the story she’d left out to make herself look better in Billy’s eyes.

  “Seems to me,” Gabe went on, “that Billy will interpret your absence as a sign you don’t care that he put off the wedding. If you stay here pouting, you might as well let Eve wear that pretty wedding dress, after she coaxes Billy—”

  “Oh, all right!” Emma stood up so suddenly the two dogs sprang away from the steps. “I’ll go so I can give you a proper send-off. And maybe, seeing’s how Billy’ll be sorry you’re leaving us, I’ll take him aside for a little chat.”

  “Catch him in a weak moment, then lay him low!” Gabe’s sorrel curls quivered as he nodded emphatically. “That’s more like it! You can’t let that other girl and her baby steal him away, Emma. I suspect you painted Billy into a corner, as far as persuading him to marry you, but he’s known your feelings for years. You didn’t take him by surprise.”

  Emma glared, planting a hand on her hip. Maybe it was time for her know-it-all cousin to make himself scarce, if he was only going to poke fun at her.

  “That’s between Billy and me,” she snapped, stepping off the porch to fetch her horse. “I guarantee you that when you come home for a visit, it’ll be my baby Billy’s showing off. Eve Massena will be long gone!”

  Chapter Six

  Billy’s throat tightened when he saw his two best friends approaching on the road. Bad enough that the skinny little kid with the big spectacles had shot past them all in school and was now moving to St. Louis: Gabe Getty’s absence meant Emma would have only him to cluck at now . . . and boss. Her blond hair caught the morning sunlight, but he didn’t mistake its glow for a halo.

  Her grim smile told him she had a piece of her mind all primed for him, too. Not that he didn’t deserve it, after asking everyone to leave their wedding.

  Shifting the baby higher on his shoulder, he turned to the delicate, brown-haired girl in the porch swing. “You might want to go inside, Eve. Looks like Emma’s decided to see Gabe off, and I doubt she’ll stop at that.”

  Eve Massena stood slowly, steadying her knees beneath the calico dress Temple Gates had loaned her. The young Negress had also washed her hair and arranged it in a simple upsweep. Her bulk had already subsided to the point she felt civilized again. Almost pretty.

  “You think I can’t handle a betrayed bride?” she asked, her green eyes flashing. “Considering what I went through with Mother and your twin, this’ll be a cakewalk, Billy.”

  He sighed, kissing the baby’s velvet cheek. “Why do I get the feelin’ you’re the only girl who’s not gonna claw me to pieces today?” he whispered against that tiny ear.

  A little arm went around his neck and Billy’s heart swelled six sizes: she was an angel, no matter how she’d come to be born, and the joy this baby brought him—partly because she was a sure sign Wes was alive—made him stand taller. No matter what happened here today, he felt responsible for this little girl. Even if Eve Massena went away.

  And he thought she might—but not until she’d served Emma some piss-and-vinegar punch, to go with the wedding cake Asa had stored in the spring house. Eve Massena was a woman to be reckoned with. And this would be his day of reckoning.

  He tried to swallow the hard lump in his throat: Eve stood beside him on the porch now, slipping her slender hand into his bent elbow as her baby nuzzled his cheek. And Emma, watching from the wagon that stopped a few feet in front of them, looked ready to nail him to the porch pillar.

  “Emma. Gabe,” he said, nodding at each of them. “Miss Vanderbilt’s just about finished her packing. I’ll drive you to—”

  “This has nothing to do with Miss Vanderbilt, and you know it!” Emma spat. Her gaze cut so sharply, his clothes should have been shredded. “Tell this—this hussy to take her brat inside. We need to talk, Billy.”

  Eve sucked in her breath. “I will not have my daughter Olivia slighted in such a way! Apologize this minute!”

  “Olivia?” Billy breathed, instinctively holding the baby closer.

  “This is Olivia Bristol,” Miss Massena continued, narrowing her feline eyes at
Emma, “and she has every right to remain on her Uncle Billy’s shoulder. I must ask you not to offend her again.”

  Emma’s eyes clouded into a dull blue, a storm warning Billy recognized.

  “You said yourself that Wesley ran out before he married you! That makes your baby a bastard in my book—”

  “This is not about Olivia,” Billy chimed in, wishing he could savor the taste of that pretty name instead of bickering. He looked toward Gabe for help, but his best friend simply observed this brewing cat fight from the wagon seat. His long fingers fiddled with the reins.

