“Chance.”
If there ever was a tone that marked trouble coming, that was it.
“Yes?”
She just looked at him.
Apprehension zinged through his body, and he rubbed his palms together in an attempt to disperse his runaway thoughts. What could possibly be wrong with a trip into town?
“I—” she said, looking like she might be sick. “I need to tell you something.”
Words no man wants to hear. He braced himself. All right, he was up to hearing whatever she had to say. Being her husband, it was his place to be tolerant, and not jump to conclusions. What was this about? He couldn’t imagine.
“Best just to get it out quick, Evie. I feel my barometer getting hot with all the things I’m thinking.”
She righted the basket and started to put back the few things that had rolled out.
He took her hands. “Tell me, Evie. You don’t have to be frightened.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t go to town with you because I need to go back to Ina’s tomorrow.” She stopped, he was sure, to let her words sink in. They were back to that again? Hayden? He’d thought they’d laid that subject to rest.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t cook a thing. Ina is teaching me.”
He was so surprised to hear her answer, the meaning didn’t quite register. He’d prepared himself to hear a heartbreaking story of how she’d fallen in love with Hayden. Something along the lines of inadvertent love at first sight. She just couldn’t go on another moment pretending differently, and so on. He shook his head, as if that would make his mind work.
“I wasn’t truthful with you in our letters. I let you go on thinking I could cook—but I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Relief flooded his soul. He felt like shouting hallelujah and doing a cartwheel at the same time. Instead he wrapped Evie in his arms and lowered her to the blanket, kissing her passionately. She tasted salty and warm. Her breathing quickened. His galloped off. Leaving her lips, he kissed a trail up to her ear, and was rewarded with a throaty sigh of encouragement. If he didn’t bridle his desires, they might just put on a show for all of nature to see.
She pushed at his chest. “Chance. Did you hear what I said?”
“I did, darlin’.” He pulled her up to a sitting position. By her tone, this was important to her. He didn’t care if she couldn’t cook a lick. That was the least of his worries. He’d teach her himself. He’d be happy to do it as long as she stuck around, making him the luckiest, happiest husband in all of Montana. He wasn’t quite sure of how he felt about her spending another whole day at the Klinkners’, within easy reach of Hayden, but maybe it was time for him to trust his wife. Believe her words of love and commitment. “I’m listening. I don’t see what the big worry is.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope.”
“But you were so angry the last time I spent a day there. What’s changed your mind?”
“You.”
She just stared at him.
“I guess it’s time I shared some things with you. I have a few ghosts hauntin’ me now and then. I can’t tell you I’ll always be this agreeable, but right now nothing could upset me.” He could feel his face blooming warm, and his heart started its tom-tom beating against his ribs. He’d never shared his feelings with anyone. He swallowed. Telling her would be harder than he’d thought.
“When I was just a boy, my ma left us. Didn’t say why, just up and drove our wagon into town, then took the stage out. She never looked back. Pa told me she couldn’t take the solitary life of living so far from a community. We were in Texas at the time.”
Evie’s expression showed her sorrow.
He didn’t want her pity. All he wanted was her love and commitment. For her to be his wife and the mother to the children he hoped would soon arrive. “Don’t feel sad, sweetheart. I’m only sharing now so you can understand why I was such a horse’s hind end the other day about Hayden. I know he can offer you more than I ever could. Money. A house in town. A life closer to what you’re used to. I wouldn’t have been able to bear that. The day you went to the drop box, I thought you’d left me like my ma did.”
Evie launched into his arms, pushing him down. She embraced him so tightly he wondered where her strength came from. Her voice, clogged with emotion, was shaky when she whispered, “I’ll never leave you, Chance. I love you more than the earth and the sky and all the stars. Never doubt that.”
Her sweet words salved his tattered heart. Taking her face between his palms, he kissed her tenderly, needing to show her just how much she meant to him. “That’s good, sweetheart, because I’ll never let you.”
