Love in Troubled Times

by Gayle Riley

Chapter 10

  Six months sounds like a long time, but it passes quickly when your life is happy. So much happens in a short time. Damien is set to open his third fitness club in the state. Athletes are pouring in to use the rehab facilities that Jonas oversees. Mike is finished with his novel and is allowing Emma to edit it. She is finding that the leading lady is a lot like herself. Emma plans to have a heart to heart talk with Mike about that. Emma is now the senior editor for the publishing company.

  Today Emma is bouncing as she walks along the street. She is so excited she can barely hold back a shout. It is going to be hard to hold back her spectacular news until after tomorrow. But for Jonas and Damien, she is going to do it. Tomorrow is their day and she refuses to take the spotlight off of them.

  Emma’s phone rings and it is Jonas, “Emma have you picked up your suit yet? Does it fit? It has to be perfect. I can’t believe this is actually happening. A year ago, I never would have imagined getting married and certainly not to a man.”

  Emma breaks in to Jonas’ tirade with, “Calm down. I’m on my way to the apartment. The suit is beautiful and fits perfectly. The wedding will be perfect. Damien will make sure of that. And as far as not imagining yourself getting married a year ago, it’s because Damien hadn’t appeared to sweep you off your feet. This year has brought many changes for all of us. Some strange, but lots of good ones.”

  Emma stops to buy coffee for her and Jonas. It seems he needs the caffeine. She climbs into the car, looks into the mirror, and smiles at her reflection. Her skin is clear and glowing with health. She looks ten years younger and happy. Life is getting better all the time.

  The morning of the wedding arrives. Emma is dressed in a lovely burgundy pant suit. It is soft and flows over her curves gently. It is her job today to play the part of best man or lady if you want to be technical. Since it is her crisis over turning forty that brought Damien and Jonas together, it is fitting that she stands at their side as they get married. She reaches up to straighten Jonas’s tie and he whispers, “Are you sorry for having sex with me that day at the lake house?”

  Emma is happy to wipe the worry from his face by truthfully replying, “I’m not even a little bit sorry. It was wonderful and it set into motion many other wonderful things. If it hadn’t happened our lives might be very different right now. But, it happened and four people are happier because of it. Let it go and enjoy your future.”

  It is time to take her place at Damien and Jonas’ side. Emma winks at Mike, who is sitting up front as part of the families. Mike is Emma’s husband now. Their whirlwind romance and marriage serves as a fine example for Damien and Jonas. Love is definitely in the air. As the men recite their vows, Emma is beaming.

  Emma cries as she watches the couple share the first dance of their marriage. Her emotions are on a roller coaster ride. She is proud and happy for her boys, in love with Mike, and shockingly horny. It is definitely the hormone surges that the doctor warned her about.

  Emma dances the night away with Mike, Damien and Jonas. She looks up at the sky and says a silent, hope you are watching this, to Jonas’s dad. A star overhead twinkles extra brightly. It appears Emma’s words are heard. She blows a kiss and searches out her new husband.

  The reception winds down and people line up to watch the newlyweds leave for their honeymoon. Emma hugs Jonas and kisses his cheek. She pulls Damien in for his hug and whispers her secret into his ear. A single tear rolls from Damien’s eye and he hugs Emma tighter. He whispers back, “I’ll tell Jonas as soon as we get in the car. He will be ecstatic. I’m so happy for all of us. We found our forever loves. See you soon.”

  Emma and Mike supervise the cleanup crew. Emma is exhausted and ready to go home. Mike is worried as he peers into her tired eyes. He brings the car around so she doesn’t have to walk far. His worry escalates when Emma falls asleep in the car. The drive to the lake house is a long one and Emma sleeps the entire way. Mike reluctantly wakes her when they arrive. She apologizes profusely for falling asleep, especially since there is something important she needs to tell Mike. Mike insists she make herself comfortable on the couch while he fixes them some tea. He is terrified of what she may have to tell him. Mike remembers losing his first wife and prays he isn’t going to lose Emma too.

