Choices of the Heart

by Daniels, Julia

  He leaned forward and kissed her nose.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Last night, I wasn’t so certain.”

  “I looked that bad, huh?”

  “That’s an understatement.” He stood. “Now that I’ve spilled my guts, I reckon I oughta go call your boss. He said he wanted to know when you woke up. I’ll want him to check out the baby now, too. A baby, Chloe!”

  She chuckled. “When you stopped using a sheath, you should have known what would come out of it.” She laughed again. “Don’t be gone too long.”

  Chloe snuggled deeper into the pillows and closed her eyes. Finally, the man admitted his true feelings. Finally! And he’d been happier about the baby than she’d expected. She thought he would be overwhelmed and worried. Seven children! Instead, he was as thrilled as she was.

  She let herself drift back off to sleep, so happy Reese finally lost his stubbornness and accepted her love and offered his in return. She hoped the nightmare was over and they could look forward to a busy, but happy future together.

  ~*~

  When Chloe awoke again, the sun was high in the sky outside the window. She turned to her side, to see if Reese was still sitting watch by the bed, but instead found herself gazing at Dr. Babcock’s smiling face. She stretched her arms above her head. “What a mess I am, eh?”

  “You looked a lot better at the clinic on Friday when you stopped by for your check, that’s for darn certain.”

  “Golly, thanks.”

  He chuckled and hopped up from the chair. “Your husband said you had a restful night. Do you know what day it is?”

  “Sunday. September 26, 1920.”

  “Let me have a look at your eyes. Having any trouble seeing?”

  “Except for the left eye being so swollen? No. I can see just fine.”

  “Pain?”

  “My jaw. It’s making a clicking noise, too.”

  He shifted it slightly, and she felt a pop but it didn’t hurt. “Try it now.”

  “Ah, much better,” she told him.

  “Dislocated,” he said. He raised his brows and asked, “Your husband tells me you have something internally to talk with me about?”

  She chuckled. “You could say that.” She flushed. “I’m pregnant!”

  “Well now, congratulations!” He smiled. “Chloe, I wonder if you know how much that man loves you?”

  “Did he say something?”

  “He didn’t have to.” Dr. Babcock laughed. “He was so overwrought when I got here. In a state of shock. He was so upset, I actually thought he’d done the beating.”

  “He’d never touch me that way,” she said.

  “I know that. I sure hope someday I find a woman who makes me feel that way.”

  “You will.” Chloe assured him. “But promise me when you do, you won’t let her get away. Reese and I lost years together.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He winked. “Now, how about let me check out how that baby is growing inside you?”

  After Dr. Babcock left her, with good news about the baby, Chloe thought about what he’d said about Reese. She imagined if the situation had been reversed, with him lying on the floor all bloody, she would have reacted much the same way as he had, even with her nurse’s training.

  She decided it was time for her to get out of bed, to stand up and change from the ripped and battered dress and into something clean. She paused at the edge of the bed and took a deep breath, knowing that even though she wasn’t dizzy at the moment, the world could spin in an instant.

  Her head was clear, and as soon as she got a cotton nightdress on, and her robe, she walked to the bedroom door, carefully holding on to the wall for support. She heard Reese’s voice but no one else’s and figured he had to be on the telephone. She listened, waiting for him to be done so he could help her down the stairs.

  “So where are you going to look today?”

  She waited for more.

  “I can’t believe you let him get away, Lowell.”

  Were they talking about Pa? She crumpled on the top stair, suddenly feeling very light-headed and panicked.

  “I’ll stay with her. You just worry about finding him. No, I won’t do anything stupid. I got the chores done until tonight. I’ll stay by her, make sure she’s safe.” There was another pause. “I have a few. I hope I won’t need to use one.”

  A gun?

  “You call me when you find him.”

  When she heard the phone planted back on the hook, she called out to Reese.

  “You’re up!” He stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. “You’ve got some color back in your cheeks.”

