In church they would squeeze into one of the pews, thankful for the need to sit so close without old Mrs. Dobbins glaring at them disapprovingly. Under the cover of Evie’s full skirt, they would hold hands. When they shared a hymnal for the responsive reading or a hymn, she would look up at him and smile. His heart would beat so fast and hard, he’d have trouble getting out the song. And then as everyone lit a candle and silently filed outside, he would pull Evie away from the others and propose. She would squeal with delight, fling her arms around him, and hand in hand they would hurry to tell their friends the good news.
Yep, it was gonna be just about perfect.
Except it wasn’t.
Colin opened his eyes and took stock of his surroundings. The small room was filled with light—a combination of the snow-covered landscape outside the window and the coming dawn. He was lying on a mattress of quilts on the floor near the hearth and could feel the heat of the fire on his face.
His fever had broken. His breathing had eased. He was weak as a newborn calf, but definitely much improved. He smelled bacon frying and coffee boiling and realized he was hungry. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he rested his back against the foot of the bed—Evie’s bed.
“Evie?” His voice was just above a raspy whisper. He coughed and tried again. “Evie?”
In an instant she was there, spatula in hand, eyes wide with concern.
He grinned up at her. “Happy Christmas,” he managed before a coughing jag that threatened to rip out his insides overwhelmed him. She knelt next to him, her small hand flat on his back as she urged him to lean forward, to breathe. Very professional, except he wanted her tenderness, not her proficiency. He gulped in air.
“Better?”
He nodded, unable to speak. When she made a move to stand, he took hold of her hand. “I’ve missed you, Evie,” he managed.
Slowly she laced her fingers with his, her eyes lowered, her cheeks a rosy pink. In that moment they were the boy and girl lying together in the field—lovers basking in the aftermath of a passion just shared. He reached for her, but she was gone.
“The bacon!” she cried as she ran to the kitchen.
The scent of charred meat and the thick smoke of a small grease fire filled the room. Using the bedpost as leverage, Colin pulled himself to his feet. He was wearing only his long johns. He saw his trousers folded neatly with his shirt on a nearby chair, but when he tried to retrieve them, weakness overcame him, and he was forced to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Evie demanded, setting a tray loaded with food and two steaming cups of coffee on top of a dresser as once again she hurried to his side.
He patted the bed. “Sit, Evie. I’ve got something to say.”
He saw resistance flash across her features, and as usual she ignored his request. Instead she brought the tray to him and handed him a glass. “Drink this down, and then try to eat something.”
He swallowed the gray liquid in the glass, made a face, and reached for the coffee to kill the bitter taste. Meanwhile, she busied herself adding another log to the fire and straightening the covers.
“Evie, will you please stop flitting about and come sit with me?” He held up the second cup she’d left on the tray, and to his relief, she accepted it.
“Eat,” she instructed, wrapping her hands around the sides of the cup to warm them.
He took a bite of a biscuit. “No bacon?” He gave her a teasing smile, and that earned him the first twitch of her mouth.
“I never was much of a cook,” she admitted shyly.
“As I recall, we’d worked it out that I would handle the cooking. Remember?”
She nodded. “Try the broth. There’s not much I can do to ruin broth, and it will soothe your throat.”
He filled a spoon and slurped it down.
She stood and turned toward the window. “After you finish eating, you should rest as much as possible. Your fever is down, but you are in no condition to go anywhere. Not that anyone alive should venture out in this weather.”
He ate more of the broth, watching her.
“Did you make the right choice, Evie?”
He saw her spine straighten, but she did not turn around. “As I recall,” she said, “I wasn’t the one who walked away. The choice was not mine to make.”
“Wasn’t it?” He set the tray aside, stood, and reached for his trousers. This was not a conversation he wanted to have while wearing nothing but his undergarments. “Seems to me…”
He had one leg of his trousers pulled on when she whirled to face him. “And that’s the root of it, Colin. ‘Seems to you’ this or that. Did you once stop to consider how things might seem to me? How I might have seen our future? We could have made it work.”
He buttoned his fly and hooked his suspenders over his shoulders. “I thought we wanted the same thing, Evie.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “So did I,” she admitted.
He took half a step toward her, watching her as if she were a wild mustang easily spooked. When she didn’t back away, he took the full step that brought him near enough so that he could run his knuckles over the smooth skin of her cheek. “Evie,” he said, his voice husky with longing.
Tears balanced a moment on her lashes and then dropped to her cheeks. His reaction was as instinctive as breathing. He closed the remaining distance between them and folded her in his arms. “Let it out,” he said as he kissed her hair, inhaling the sweet scent of pine soap.
“It’s been so hard, Colin,” she blubbered. “So very lonely.”
He felt her arms come around him, completing the circle of their embrace. It was like coming home.
“And what if we could change that? What if it’s not too late, Evie? For us, I mean?”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with what he could only describe as hope.
“I was a danged fool back then, Evie,” he admitted. “And not a day or night has passed when I didn’t know that.”
