Wild Western Women Boxed Set

by Kirsten Osbourne

  “The dear angels have already gone home for the day, but we can practice tomorrow afternoon, right before the pageant,” she finished, turning back to the shepherds and to Mark.

  Mark wore a look of such concern for her that Eve felt a lump come to her throat.

  “Children, you all look wonderful,” he said. “If you would just take off your costumes and give them to Mrs. McGee and Mrs. Turner, then you are free to go.”

  A swell of young excitement and pent-up energy releasing sounded from the children. They dashed away from their places on the chancel, some ripping off their costumes as they fled, much to Sadie’s distress. Sadie marched into the group of scurrying children, shaking her head. Her disapproving frown turned on Eve as well.

  Eve walked away from it. She had enough censure on her hands already. There was more proof that it would be better for everyone if she left.

  Amelia stood strong as a mountain at the back of the church, her face flushed and twisted in a frown. Eve drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Mark was busy helping the children. The bulk of the parents were wrangling their young ones into winter coats, hats, and mittens. She had to tell Amelia about her decision to leave while she could.

  Two steps down the aisle and Eve wasn’t so sure confronting her sister was a good idea. Amelia saw her approach and tensed. One hand on her belly, she marched up the aisle to meet Eve, like two outlaws about to have a standoff. Eve’s hands shook as though the scene they played was about to go terribly wrong.

  “Mrs. Quinlan!” Rebecca Turner stepped into the aisle between them, two of her young children hugging her sides. “What a pleasure to see you back here. Isn’t the pageant looking wonderful? Your sister is such a delight.”

  Eve and Amelia paused about ten feet away from each other.

  “Thank you, Rebecca,” Eve said, doing her best to work the fear out of her expression. Rebecca Turner was one of the most mild-mannered women she’d met in Cold Springs, a woman with tragedy in her own past. She was no one to fear.

  “Thank you,” Amelia echoed. Her voice was tight.

  “Is that you, Amelia?” another woman, Mabel Twitchel, approached them. She went to stand by Amelia, hugging her from the side. “I agree with Rebecca. Your sister is a delight. And so good with the children. I keep telling her that she must come out to the ranch for tea before she leaves, don’t you think?”

  “Eve might not be leaving after all,” Amelia said, jaw tense.

  “Is that true?” Rebecca asked, smiling.

  “I, uh….”

  A rush of shame flooded through Eve. She turned to glance to the front of the church where Mark was now helping gather props. He met her searching with a smile that faded too soon.

  “Indeed, I may be leaving,” she said, turning back to the women. “Sooner than I had planned.”

  “Oh.” Both Mabel and Rebecca radiated disappointment.

  Amelia’s scowl tightened, so much Eve was tempted to think she was in pain.

  “You simply must stay, my dear,” Mabel said. “The ideas you have had for the pageant are second to none. Imagine what else you could do.”

  “Yes, so many people would be so sad to see you go,” Rebecca agreed. A shy, mischievous grin filled her eyes as she glanced to the front of the church.

  Eve didn’t need to turn around to know she was looking at Mark.

  “Apparently my sister thinks she has more wild oats to sew rather than settling down near her family.” Amelia’s sharp comment stung like a whip.

  At the same time, there was something deeper to the jab. Amelia couldn’t want her to stay, could she?

  “I have no wild oats left,” she laughed. It was harder to play the role of carefree wanderer now than it ever had been. “I want nothing more to settle down, but I don’t think everyone would approve.”

  “Nonsense,” Mabel scoffed. “Who wouldn’t approve?”

  “You never know.” Eve smiled her fake smile at Amelia.

  Amelia blinked through her frown. “I never said—”

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” Eve interrupted, “there’s more work to be done.”

  She spun away from the group, unable to bear the argument anymore. If she could just make it through cleaning up and find some quiet corner to plan her escape….

  “Eve, wait!” Amelia called after her.