  Mike brings in the tea. Emma is curled up on the couch, wrapped in the blanket. She sees fear in his face and quickly kisses him and says, “I didn’t mean to cause you any anxiety. I’m just so happy that I didn’t even consider you might think my important news was bad. Let’s see if I can put a smile on your face. I’m pregnant!”

  THE END

  Bonus 6 of 30

  Truth and Pretenses

  Description

  Lucy and Will became stepsiblings when their parents married each other years ago. Despite living under the same roof, they never had the bond that normal brother and sisters have. Lucy grows up and becomes the town’s school teacher while Will becomes a cowboy on a ranch. Their paths should never cross but one fateful night Lucy finds Will standing outside her door and everything changes. For the first time in her life, Lucy is seeing Will as someone other than her stepbrother and it terrifies her and exhilarates her at the same time. When danger seems to be following Will, can Lucy walk away and keep herself on the straight and narrow? Or will her love for Will throw her into something more than she can handle? Sometimes desperate situations show a person’s true colors and Lucy will have no choice but to rise and meet her faith or lose everything that she holds dear.

  Chapter 1

  Lucy remembered her mother being kind. She’d hug her tightly when she was proud and she’d always be there to wipe the tears away. Her mother had been kind but she hadn’t been soft. She had left comfortable New England to travel out west and honored her husband by following his dreams. They’d dealt with terrible traveling conditions, savage natives and starting from scratch. Many didn’t go to Texas because they simply couldn’t handle the journey, let alone the wilderness. Lucy’s parents had done it and for as long as she could remember, they had thrived.

  Just as she remembered her mother’s character, she remembered the exact moment that she knew her mother was dying. She’d just turned thirteen; pale and thin from a harsh winter and a bout of fever. They’d all had it but the difference had been that Lucy, her father and her younger sister had bounced back. Her mother hadn’t.

  She remembered her mother weakly grabbing her hand while the rest of her family sat vigil around the bed. “Your father will need you, even after he takes a new wife.”

  That was when it hit Lucy, that what had tried to take everyone else in her family had finally succeeded in snatching up her mother and was squeezing every last bit of life from her.

  Lucy was fourteen when her father finally remarried and Will came into her life. His mother was a widow, her husband killed by Native American hands. He’d been a ranch hand murdered on a cattle drive.

  Her father and stepmother’s marriage was one of convenience really. Mary needed a father figure for her three sons and Lucy’s father knew she was too young to run a household by herself. They didn’t court, Lucy knew that there was no love between them when they first got together. The town had merely put two lonely people together and it had worked.

  It probably couldn’t have been a smoother transition. Mary was quiet and didn’t place any rules on Lucy and her younger sister, Grace. The boys were helpful and there were rarely fights. Honestly, Lucy didn’t consider Will, Abraham and Caleb her brothers because they didn’t act like siblings. They merely coexisted.

  That was nearly ten years ago. Mary and Lucy’s father lived on their farm alone, even Caleb the youngest no longer lived at home. Lucy lived in a boarding house closer to the center of town as she was the teacher for the one-room schoolhouse that she could see from her window. She was bordering “old maid” territory but she didn’t care too much. She was far too busy changing lives and trying to make her way in the world to worry about being married. It was also a
n agreement in her town that the schoolmarm was pure and virtuous and therefore she remained single. Lucy only felt regretful when she thought about the others. Grace had been married off the moment she turned eighteen and already had three children. Abraham and his wife had one. Even young Caleb had a wife. The only one who was unmatched like herself was Will.

  Will knew by the age of seven that he wanted to be a cowboy like his father and by fifteen when their families became one he was already well on his way. He rode a horse like he was born on one and was helping ranch hands nearly the entire time they’d lived under the same roof. Will had no home because he was almost always on a run or sleeping in the barn at various ranches all over, some as far as a hundred miles away. Lucy knew that his mother worried about him, she didn’t want him to see the same fate as his father. Will could not be reasoned with because not only was he good at being a cowboy, he was also very confident and stubborn to a fault.