  “I feel all right. Sick of being in bed.” She stood carefully, holding on to the banister.

  “I still think you should be in bed.” He met her at the top of the stairs and placed an arm around her waist.

  “Who were you on the phone with?”

  “Now don’t you worry about that, sweetheart. You just concentrate on getting well.”

  “Who was it, Reese?”

  They made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “Lowell.”

  “And?” She turned toward him, still holding on.

  “They haven’t found him yet, Chloe.”

  The bastard was hiding, but she knew where he would be.

  “Would you call Lowell back, please?” She slumped onto one of the kitchen chairs. “I know where the bastard hides.”

  Reese studied her closely but did as she asked. He lifted the telephone receiver and asked Myrtle to connect him to Lowell again.

  “Lowell, you need to come out to the house,” he said, after a moment’s silence. “Chloe thinks she knows where you can find Gus.” After a grunt, he hung up the telephone and turned back to her. “Are you going to show him, or are you able to simply tell him where to go?”

  “I’ll have to show him,” Chloe spoke up from her place at the table. “Guess I need to get dressed after all. Back upstairs I go.”

  He lifted her from her chair, cradling her in his arms. “Allow me, Mrs. Lloyd.” He kissed her softly on the lips.

  “I could get used to this.” She giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I could get used to hearing that every day, too.” She snuggled against him as he climbed the stairs to their bedroom.

  ~*~

  The sight of her father hanging limp and lifeless from the big oak tree where Reese and Chloe had once carved their initials would stick in the back of her mind forever. A just end for an evil man.

  Chloe had known right where to find him. The moonshine shack wasn’t a mile from his house, but hidden as it was, under the deep underbrush of the overgrown canopy of trees, she knew Lowell and Ben wouldn’t find it by themselves, even given perfect directions. That had been Pa’s intent for the illegal distillery. Reese might have known where to look, but so much time had passed since either of them had been out there, she’d doubted it.

  Chloe felt a supreme sense of justice had been served when, days later, she watched her pa’s casket being lowered into the ground, under that great big oak tree where he killed himself. Instead of her dear mama being buried in the backyard, like Pa had wanted, here he was getting thrown in unblessed ground. Served the bastard right.

  “May he burn in hell,” Chloe whispered.

  The two men from the funeral parlor gave her their condolences, and soon she and Reese were the only people left there to say goodbye. A suicide wasn’t given a proper Catholic funeral; he could only be buried in unhallowed ground. She wouldn’t have done anything better for him, anyway. Let the gossipmongers in Broken Bow talk; she was done protecting the Brandt name. Chloe wondered if he really had killed himself. To her, it looked more like a lynching. Either way, he would no longer be a menace to her or anyone else in Broken Bow.

  “Ready to go home, Chloe Anne?”

  “Wait just a minute.”
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br />   She walked closer to the towering oak tree and leaned forward, tracing the heart Reese had carved years earlier, with both of their initials inside. “I think we’ll need to do an updated one, Reese.”

  He laughed. “I even have a pocket knife.”

  He got to work carving through the bark of the tree and soon a C.L. and R.L. was done. The heart was a little harder to carve out but he did it in no time. Pa didn’t deserve a grave marker, but Chloe and Reese deserved all the best the future could bring them.

  “Perfect,” she declared.

  He stepped back and agreed with a nod.

  “At Daisy’s funeral, Mrs. Rowen told me I needed to find someone or something that made my heart sing.” She turned away from the tree and wrapped herself in Reese’s arms. “Not only do you do that, Reese Lloyd, but you’ve actually carved a spot in my heart so deep that nothing—not time or distance—has ever been or ever will be able to erase it.”

  “Aren’t we lucky, though”—he pulled her close—“that we don’t have to fight time or distance? I love you, Chloe Anne. I always have, and I always will.”

  He kissed her and then took her hand and led her away from the past and back to their home, their family and the future they would carve out in the small town of Broken Bow.