  Somehow, that helped Billy keep a more patient perspective. He realized then how much he’d miss Gabe in the coming months. Gabriel Getty had the look of a wise man—the ways of a saint—and Billy frowned when he thought about how long it might be before he saw his best friend again.

  “I’ll miss ya, Gabe,” he murmured, and then, below his rolled-up shirtsleeve, he saw the scar like a lightning streak. “Blood brothers since we met, and blood brothers to the end! Bound to avenge the wrongs done to our families after the war.”

  Gabe bared his forearm, too, raising it proudly in that gesture Emma was sick to death of. “Blood brothers to the—”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, boys,” she jeered, “but this seems a mighty odd time to be talkin’ about things from ten years ago, when the real problem is standin’ right here in our midst. Seems to me any banker’s daughter who can paint pictures and—”

  “And how do you know that, Miss Clark?”

  Emma’s eyes widened into steely blue plates, but she recovered quickly. “Why—Billy told me, of course!”

  He blinked. First Eve had made up a name for her baby, and now Emma was spouting off about things he had not told her—things he hadn’t thought about for years. Which meant—

  “You saw my letter!” Eve accused, looking from Billy to Emma. Her face flamed and her fingers cut his arm to the bone. “You told me you never received my letter with the painting of your home place, Billy! But now it’s obvious—”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, I never got no letter!” Even to his prairie ears, the return to his childish grammar sounded crude. “And I sure never got no paintin’ of my home in Richmond, or it’d be framed and hangin’—”

  Emma’s flaming cheeks made his jaw clamp shut. Maybe he hadn’t seen that painting, but only a blind man could miss the guilt that colored Emma Clark’s face.

  “What’d you do with Billy’s letter?” Gabe asked her quietly. “Don’t tell me you—”

  “Nothin’!” Emma squeaked. “I have no idea what letter she’s talkin’ about!”

  Eve exhaled with a hiss akin to a snake’s. “It was a letter I sent last spring, asking Billy if I could come and tell him about Wesley,” she replied in a tight voice. “The envelope also contained a watercolor painting of the Bristol home before the war—before it sank into ruin when Wesley and his gang made it their hideout.”

  Billy’s insides clenched, but this was no time to question what Eve had said about Wes.

  “So instead, you just showed up!” Emma concluded. She stood in the wagon, pointing at Eve. “Somehow you knew Billy and I were getting married—from sticking your nose where it didn’t belong, no doubt! So then you barged in to—to foist that brat on him, and coax him away with talk of his long-lost brother! Oh, I know your tricks, missy!”

  “And I know yours!” Eve crowed.

  The air around them got as still as the plains before a tornado blew up.

  The baby hiccuped and shifted on his shoulder, upset by these escalating voices. Olivia wasn’t the only one who wanted to cry, however. The ache in his heart confirmed what Eve was saying: there had been a letter, with a painting. And Emma had somehow kept it from him.

  His blond bride-to-be was no coward, but this morning he saw abject terror on her face. Those red-rimmed eyes might’ve been crying over a ruined wedding day, but now that Emma Clark had seen pretty Eve Massena, after reading a letter that would’ve been perfectly penned and included a painting of a home worth far more than the Malloys’—far more than the Clarks’ log house—she was scared spitless.

  Afraid of losing him.

  When the baby clung to his neck, he felt Olivia’s birdlike pulse racing against his cheek.

  Suffer the little children to come unto me . . . for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Billy blinked. Had anyone else heard that? The voice resembled Mike Malloy’s—or Judd Monroe’s, from Heaven. Yet when he turned, no one was looking out at them from the doorway.

  It was a sign. And he knew what he must do.

  With a sigh, he gazed at Emma, recalling the stalwart tomboy who’d first welcomed him when he came to Kansas. She’d declared herself his friend from the beginning—and had made no secret of her feelings for him as they grew up. She didn’t deserve what he was about to do to her.

  But Lord, what he wouldn’t give to see that painting of his home before the war—before his daddy was shot dead and his brother was abducted and his mama took off with a huckster.

  Did he deserve Emma’s betrayal?

  Did little Olivia deserve to be a pawn in this nasty predicament?

  At her first cry, he swayed with her, praying for the right words—knowing there were none.