  Eve froze, heart hammering up to her throat. The church bustled with activity around her, but everyone was gathering their things to go home. She was on the verge of tears and loneliness once more.

  She forced herself to turn back to Amelia with a smile nonetheless.

  “Don’t walk away from me.” Amelia approached her slowly.

  “Why not? Isn’t that what you want? To see the back of your harlot sister?” Eve replied before she could think better of it.

  Color flooded to Amelia’s pale face. “I was upset this morning,” she said. “Shocked, if I’m being honest.”

  “Yes, well, what you saw this morning is none of your business,” Eve said, keeping her voice down.

  “I know!”

  Amelia’s forceful reply threw Eve off-balance. She stood still, no idea whether to stand up for herself or run.

  “Heaven only knows I’m not perfect,” Amelia went on. “You certainly aren’t either, but Mark Andrews is. What would have happened if someone else had come to your door this morning? You can’t conduct a liaison in Cold Springs they way you would in London.”

  “Is that it?” Eve whispered, beginning to tremble with anger. “You came here with all these lovely people around, all these children, to tell me that Mark is too good for me?”

  “No!” Amelia blinked, taken aback. “No, Mark is precisely the kind of man that I have always hoped you would find.”

  “Well, it certainly doesn’t seem like it from where I’m standing.”

  Eve twisted to march away from her sister only to charge right into Mark’s broad chest. He caught her as she gasped. The heat of his body and strength in his arms made her feel more solid, but still not up to the ache threatening to swallow her.

  “Amelia,” he greeted, turning Eve to face her sister again and holding her there, hands on her shoulders. “It’s good to see you here. You’re looking a little out of sorts.”

  “I came to talk to Eve,” Amelia said.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Eve is under the impression that she has to leave Cold Springs because of your argument.”

  Eve gasped. How could he? She tried to twist out of his grip, but he held her fast.

  “She what?” Amelia’s mouth stayed open, incredulous.

  “It’s for the best,” Eve said, uncertainty quivering in her gut.

  “No, it is not,” Mark said. “Amelia, I’m hoping you can convince her of that too.” He was so calm, so unflappable, as if nothing untoward had happened earlier. He should have been on the stage instead of her. “Why don’t the two of you come into my apartment and sit down.”

  “I don’t know if Amelia wants to,” Eve muttered.

  “I would love to sit down,” Amelia said, angry eyes fixed on Eve.

  Eve felt Mark relax beside her. “Come through this way,” he said.

  It would end in tears. Any sort of confrontation like the one Mark was forcing would end in tears, but Eve was pulled along nonetheless. Mark gestured for them to follow him through a row of pews to the door leading to his office.

  A few of the departing townspeople watched them curiously. The church was still humming with the last activity of the rehearsal. The children seemed as eager to be gone as Eve was. Families were bundling together and heading for home. Rebecca smiled and nodded to her as she shuffled her bunch out the door. Sadie, on the other hand, frowned as Eve and Mark and Amelia walked through the emptying church and into the office.

  There was a second door at the far end of the room. Mark opened it and showed them through to a parlor with simple, mismatched furniture and a cheery fire in the fireplace. It was the first time Eve had seen M
ark’s home. The cozy plainness of it was exactly like him. She could breathe in a space like this.

  At least she could have if Amelia hadn’t been there, radiating tension.

  “This is unnecessary and pointless,” Eve said as reasonably as she could once she and Amelia were seated on the room’s small sofa.

  “Oh, I think it’s very necessary,” Mark countered with more passion than he had displayed in the church. “And the point is that I love you and want to spend my life with you.”

  Eve blew out a breath, all her fight going with it. She could see in his eyes that he knew she wanted to stay.

  Amelia was harder to convince. “Can you both honestly say after just over one week that you are in love and not merely infatuated?” She winced and writhed to make herself comfortable on the small sofa.

  “Yes,” Mark answered. “I can.” He crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow at Eve, demanding her answer.

