Angel's Embrace

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “I can’t thank you enough,” he murmured awkwardly, “so I’ll just have to stay safe and come back, soon as I can. I—I’d better get my things together now.”

  Why did doing the right thing make some people mad at him and other people worry more than he was worth? Billy couldn’t figure that out. But Missouri beckoned him as surely as he knew the trip would cost him. Maybe more than he could afford to give, or to lose.

  But when he glanced back at the faces in the kitchen, he knew for sure he was loved.

  And that counted for everything, didn’t it?

  Chapter Eight

  Eve dozed on the small bed by her window, where a breeze came in from the river. Keeping up a good front had exhausted her, but she’d sent that Clark girl packing, hadn’t she? And she’d scored points with Billy’s mother by letting her hold the baby, which was certainly no sacrifice! Lord, but that little girl was wearing her out—more now than before she was born. How could she be expected to tote her around, and feed her, and look after her constantly?

  She slipped into slumber, relieved because Olivia was sleeping, too. In her mind she saw a handsome redheaded man, tall and strong and smiling at her—telling her she was pretty without having to say the words.

  She smiled and settled deeper into the feather mattress. Was it Billy or Wes? Those blue eyes belonged to a Bristol, that was for sure! In her fantasy, Eve didn’t really care who the young man was. He was complimenting her: He would see to her needs—sweep her off her feet—because she was fiery and alive, not because she had a baby. In her dream, she could forget she had a child. She smiled invitingly at the young man, luring him in for the kiss that tickled her lips with anticipation.

  A loud howl made her jump. Just when the man of her fantasy was holding her close, that damn kid started to cry! Eve stayed still on the bed, determined that this child would not dictate her every move or get attention at every little turn!

  Get used to it, Olivia, she silently advised the bawling baby. Life can bring you pain and heartache at every turn.

  Still the baby howled, an amazing racket considering how tiny and delicate everyone said she was. With a disgusted sigh, Eve turned her back to the infant, determined to have her way.

  On and on the infant squalled, while Eve clenched her eyes shut, cursing this baby who’d turned her life upside down.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs and then someone bustled into the bedroom. “Come here, sugar pie,” a low voice murmured. Then came more endearments and a quiet lullaby. Still the baby wailed.

  Eve didn’t move. The melodious voice belonged to Temple Gates, and if it hadn’t been for Olivia’s hissy fit, it would’ve lulled Eve back to sleep.

  Then the crying was directly behind her. She felt the weight of a glare.

  “Miss Eve, you’re not sleeping,” Temple stated. “Your baby won’t stop crying until you feed her. Only a mother who doesn’t love her child would let it keep crying.”

  “No darkie’s going to tell me what’s best for me or my baby!” Eve retorted. She twisted around to glare at the young woman with the chocolate skin and eyes with a shine like hot coffee. “So you’d best resume your rightful place as—”

  “It doesn’t work that way in this home, Miss Eve.” Temple’s gaze didn’t waver. “The Malloys have put me in charge of everyone who’s not an adult. If you count yourself among that number, you won’t get far in this household, because—”

  “I really don’t give a damn, Temple! I didn’t ask for your charity!” she said tiredly. “Michael, Asa, and Billy brought me here. I am a guest, and I insist you treat me like one!”

  “You are the mother of this angel sent to you by God—”

  “Enough of that holier-than-thou claptrap, too! Take that baby if you like her so much, just as the Malloys have taken in the others! I have no—”

  Temple swayed from side to side to quiet Olivia, but her eyes took on a determined look. “I was younger than you, missy, when a white overseer on a Georgia plantation had his way with me,” she began, and her expression warned Eve not to interrupt.

  “He nearly killed me taking his pleasure. Said if I told anyone about it, my brother and his wife would be turned out—or shot while I watched. Whichever he was of a mind to do.