  “Miss Thompson.”

  Lucy was brought back to her senses when one of her first-grade students named Ruth called her name. The child had stayed behind because she was struggling with her arithmetic. Her fair freckled face looked at her concerned.

  “I’m so sorry Ruth,” Lucy apologized. “I suddenly lost myself in thought.”

  The little girl looked relieved. “Thank goodness, I thought something was wrong.”

  They resumed their math lesson without further daydreams and Lucy sent the little girl home feeling happy that she had helped her understand subtraction better. Situations like that gave her the conviction that she had made the correct choice. She was meant to be a teacher.

  After washing up and having a bowl of soup down with the other tenants, Lucy retired to her room to do some planning for her lessons tomorrow and read a while before she went to bed. She’d recently purchased a romance and had to force herself to go to bed. Maybe she herself wasn’t in love, but it was still nice to escape to a place where someone one was.

  In what seemed like no time at all, her room was dark and her candle had burned down to a small stub. She could barely see the words on the pages in the dim glow. Admitting defeat, Lucy shut her book and blew out the candle. Images of lovers trying to find their happily ever after danced through her mind as she nestled herself under the covers.

  She was just about to fall asleep when there was an urgent knocking at her door. At first, Lucy thought that she was imagining it. The tapping grew louder and louder until she knew that it was very much in the now and if she didn’t answer it the other tenants on her floor would get angry.

  As Lucy rose from the bed and threw a shawl over her shoulders, she tried to figure out who would be trying to wake her in the middle of the night. Her room was small so her family often did not visit. Had one of the tenants found themselves in some sort of distress? Had they gotten locked out of their room?

  “Coming!” Lucy hissed as she groped in the dark for a new candle and fumbled as she tried to light it. When she finally had a small flame she dashed to the door and unlocked it. She couldn’t believe who was on the other side of it.

  It was Will.

  Chapter 2

  Even though they hadn’t been close, Lucy still recognized Will’s dark blonde hair and his broad shoulders. He was panting heavily and his eyes were wrenched shut, clearly in pain. Lucy surveyed his body and discovered in the poor light that he was holding his side with his hands and the shirt beneath them was stained with a dark liquid. Was that blood? What had on Earth was going on?”

  Lucy scanned the hallway, seeing if her neighbors had been woken by the noise before she yanked Will by the elbow into her room. If anyone saw her shut the door behind them, they would make assumptions and her job would be in jeopardy, but she knew that she couldn’t leave him standing in the doorway.

  “What happened?” she hissed. “What are you doing here?”

  Will continued to hyperventilate as he tried to form words. “I…I…got hit.”

  Now that she was closer to him she could see the shaft of the arrow sticking out of his side. “Jesus Christ, Will!” Lucy said. She gingerly guided him to the bed. “You need a doctor! What are you expecting me to do?”

  “I needed a place to hide,” he retorted. “I don’t think this was a random incident with an Indian. I think this was planned.”

  “So stay with Mary and Father!” Lucy bit back trying to not raise her point to the point of penetrating the walls of her room. “Even though you are my stepbrother I could get in serious trouble for having you here over night! I’m the school teacher, I’m supposed to be virtuous and pure!”

  “If what I think is happening is true the first place these people would look is with our parents. You want them to be harmed too?”

  The silence that followed after that stung. Lucy couldn’t disagree. Whatever was happening didn’t need any more victims. “What trouble have you gotten yourself into?” she whispered before she moved to her dresser and pulled out a washcloth and wet it in the large bowl she kept on top of it.

  “I’ll tell you after we get this arrow head out of me,” Will replied.