  “I….” Eve swallowed. Her heart thundered against her ribs. “Yes. I am truly in love.” She bowed her head at the admission. It should have brought her joy, but instead it carried with it nothing but heartache.

  Amelia grimaced. She tried to swallow a pained grunt. Something wasn’t right. Eve glanced up at her, brow furrowed.

  “Amelia, are you sure you’re all—”

  “Because I know you too well,” Amelia cut her off, expression pinched. “I know how flighty and changeable you can be.”

  Eve snapped her mouth shut. Whatever deeper concern she had for her sister was pushed aside by indignation.

  “If you can say that, then you don’t know me at all,” she protested. “You haven’t known anything about me for the past two years.”

  “Because you no longer tell me!” Amelia seemed to latch onto the renewed burst of conflict between them and cling to it. “You used to confide in me, but now you tell me nothing.”

  Eve worked her jaw, searching for something to say. “You’ve been so far away. How could I confide in you with just a letter?”

  “That’s not the point.” Amelia sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Amelia, are you sure you’re well?” Mark interrupted. He shifted his weight, shoulders tense as if waiting for something to fall.

  “I’m fine,” Amelia snapped. “I just want this whole thing to be over. I want you, Eve, to come to your senses and come home.”

  “So you can glare at me every time we meet? So you can rain disapproval on me at every turn?” Eve fired back. She stood from the sofa and stepped close to Mark’s side. “Face it, Amelia, you don’t really want me here.”

  “I invited you out to the ranch and you refused.” Amelia said. “You refused, not me. Two years, Eve, and then here you were, at last, but you stayed away. It broke my heart.”

  “Your heart?” The pain bubbled back to Eve’s surface. “You didn’t even bother to tell me you were having a baby. Is that the kind of thing you hide from family? I don’t know if you even consider me to be family anymore.”

  “Of course I do!”

  “How can I believe that when you’ve shown nothing but disappointment and distain for everything I’ve done since I stepped off the train?”

  “You bedded the town reverend after knowing him for a week,” Amelia protested.

  “That was last night,” Eve countered. “You’ve been very clear about just how much you hate me well before that.”

  “I do not hate you! I love you, Eve.”

  “You left me, Amelia. You do not leave someone if you love them!”

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the hypocrisy of her comment hit her. She glanced to Mark, then squeezed her eyes shut and turned away.

  “I don’t want you to make the same mistake I made,” Amelia said at last. “That includes running away from family when they need you.”

  “But you don’t need me. You’ve made that clear.”

  “Of course I need you.” There were equal parts anger and pleading in Amelia’s voice. “If you had told me about your feelings earlier, if you had shared even a little about your life, I could have counseled you in the right direction. You wouldn’t have seduced a blameless man.”

  “I am far from blameless.” Mark shook his head.

  “You’re my sister, Eve. I love you, but you won’t tell me anything about your life,” Amelia went on. “I have all these letters from you, but not one of them says a thing.”

  “Because you don’t want to know,” Eve said. “You have your perfect life and your perfect family. You don’t want to know what I’ve been through.”

  “Yes, I do!”

  Amelia pushed herself to stand. The pain on her face was vivid now.

  The anger that tried so hard to stay at the front of Eve’s emotions began to slip away into concern. “Amelia, are you—”

  “Do you think so little of me that you would assume I wouldn’t even try to put myself in your shoes?” Amelia asked.

  A lump shot to Eve’s throat. “I don’t want you to put yourself in my shoes,” she said. “No one should understand what I went through.”

  Mark leaned closer to her, touching her arm.

  “I’m your sister,” Amelia sighed. “That’s all I ever wanted to be, all I—”

  She stopped speaking with a gasp and sank to sit on the sofa again.

  “You aren’t well, are you?” Mark rushed forward and knelt in front of Amelia, touching her forehead and taking her hand.

  “I’m in labor,” Amelia confessed. She burst into tears. “It started an hour or so ago. Eric took Darcy home this morning because he had work to do. I was with Charlie at the store this afternoon, but she went home too. I came here to find you because… because I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You can’t be in labor!” Eve gasped. Panic eclipsed every other emotion in her chest. She backed away from the sofa.