“Then why not write or come find me?”
“Pride—stupid pride.”
“And now?” she asked.
“I reckon that’s up to you.”
She shook her head. “It’s up to us, Colin. I mean, I’m here and so are you. We’ll have to find a way to respect the choices each of us made back then.”
“Or start again? As partners this time?” He ran his fingertip along her cheek.
“Equal partners?”
“We can try,” he said. “Of course, I might trip up now and again.”
She smiled. “Lucky for you, I’m pretty good at setting folks right when they trip.”
He leaned in closer, and still she did not turn away.
Their kiss was everything he remembered of those summer days in the grass—those cold winter nights in the loft of his employer’s barn. Their mouths fit perfectly, and neither hesitated to open to the other. He felt the outline of her breasts pressed to his chest and recalled the times they had lain together, unencumbered by clothes. He felt his passion swell as it always had whenever he and Evie were together—as it had countless lonely nights as he lay awake out on the range thinking of her.
The bed was less than a foot behind them. If he lifted her, would she refuse? Her fingers were tangled in his hair, urging him closer. Their breath came in a duet of syncopation as if they were one. There was an insistent pounding that he at first thought was the twin beating of their hearts.
Suddenly, Evie pulled back, her head turned toward the kitchen and the side door. “Someone’s here,” she whispered.
He tightened his hold on her. “They’ll leave.”
“Evelyn!” The pounding grew more intense.
“It’s Father Whitestone,” she whispered. She pulled free of Colin and was fixing her hair as she hurried past him to the kitchen. “Coming,” she called out.
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Colin heard her wrestle with the door, apparently frozen shut by the snow and ice piled outside it. It banged back on its hinges, sending a wave of frigid air through the house that made the fire shimmy. “Happy Christmas, Father,” he heard Evie say as the door slammed shut again.
“And to you, child. You weren’t at services last night, and I was concerned. Is everything all right?”
“I had a patient—a local cowboy who was in a bad way when I found him. Blessedly, he has made it through the night and…”
“He’s still here? He stayed the night?”
Colin bit back a hoot of laughter, knowing exactly how Evie would react to that comment. “If I were a man,” she would begin.
But instead he heard Evie say, “He was deathly ill. What would you have me do?”
“Still…a woman, alone…”
“His fever broke just before dawn,” Evie continued, her voice tight. “He’s resting comfortably, and I am sure by day’s end…”
Colin heard the priest grunt and the scrape of a chair being pulled away from the table as Evie apparently set a place for him.
“No service today?” Evie asked as she served coffee.
“The storm has everyone trapped wherever they are,” Whitestone replied, slurping his coffee and then stirring it. “The worst of it has passed, but the drifting makes travel—even on foot—quite treacherous.”
More sounds of a kettle’s whistle, then a spoon stirring, the priest shifting on his chair as Evie served him. “This patient, Evie—a local man, you say?”
“Yes. I believe he works…”
Colin had heard more than enough. Evie was right. Had the doctor been a man, this conversation—this probing for information—would not be happening. He cleared his throat and stepped into the kitchen, extending his hand to the preacher.
“Colin Foster, sir. I’m foreman for the Madison ranch.” He pulled out the second chair and sat. “Truth is, Doc here gave me quite the Christmas present in that it’s more than likely she saved my life.” He paused for the threat of a coughing jag to pass, then took a swallow of the water Evie handed him. “I just hope the people of Sagebrush have the good sense to know what a treasure they’ve got in her.”
Father Whitestone’s bushy, gray eyebrows lifted and fell and lifted again as he looked from Colin to Evie. “You seem to have indeed made quite the recovery, young man. Miss Prescott gave me to understand…”
“Doctor Prescott has quite the healing touch,” Colin said with a grin at Evie.
Four
Evie had hoped Colin would have sense enough to get back in bed and stay there. Instead here he sat—barefoot, wearing trousers over long johns, and looking far healthier than the picture she’d described to the priest.
“More tea, Father?” She lifted the kettle and tried to keep her hand from shaking as she refilled the priest’s proffered cup. His eyes were fixed on Colin.
“Forgive me, but why do I have the sense the two of you are more than doctor and patient?” he asked.
Colin met his gaze. “Evie and I are old friends. Imagine our mutual surprise when I showed up last night looking for Doc Williams and found her instead.”
“Indeed.” Father Whitestone seemed inclined to linger. “I don’t mean to pry, but…”
“Mr. Foster and I met several years ago when I was living with Doc and his wife and he was working at the Madison ranch.”
“I see.”
“Then I went off to medical school, and Mr. Foster followed his work moving cattle to market and such. We lost touch. It’s been five years since…” She was babbling.
“We were sweethearts, Father,” Colin said quietly. “Sweethearts who came to a parting of the ways, sadly. Biggest mistake I ever made.” He turned his gaze to Evie.
Father Whitestone cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him. He studied her for a long moment. “I see.” He sipped his tea. “We all do things we regret. Sometimes, however, God blesses us with the opportunity to rectify those regrets.”