  “So I kept my mouth shut. I know what you’ve suffered at the hands of a man who used you, Miss Eve,” Temple continued in a tight voice. “But I also know the pain of having my baby taken from me, stillborn after all those months of carrying. I nearly died along with it, from an infection, and I owe Asa, and Mercy and Mike Malloy my life. It was Christine’s mother-in-law who called in the angels to save me, and—”

  “Christine’s married?” Finally, information she could latch onto!

  “Yes, ma’am. She and Tucker live out in San Francisco now, so we don’t see nearly enough of her twins, Rachel and Rebecca.” Temple sighed, smiling. “She’s carrying again, too, or she’d have come for her brother’s wedding. But that’s neither here nor there. And this is your baby. Feed her!”

  When Temple thrust the infant at Eve, the wailing became unbearable again. Gritting her teeth against another retort—for what recourse did she have in this house full of do-gooders?—Eve unbuttoned the loose, faded calico dress.

  Temple Gates had the nerve to stand there watching, as though she longed to feed the baby. Probably she was thinking of her own child. But that sad story wasn’t going to soften her, not Eve Massena who had a life to live and vengeance to wreak upon the man who’d ruined it!

  The tug of milk through her breast still astounded her, but the baby’s stillness was her real reward.

  “Go on now,” she muttered. “You’ve told me what to do. You’ve gotten your way. Maybe you think I should be grateful for this ugly dress and your uninvited advice, but I am not! Go tend your other sheep, Temple. Leave me be!”

  Half an hour later, Olivia lay in her bassinet, smacking her little lips. The Harte wagon had pulled away. Male voices and barking dogs told Eve the horses were being tended. Delectable scents of baked ham and biscuits drifted up to her room.

  Eve’s stomach rumbled traitorously. The cookie she’d eaten in the parlor was long gone, and though she hated being beholden to these people—didn’t want to spar with Billy anymore—her hunger won out.

  Down the stairs she went, quietly, so as not to startle the baby. On the landing, she checked to be sure her dress was properly buttoned, smoothed her hair, and widened her eyes in pretended penitence. No doubt Temple had reported her unmotherly attitude, and these Malloys didn’t seem to know that mere servants had no right to irritate houseguests! Best to remain cordial, regain her strength, and plan from there. . . .

  But in the dining room sat Mercy Malloy with an open box on the table in front of her. The blond girl who’d sung in the church and the dark-eyed daughter with the tousled curls sat on either side of her. The hush in that room—the shining eyes of the girls—warned Eve not to enter. She stood silently, peeking in at them.

  “Here’s a picture of your daddy, Solace,” Mercy was saying to the younger, darker one. “I want you to have this for your room. His name was Judd Monroe, and he was so excited that you were going to be born.”

  “So where is he?” the girl asked. She gazed at the photograph, gripping it between her sturdy hands.

  “He died in an Indian attack, over on the other homestead,” Mercy replied with a hitch in her voice. “Someday soon we’ll visit his grave. He would have loved the tiger lilies blooming along the back fence, so we’ll take him some.”

  “He looks like . . . me,” came the awed reply.

  “Yes, he does, honey. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Judd, when I look at you. You have the shape of his brows, and his thick, wavy hair, and his dark eyes and skin tone—”

  “May I see him?” the blonde whispered.

  Solace solemnly handed over the picture, pleased yet pensive about the face it framed.

  “He looks like a really nice daddy
,” Lily remarked wistfully.

  “He was. He took Billy and Christine in without batting an eye, when Michael stopped the stagecoach at our house, looking for their mother.”

  “The Mrs. Harte who was here?”

  “She was Mrs. Bristol then,” Mercy clarified, “and she . . . well, she was very sad and upset after the war. Not thinking straight—like I wasn’t after I lost Judd—and she did some unfortunate things.”

  “But now she’s crazy for little Olivia!” Lily said. Her face lit up and so did her sister’s, but as she handed back Solace’s picture she cleared her throat.

  “So what about my daddy?” she asked hesitantly. “Billy says you found me in a basket, on the stoop, and nobody knows who left me there.”