***
Chance pulled the buckboard to a halt in the ranch yard. The sun had long since gone and the crickets were singing their songs. Sitting in the middle of the seat, Evie slumped against Chance’s side. Dexter sat to her left on the bench, happy to be allowed up front.
Evie’s arms were useless. She’d be lucky if she’d be able to move them at all tomorrow. When the buckboard stopped, she opened her eyes and glanced around.
Chance hopped out of the wagon, and the dog followed suit. Chance took a moment to stretch.
“Here we are, Evie,” he said. He scooped her up and she didn’t resist. Thank heavens her husband was large. Strong. She appreciated that very much at this moment. He set her on her feet before the door.
“What’s this?” he said, his voice tired, too.
There was a note pinned to the wood casing.
He took it and opened the door.
She crossed into the cold house.
“I’ll get a fire started,” he said. “Won’t take long to ward off the chill.”
“Chance. The note?”
He chuckled. Took off his hat and hung it on the peg. They were both in need of a good, long scrub.
“Just teasing. I could tell by the light in your eyes you’re—”
“Chance!”
She looked over his shoulder as he read, “For Evie Davenport Holcomb.” He glanced her way and smiled. He didn’t know a boulder had just dropped in her stomach. “Please come into Y Knot at once. You have a woman caller staying at the hotel. Thank you.”
Chance was still on the word Knot but Evie had finished silently. Was it Trudy? Come to visit after her brokenhearted call for help? Or was it Mrs. Seymour tracking her down for committing mail fraud?”
He put it on the table and went over to the fireplace, intent on starting a fire. “A visitor. Do you know who it could be?”
Evie licked her lips. She wasn’t sure. She had her suspicions, yes; cold, hard facts, no.
“Evie?”
“I think it must be my friend Trudy Flanigan from Sweetwater Springs,” she responded softly.
Chance put some kindling in the hearth and balled up a sheet of old newsprint. Lighting a match and putting it to the paper, he looked her way. “Why? Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you that she’d come calling so soon?”
Yes, it did! Why on earth would she do that? Surely it wasn’t Trudy. But if it wasn’t Trudy, then Evie was in trouble for sure. Was it Mrs. Seymour, with a deputy to arrest her? “It does seem strange. But I think she must be worried about me. I mailed her a letter when I was upset. Thought you didn’t want to be married.” She swallowed down her fear. Prayed it was Trudy.
“Should we go into town tonight?” she asked. “The note said immediately.”
There was no getting around Chance’s finding out the truth now. She hoped he would say no to going into Y Knot now. She wanted one more unspoiled night with him. Enjoy the growing bond they’d established. Share a few more hours in his arms before he thought her a liar and a fraud. Her nerves on edge, she went to the sink to light the stove to heat water for them to wash.
“Tomorrow will be soon enough, sweetheart. You’re worn out and so am I. Besides, it’s late.”
It was true. Her heart shuddered. Maybe too late for me.<
br />
Chapter Thirty
DRESSED IN her pretty yellow dress, Evie wrung the handkerchief she held in her hands as the buckboard rattled along the road to Y Knot. Her nerves were frayed and her mouth as dry as the sand on the road. She’d face her transgressions with a brave heart. Get them out in the open. Clear the air. Thing was, she couldn’t bear the thought of living without Chance. Maybe they wouldn’t take her away. She had no way of knowing what was going to happen. Please let it be the Flanigans. Maybe Trudy’s new husband brought her out on a wedding trip.
“You’re awfully quiet for someone who has a secret guest visiting. I’d think you’d be alive with excitement.”
Chance looked exceptionally handsome in a solid green shirt that made his eyes stand out in his lean, tanned face. Last night, knowing how exhausted she was, he’d massaged her arms and legs, saying how sorry he was for not watching her more closely. After which, they’d made love long into the night.
She’d known this night with Chance might be her last. The thought made the lovemaking bittersweet. To have finally found a love so strong, and a home so perfect, only to lose it now, almost made her cry. He’d asked why she was so pensive. She didn’t have an answer.