She turned away, busying herself with clearing dishes and refilling the kettle. “It was a long time ago, Father. We were young.”
The priest turned his attention back to Colin. “Your current position with the Madison outfit—it’s secure?” Evie let out a breath of relief at the change in subject.
“I’m the foreman. I reckon in my line of work, that’s about as secure as it gets.” Colin’s tone took on an edge of defensiveness.
Father Whitestone tapped his fingernails on the wooden tabletop. “Life in this part of the country can be quite difficult—and lonely. I have worried about Evelyn. She has taken on quite a challenge.”
“Yes, sir,” Colin replied.
Once again, the men in the room were talking about her as if she weren’t there. “There was a time when Colin and I thought we might marry,” she blurted out, taking perverse pleasure in the way both men snapped to attention and faced her. “Of course, that didn’t work out, but it’s nice to have the chance to renew a friendship.”
She turned to Colin. “You need to rest,” she instructed. “Father, if you would be so kind…”
The priest immediately stood and came around the table, offering his support. While Evie moved the breakfast tray, Father Whitestone got Colin settled under the covers. He stoked the fire while Evie took Colin’s temperature.
“Much better,” she murmured as Colin collapsed back against the pillows.
He looked exhausted, and Evie could not resist pushing a lock of his hair away from his forehead before turning to find the priest studying the two of them. She led the way back to the kitchen. “He’ll sleep for much of the day,” she said, setting the breakfast tray on the table.
Father Whitestone picked up his tea and stood at the window. “Will he be all right?”
“He’s much improved,” Evie said. “He needs rest more than anything.”
The priest nodded. “As do you, my dear. Why don’t I sit with Mr. Foster while you get some sleep?”
“I couldn’t…”
Father Whitestone smiled. “I have nowhere else to be, Evelyn, and frankly, given the choice between sitting here in your warm home or going back out into that bitter cold…”
“If you’re sure.”
He pulled a leather-bound Bible from the pocket of his sack coat. “I have good company right here. You take some time for yourself—maybe curl up in your office there. I’ll come get you should there be a need.”
“Thank you,” she said softly and returned to her office where she took a blanket and lay down on the examination table. Her last thoughts before she drifted off were of the kiss she and Colin had shared and of what Father Whitestone had said about God sometimes offering the opportunity to correct the past.
I still love him—I will always love him, her heart murmured.
* * *
Colin had no sense of time. All he knew was that the sky outside the window was bright blue and cloudless, and light streamed through the lace curtains, leaving a shifting pattern on the floor. He pushed himself higher on the pillows and looked around.
The priest smiled at him. “Well, did you have a good rest, young man?”
“Where’s Evie?”
“Sleeping.” He nodded in the direction of the office.
“You’re still here.”
“Nowhere else to be at the moment.” Whitestone stood and stretched. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water, perhaps?”
Colin cleared his throat. “Sure. Thanks.” He watched the priest fill a glass from the pitcher Evie had left by the bed. “I’m curious. Would you have stayed if Evie was a man?” he asked.
“Probably not. Evelyn is perfectly capable of managing any patient—male or female—without my help. However, given the past you two have shared, I thought it best…”
“I
love her,” Colin blurted out.
“Yes, I believe you do. There is a certain…energy that passes between the two of you. Would it surprise you to know I believe she returns those feelings?”
“For all the good that does,” Colin muttered.
“Nevertheless, for those reasons—and others—I felt it best to stay. You and Evelyn are at a time in your lives when the clock tends to speed up. That can lead to challenges. Perhaps God brought me here to help you navigate those challenges?”
Colin smiled. “I’m not exactly a believer in such things, Father.”
Whitestone shrugged. “Fortunately, I am. Doc Williams and I have been concerned for Evelyn. Since returning to Sagebrush and setting up her practice, rather than becoming engaged in the larger community, she has increasingly shut herself away. She is a fine doctor to be sure, but beyond that she has much to offer as a friend and neighbor. The truth is, when she did not attend either service last night, I was determined to have a serious talk with her.”
“Evie’s always been able to take care of herself,” Colin said.
“That’s true, but perhaps the more pressing question is: Should she have that burden to bear? Is not life more fulfilling when shared with another?”
Colin couldn’t believe what the priest was suggesting. “You think me and Evie…”
Again, the slight shrug. “It is not my choice to make. Still it occurs to me the two of you were once well on your way to a shared life when you hit a patch of rough road.”
“You might say that.”
“Well, you’re both past that now, and somehow your paths have reconnected. Whether you believe it or not, I believe that God is offering you a chance to reexamine that.”
“Meaning?”
“Will you walk forward together, or is it too late?”
“The truth is, Father, Evie has more cause than me not to trust men. Her father…”
“I know all about her father, Colin. I also have no reason to believe you are anything like that man.”
“But I was—not the beating and such, but I sure wanted things my way and saw it as my responsibility to be the provider. So when Evie got that letter accepting her to medical school, it scared me.”
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