  “It was a mystery,” Mercy agreed, reaching over to stroke the girl’s golden ringlets, “but we knew right away that you were a blessing! Prettiest little thing—like a baby doll all dressed in pink, with a sweetness about you that made everyone want to spoil you.”

  Lily giggled in spite of her concerns, watching Mercy take a folded paper from the box on the table. Her dress, a confection of rose taffeta, still gave her the air of a fragile china doll, Eve noted from the door. And though she was clearly the queen of this young brood, she wasn’t at all bratty about it.

  “This note was pinned to your little dress, honey. You should have it now,” her mama said softly. “None of us understood why anyone would abandon you—and we don’t know why your father’s never returned—but we hope God has eased his pain. We thank him every day for the joy you’ve blessed our lives with, Miss Lily. We’ve always loved you, and you’ll always be our daughter, and a child of God.”

  Eve wiped away a stray tear. What she wouldn’t give to have someone speak to her so tenderly! She couldn’t recall Mother making time for her, or telling her she was special, or loved, even when she was little. She’d secretly wondered if she was really Florence and Leland Massena’s natural-born child, for it often seemed her parents had resented her presence.

  Just like you detest being tied down by Olivia!

  The voice in her head struck like thunder and Eve covered her gasp. Her heart beat wildly and her knees quaked beneath the calico dress.

  She sucked in air, focusing again on the scene at the table to calm herself. Lily was gazing raptly at the note, as though trying to know her absentee father by his penmanship and turn of phrase.

  “What’s it say?” Solace demanded eagerly. “Read it to me, Lily!”

  The willowy blonde smiled at her sturdy sibling as though she were accustomed to these outbursts. “It says, ‘My name is Lily, and I am eight months old,’” she began in a low voice. “‘My mama has died, and my papa can’t take me where he needs to go. He has visited you before, and he believes you are an angel of mercy who will care for me until he can return. He’s a man of great wealth and influence, and will repay you a thousandfold for your kindness. God bless you for opening your heart and home to me.’”

  Eve blinked. What an odd note for a father to pin to a baby girl! Judging by Lily’s size and behavior, she had to be at least ten or eleven. Why hadn’t that presumptuous man returned, as he’d promised?

  Solace and Lily also wore confused expressions as they pondered the message. Mercy Malloy, seated between them and taking each girl’s hand, waited patiently for their questions. The glow from the sunset, reflected in the window, caught the shine of her upswept sorrel hair, almost like a halo.

  Don’t go thinking that way! Eve’s thoughts warned her. Nobody can be as saintly as that note lets on! The man was desperate and—

  “So did he leave you a lot of money in the basket, too?” Solace piped up. “If he’s rich, will Lily ride away in a fine carriage someday, to live in his mansion?”

  “Has he been here?” Lily quizzed without missing a beat. “If he knew who you were—that you would care for me without question—it must true that he’d met you before!”

  Mercy put on the careful smile of a mother who wasn’t sure how to respond. “We had those same questions, sweetheart,” she replied, as though she was going back in time, trying to solve the riddle that day had brought them. “You see, when the stagecoaches came through several times a week, Judd provided fresh teams of Morgan horses—”

  “Just like we raise now!” Solace chirped.

  “Yes, dear, it was your father who started that business, at the other house, when we first came to Kansas as homesteaders,” Mercy confirmed. “We had strangers at our door—and at our table—from all over the country, because I cooked meals when the stagecoaches arrived. Passengers crowded into the little front room of that log house and ate in such a hurry, to keep their schedule, that we barely got a good look at them before they were gone.”

  Mercy smiled at this recollection, reaching for Lily’s hand. “And as the cattle drives began, we attracted buyers for Judd’s fine horses. We don’t know which one might’ve been your father, Lily, but we were so grateful that he entrusted you to us. Billy and Christine were here by then, and Aunt Agatha had come for Solace’s baptism, and Michael—”

  A flush colored her face, and Mercy glowed like a young girl. “Well, Michael was trying very hard to get me to marry him. But I’d just lost Judd the September before, and I wasn’t ready for that.”

  Solace stared into space, and then blinked. “So you had four children, but no father for any of them?”