  Lucy tried to keep calm as he explained what she needed to do. She was to cut a hole around the wound and then she would pull on the shaft as hard as she could. “It’s the only way to try to get it out without lodging it in me forever,” Will explained. Lucy looked at him like he was insane before he told her to reach into his pocket. She found a knife there and she held it in her trembling hands, looking at her stepbrother’s angry side.

  “I’m sorry.” She whispered as she brought the tip of the knife to his flesh. She resigned herself before she penetrated his skin.

  ***

  What felt like an eternity later, the bloodied arrow was on her dresser and the water in her bowl was tinted red. Will lay on top of her covers in and out of sleep. He’d screamed so much, she couldn’t believe that no one had kicked her door down thinking she was doing something scandalous.

  She was exhausted. Lucy knew that in a few short hours, the sun would rise and she would need to head to the school house. There was no way that she could sleep now. Will needed a doctor. Each time she wiped at his wound with a fresh cloth, she knew what they had done was only a temporary solution. He could get an infection, he could die. They might not have close, but Will was still her stepbrother. She didn’t want him to die. She would never be able to forgive herself.

  “Hey,” Lucy jumped when he suddenly stirred, his voice weak. “I promised I would tell you the trouble I’m in.”

  “That’s okay,” Lucky tried to assure, “You rest.”

  The man shook his head, “I owe it to you.” He paused collecting his thoughts in his incoherent state. “My boss, the ranch owner…you wouldn’t know him. He…He offered me a partnership. The rest of the hands are mad. I think they might want me dead.”

  “That’s awful Will. Being a cowboy seems like a dangerous job.”

  He smiled as he eyes began to close, his long eyelashes something that Lucy had never noticed before. “I have no regrets. Much more exciting than teaching kids how to read.”

  Lucy ignored his comment and cleaned his wound one more time. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to surprise the shit out of them when I show up alive.”

  By the time Lucy found an old piece of fabric she could use to dress the wound, he was sleeping again. Despite the situation, Lucy found herself smiling. In all the years that had passed Will’s drive to be like his father hadn’t changed. In fact, they had almost met the same demise. She tried to carefully tie the cloth around his middle when once more Will opened his eyes, this time only slightly. He shocked her when he placed one of his hands over hers. Lucy tried not to flinch or panic. They’d never touched before, they’d never even hugged as children.

  “I always thought you were pretty,” he murmured obviously more asleep than awake. “Does that make me a creep?”

  Lucy stared him dumbfounded. Was he being serious? They barely s
poke to each another when they lived at home and now he was telling her that she was pretty? She watched his eyes flutter closed as sleep consumed him one last time. Lucy slid to the ground beside her bed, never in a million years expecting the night to have played out like it had. There were so many unanswered questions. How was she going to explain her blood-stained wash cloths when she went to wash them? How was she going to sneak Will out or get the doctor to see him without people assuming the worst? How on Earth was she going to teach twenty-five students as young as five and as old as seventeen after having a sleepless night?

  Lucy tried to find strength in herself. She had saved Will’s life tonight. She felt important because for whatever reason, he’d decided to come to her and not anyone else. She thought of what he had just said to her and tried to reassess their relationship. Maybe they had been closer than she thought? Or maybe she was so tired and shocked that she didn’t know what to think anymore.

  She reached up for his hand and gently cupped her hand in his. “I always thought you were handsome,” she whispered into the night. “Does that make me a creep too?” More so, she thought, does it make me unfit to be the town’s school teacher?

  Chapter 3

  Somehow, she wasn’t sure how, but Lucy got Will out of her room and to the doctor without anyone in the boarding house becoming wiser. Feeling like the walking dead, she threw the dirty water out of her window and took all her spoiled rags and brought them down to the basement where they had a hearth to heat the boarding house and burned them. It felt overly dramatic, but it was easier to explain than why a bleeding man came and visited her in the middle of the night.

  The days that followed returned to normal. She taught the children reading, math and the history of their young nation, tutored those that needed extra help and then returned to the boarding house to keep to herself before she went to sleep. It was boring and just like she liked it.