  “I’m sorry, Emma,” he said, his eyes stinging, “but I’m goin’ back to Richmond to find my brother—Olivia’s father. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

  Her mouth puckered into a little O that opened with dismay. “But you can’t—we’ve told everyone the wedding’s on Saturday.”

  “The wedding’s off,” he said quietly.

  Billy pivoted on his heel, freeing himself from Eve’s grip to retreat into the house with a wailing Miss Olivia.

  Chapter Seven

  “Billy, don’t you dare run off! That’s my granddaughter you’ve got!”

  Billy froze in the open doorway. His mother’s voice and the rumble of wagon wheels told him there was no way out: Three females were vying for his attention, and not one of them would leave him be until she had her way!

  A glance into the front parlor made him smile, however: Miss Agatha Vanderbilt, Mercy’s aunt and the headmistress of the Academy for Young Ladies, was standing at the bottom of the stairs beside her steamer trunk. As always, her snowy white hair was pulled into a neat twist, and she was immaculately dressed in a dove-gray traveling suit. Her warm smile fixed a lot of what was wrong right now.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing your confrontation through my window, dear,” she said in a low voice. “Though I’m not surprised you have two pretty young ladies trying to claim you, I believe you’ve chosen the right one.”

  She nodded toward Olivia, who was now snuggling against Billy’s shoulder. The infant’s cries became coos as he rocked her side to side.

  “I’ve always envied your way with babies, Billy. Why, Solace, Lily, and Grace took to you as soon as they laid eyes on you!” she continued with a chuckle. “And Olivia needs you even more than they do. She’s lucky to have you.”

  While these words warmed him, Billy closed his eyes against the baby’s dewy-soft cheek. “But I broke my promise to Emma,” he rasped. “Worse yet, I broke her heart. That’s just not my way—”

  “Between you and me,” Aunt Agatha said in a low voice, “you deserve better than Emma Clark. She’s been your friend for years, that’s true, but I’ve never sensed a—a passion between you. Not like the passion you have for your horses, or for little children.”

  As her piercing eyes held his, Billy realized Gabe Getty would have to be very careful while he roomed in the academy’s guest quarters: Miss Vanderbilt had legendary powers of observation. But then, Gabe had never given anyone a lick of trouble. It was he who found so many ways to upset women.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, “but Mama and Carlton just pulled in, so I’ll ask Michael to drive you into town.”

  “If I don’t get to speak with you again, please accept my best wishes as
you reunite with your brother and visit your former home.” Her brown eyes grew pensive then. “Remember that both of them may have changed as much as you have in the past ten years, Billy. Perhaps not for the better.”

  When she held out her arms, Billy slipped the warm, sweet bundle of baby to her and then trotted through the house and out the kitchen door.

  A loud howl followed him. Thank goodness the three girls had gone out to greet Emma and the Hartes: they could soothe the baby while he took a few moments alone with Mike Malloy.

  Billy slowed to a walk as he approached the corrals. The Triple M’s yearling Morgans nickered, watching young Joel with wide, wary eyes as he worked at getting a halter on each of them. Malloy stood with a foot on the bottom white rail, murmuring encouragement to keep his eleven-year-old son on task.

  “How’s he doin’?” Billy noticed Joel’s improved skills: He’d learned to let the horses come to him, rather than approaching with the halter and expecting them to stand still.

  “He’ll never be the horseman you are, Billy,” Michael replied with a knowing smile. “But he’s giving it a shot.”

  “Well, I—” He nearly choked on the words, but he couldn’t let this man hear his decisions secondhand. Malloy had seen potential in a skinny, abandoned kid, and had eventually put him in charge of the horses’ training.

  When Michael focused those shining hazel eyes on him, Billy knew he’d be leaving a lot behind. Disappointing another important person in his life.

  “I’m goin’ home, Mike,” he rasped. His heart pounded as though he were confessing some awful crime. “I—I just have to see my brother Wesley.”

  “And I’ve known you’d go eventually, ever since Mercy and Judd took you in,” Michael replied. “It’s what God’s had planned for you all along, son.”

  “But that leaves you to tend all the horses, and do the plantin’ and—”

  “Which means Reuben Gates will pull more weight until I can hire another hand,” he said with a shrug. “Joel and Solace will take on more of the chores, and so will I. That was always part of the deal, Billy.”