“Whoa, now,” he called to the team. He jumped out and went to her side. Within moments, they were in the hotel. Chance asked Miss Hallsey, the hotel clerk, if there was a visitor waiting for his wife.
“Oh, yes,” Miss Hallsey said. The young woman looked at Evie, a smile warming her face. “She’s in room twelve. I’ll go tell her you’ve arrived.”
Panicked, Evie turned and looked up at Chance. Why hadn’t she trusted him? Told him everything when they were alone? Surely it would’ve been better than this.
His brows drew together when he saw her face. “What is it?”
Evie couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering. Her hands felt like ice and she had a sudden urge to run out the door.
“Evie? Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Evelyn?”
The voice came from the top of the stairs. Evie looked up. Mrs. Seymour stood tall and regal, looking exactly the same as she had in St. Louis. Had it been mere weeks ago? It seemed a lifetime.
Chance’s arm came around her shoulders as he drew her close to his side. The room suddenly felt hot, and stale air closed in on her. Before she knew what was happening, everything went black.
***
Chance caught Evie on her way to the floor. He swung her into his arms and clutched her protectively to his chest. Whoever this woman was, he’d not let her hurt his wife.
The woman at the top of the stairs gasped. “Bring her up here and lay her on my bed!”
With Evie in his arms, Chance took the stairs two at a time. The woman opened the door to room twelve and he placed Evie on the colorful quilt covering the bed. As quickly as he could, he unbuttoned the row of tiny buttons that ran the length of her bodice and pulled back the material, giving her room to breathe. Her eyelids began to flutter.
“Evie, dear,” the woman said from the other side of the bed. After Evie’s strange response at seeing this woman, Chance didn’t know what to think. She was too old to be Trudy, her friend. Evie’s mother?
“Evie,” he said, softly rubbing her cheeks. He leaned over her small form, thinking how vulnerable she looked. “Sweetheart, wake up.”
Miss Hallsey stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. “Would you like me to fetch the doctor?”
“A glass of cool water will do fine,” the woman said before Chance could answer. They took stock of each other from opposite sides of the bed.
“Matron?” Evie’s voice came out in a squeak.
Matron? He took in the woman’s straight back and deep-set, serious eyes. A gray swath of hair at her temple ran through the brown. What was Evie saying? Was this stiff-necked female a matron of a prison? The madam of a brothel?
The woman hurried over to Chance’s side of the bed and tried to get close.
But he stood his ground and wouldn’t let her near. It didn’t matter to him what Evie had done in her past life. He loved her and he wasn’t going to let anything hurt her ever again.
“It’s all right, young man,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Seymour. I’ve been Evie’s employer for many years. I wouldn’t hurt her for all the money in the world.”
Employer?
He looked down at Evie, who was regarding him stoically. She struggled to sit.
He helped her up, plumping a pillow behind her back. “What’s going on?”
Evie looked between them as if deciding what to say. “Chance, this is Mrs. Seymour, from the Mail-Order Brides of the West Agency. I haven’t been truthful with—”
Mrs. Seymour put a hand on Evie’s shoulder, stopping her. “Before you say anything, dear, I want you to know I appreciate what you did by leaving payment when you left. However, I had to see you. See that you were happy and cared for—and safe.” She looked up at Chance and nodded, as if he passed muster as Evie’s husband. “I’m more than pleased with my findings. When I return to St. Louis, it will be with a happy heart.”
Her left eyebrow rose and she gave Evie a motherly look. “I wish you would have confided in me, Evelyn. Told me what you were going to do. But I completely understand why you didn’t.”
Evie glanced up at Chance, and when their gazes met, she quickly looked away.
Mrs. Seymour continued, “I can never express how sorry I am that I missed your desire to settle down, to start a family of your own.”
“Ma’am?” Evie whispered.