  “That’s how it worked out, yes—although Christine was going to Aunt Agatha’s academy by then. So it was just Billy and Asa and me, to tend the horses and meals for stage passengers—and you two!”

  She tweaked their noses to bring this serious conversation to a close, as footsteps and voices were coming through the kitchen door. “If you need to talk about these things—if you have questions—be sure to ask your daddy or me anything that’s on your minds. I know it gets confusing, wondering who Lily’s father is, or what your father was like, Solace.”

  The girls nodded, each holding their treasures. As they stood up, Lily licked her lips thoughtfully. “So you met Michael when he was driving stagecoaches, and he wanted to marry you because you had the two of us girls?”

  “Nah!” Solace teased. “It’s because Mama was so pretty—and she cooked good!”

  Mercy’s laughter filled the room like the light from the window. “You girls were a big draw, because he was crazy about you both—love at first sight, it was. And by then Joel’s mother had been shot, too. Michael felt we’d all be happier if we were a family. So he kept asking me to marry him.”

  “Did he kiss you a lot?” Solace teased.

  “Every chance I got, little girl!” Michael Malloy swooped in with a grin on his face, grabbing a giggly Solace with one arm and slipping the other around Mercy’s waist. “And you know what? She still makes me kiss her lot! Just like this!”

  Eve’s heart throbbed at the sight: that handsome man, somewhat younger than Mercy, pressing his lips to hers with an eager affection she returned. Their eyes closed and they hid nothing of their love for each other—it was more than she could watch. It was what she’d longed to share with Wesley Bristol, but that relationship was never going to work out like the pretty scenes she saw in her mind . . . or the scene she’d witnessed here. Her parents had never kissed, as far as she knew.

  Eve turned toward the stairway, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping. She’d seen enough to know she couldn’t possibly stay here: She couldn’t stand so much happiness. People who praised each other and loved so openly—why, they would drive her crazy with their displays of joy and affection! And Eve knew life really wasn’t that way.

  “Please come back! We’re ready to have some supper now!”

  She froze with her foot on the first step. Etiquette demanded she acknowledge Mercy’s invitation—and the fact that she’d been spying.

  Pasting on a smile, Eve gripped the newel post to steady herself. “I—I thought I heard Olivia crying. I’ll be down with her in a little while. Please,
don’t hold up your meal on my account.”

  Mercy’s deep brown eyes took her in; saw right through her little ruse, yet she nodded. “Take your time with her, dear. You’re welcome to whatever you need, whenever you’re hungry. Ask and you shall receive!”

  That settled it! Eve smiled sweetly, but once out of sight, she scowled. “Sanctimonious do-gooders,” she muttered as she entered her room. “Can’t even invite you to eat without tacking a Bible verse on it!”

  The invitation wasn’t wasted, however.

  Late that night, when the house was silent, Eve slipped down the stairs barefoot and into the kitchen. Ravenous, she tore into the last quarter of a cherry pie, wrapped in a clean towel on the table. Then she folded the towel around the half loaf of bread in the bread box, and rifled quietly through the kitchen cabinets. After snagging cookies from the jar and some soda crackers, she spied a small box with money it.

  Enough to get a few things at the mercantile, she reasoned. And to reclaim the poor old horse and buckboard that had brought her here from Richmond.

  She sniffed wistfully at the lingering scent of bacon. With a last look around the big kitchen, homey and peaceful in the shadows, Eve Massena put on her shoes. Best to be down the road before that baby woke everyone up.

  Chapter Nine

  Billy set out early the next morning, shaking his head as he mounted his gelding, Pete. Why did girls think they could just take off, alone? Unaware of the dangers and distance they faced.

  At least when his sister had pulled this stunt—twice!—she’d stolen a reliable horse. Eve Massena was on foot, and he had no trouble imagining how he’d find her: sprawled on the side of the road, bawling over blisters from walking in borrowed shoes. Or worse yet, passed out from not eating enough. He knew she was still weak from birthing the baby she’d abandoned.