  “I assure you, I can.” Amelia snapped in return. She groaned and clutched her stomach.

  Eve wrung her hands, dizzy with fear. “What can I do? Tell me what to do.”

  “I don’t know,” Amelia gasped. “When Darcy was born, everything happened so fast.”

  “It was quick. Fastest I’ve ever heard of a baby coming.” Mark nodded in agreement. He stood. “Sadie McGee was just here for the pageant. I’ll go see if I can catch her. She’ll know what to do.”

  “Thank you,” Amelia said.

  “Will you be all right until then?” he asked.

  “I… I think so,” Amelia said.

  Mark touched her shoulder, then headed for the door. Eve caught him in the doorway.

  “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded, eyes wide and heart hammering. “Don’t leave me alone with her, please!”

  Mark gripped her upper arms. “You will be all right,” he told her, confident enough that she almost believed him.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I won’t. Amelia hates me, you heard her. And… and what if she dies? Women die in labor. And the baby….” She swallowed her own memories as they bubbled up like bile, the screaming and the pain, the sense of hopelessness that had come so close to destroying her. “I can’t face it, Mark, I can’t.”

  “You can,” he assured her. He kissed her forehead. “You can do anything you put your mind to. You’re The Indomitable Lady Eve.”

  Of all things, his pronouncement made her break into tears. He believed in her. She had to find strength in that.

  “I’ll be quick,” he went on. “Stay here with your sister. Help her.”

  It felt like letting go of a ledge at the top of a precipice to step back from Mark and turn to face Amelia. Her sister was sweating and her face was screwed up in pain.

  Her sister was in pain.

  She took a deep breath and turned back to Mark. “Go,” she whispered. “Find help.”

  “I will.”

  He kissed her one more time, then dashed out of the room. Eve wiped the tears from her eyes and forced her shoulders square. She had to do this. She had to fight her own nightmares
and pain. Amelia may hate her, but she needed help.

  Chapter Nine

  Mark rushed through the empty church and out into the cold December evening without a coat. Night may have been falling over Montana, but a dawn of promise was on the horizon. Sadie McGee must still be nearby. She and Angus lived in town, after all. Plenty of folks were still out and about, running last-minute errands or on their way home for supper. He dodged through them, gathering strange looks from his parishioners as he searched for Sadie.

  “Where’s the fire, Reverend?” Mr. Upshaw asked when Mark nearly bowled him over.

  “Did Sadie McGee come this way?” he asked instead of answering.

  “She’s right over there.” Mr. Upshaw pointed toward the juncture of Silver Avenue and Main Street. “Everything all right?”

  Sadie and Angus were crossing the street several yards away. Relief rippled through Mark.

  “It will be,” he said and shot off at a run.

  “Sadie!” he called as Sadie and Angus stepped up onto the row of covered porches along Main Street.

  Sadie turned to squint at him in the growing dark. Her eyebrows flew up when she recognized him. “Reverend, whatever are you doing running around without a coat?”

  Mark skidded to a stop in front of the porch. “Amelia Quinlan is in labor. She’s at my house,” he said through great, gulping breaths.

  “Land sakes,” Sadie cursed. “I knew that girl didn’t look right when she came to the church. Well hurry up. What are we waiting for?” She stepped off the porch and began to march back to the church. “Angus, run home and fetch my things and bring them to the church.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Angus said.

  “Could you send someone out to the Quinlan ranch to fetch Eric while you’re at it?” Mark added.

  “Will do, Reverend.”

  Angus headed off on his errands as Mark rushed with Sadie back to the church. A few heads turned as they hurried past people on their way home, but Mark was beyond caring what his parishioners thought of him. As he and Sadie dashed into the quiet, empty church, he could feel the warmth of a whole new life just waiting to be born, a life that had been a long time coming. It went far, far beyond Amelia and Eric’s baby.