“Please, let me finish. It’s important that I do. I hope you will understand that it was my wish to spare you any pain, like what your dear mother endured. I should have realized that I couldn’t keep you by my side forever, where I could protect you from the world. It’s just not possible. You must live your destiny, taking whatever it is that comes your way.”
When Chance glanced at Evie, the waves of emotion crossing her face stole his breath. Guilt, relief, sadness, emerging joy.
Turning back to him, Mrs. Seymour smiled, then patted his shoulder. “And now that I’ve met your husband, I see sincerity in his eyes as well as in the letter he sent.”
The softness in the woman’s face made Chance’s face heat. She focused back on Evie as she took a letter from her purse and laid the envelope on the bed next to her. “I hope you will forgive me for opening this, Evelyn, but I was frantic with worry. I would have done anything to find you. Along with your money, which I am returning to you, I have a wedding gift of my own for you both. And also, something your mother asked me to keep for you until you married, or until you turned twenty-five.”
Unable to stay quiet a moment longer, Chance said, “What exactly is going on here, Evie? I’d really like to know.” As her husband he had some rights!
A knock at the door interrupted the scene, and the hotel clerk entered, holding out a glass of water. Mrs. Seymour took it and handed it to Chance. “I’ll wait for you both downstairs.” As she left, taking Miss Hallsey with her, she paused just long enough to say, “I liked the buttercup, Mr. Holcomb. It was a sweet touch.”
He stared at the closed door for a moment before sitting down abruptly on the side of the bed. Several moments passed in silence.
“I’m not the person you think I am, Chance.”
He tried to be patient as she got her thoughts and words together. Truth be told, he was scared to death. “No?”
She shook her head no.
“Who are you then?”
“I’m a…”
She swallowed.
There was only one profession she could have had that would make her look so miserable now, as if telling him would be the hardest thing she’d ever done. In a way, it hurt that she was so reticent. He was her adoring husband, after all, and he thought she understood how much he loved her—no matter what. He’d even told her that.
He pictured her yesterday, working hard next to him in the field. She in her boy clothes and his
too-big hat. No—there was no way he’d believe it. A saloon girl? And if she were, how on earth had she stayed so innocent and naive? A virgin!
“A…”
She looked away.
“Evie!”
“I’m…a maid.”
A maid?
“You know,” she whispered. “Dusting and cleaning and sweeping the floors. Washing windows, picking up stray socks, turning down bedcovers.” She swallowed again. “At the bridal agency—in the big Victorian house in my picture.”
“I thought that belonged to your family.”
She looked at him. “Not exactly. When my mama was young, she was a teacher at a woman’s university in St. Louis. When she found herself with child, Mrs. Seymour and the Colonel took her in and gave her a job. In that house. When she died, I took over.”
Well. That did explain her penchant for clean floors, a tidy kitchen, and everything in its spot. Why would she think being a maid was so horrible?
“All right, darlin’. I don’t care much about that. I don’t understand why you never told me.”
She fussed, trying to swing her legs over the bed. “I’m feeling better now, Chance. I’d like to stand up.”
“You just stay put until you tell me whatever it is that’s making your face so white. I don’t like it one bit.”
“Well, remember at the wedding I said there were things I should have told you?”
“Go on.”
“Well, I snuck your letters without Mrs. Seymour’s permission.” She took the glass he held and gulped down a swallow and placed it back in his hand. “I stole them!” she said forcefully. “I wrote to you, then slipped out under the cover of darkness to travel to you like a thief in the night. Without saying good-bye. Without thanking Mrs. Seymour for all she’d done for me. I’m no better than a cheat and a liar. I don’t know why Mrs. Seymour is being so understanding. It’s a federal offense to take someone’s mail. The sheriff may be on his way right now to—”
Chance belted out a chortle so loud he almost spilled the water.
Evie’s eyes popped open wide. “What in the world is so funny?”
Mail-Order Brides of the West: Evie (McCutcheon) Page 17