[2015] Western Love

by Christian Michael

  Mack came back in soon and tried to get her to sit down but she wouldn’t listen. He stood, watching her, wringing his hands, and jumping to her side when the pains came, but then stepping back to let her be until she called for him again.

  It all flew by in a blur once the doctor showed up, his calm and confident manner making her feel assured. He sent Hank out to pump more water and they got down to the business of having a baby.

  ***

  Mack paced back and forth, the reality that his child was coming into the world sending jolts of excitement and terror though him in equal parts. It was amazing that, over the last several months, he had started to think of the child as his own.

  It didn’t matter that the father was someone else. It only mattered that he would love the baby as if it was his own and he would always think of the child as his. A scream came from inside and he ran a shaky hand through his hair. It felt like ages since Effie had gone into labor. Just how long would this take?

  In answer to his unspoken question the door flew open and the doctor motioned him inside, a grin on his face.

  “Congratulations.” His kind eyes sparkled up at Mack. “It’s a boy.”

  Mack’s entire body felt like it was on fire from exhaustion and excitement. A son? He had a son!

  He rushed to the back of the small home to see Effie propped up on pillows, a small bundled held in her arms. She looked up at him and, when their eyes met, he saw genuine happiness written there.

  “It’s a boy,” she said. She sounded tired, but happy. He couldn’t imagine the pain she’d gone through, but he was just happy to see her healthy and hear that their baby was all right too. “Come and see him.”

  Carefully, almost tiptoeing up in case he would wake the child up, he came forward and sat down on the bed next to her. She lowered her arms and the wrinkly head of the small baby came into view. His little eyes scrunched up then relaxed as if he’d struggled against unseen forces and then won the battle.

  “He’s beautiful,” Mack said, feeling the moisture of tears in his eyes.

  “He is isn’t he?” Effie said.

  One glance told Mack that she was just as enamored with the child as he was—probably more so.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  Her eyes met his. “Tired. But all right.”

  They held each other’s gaze for longer than necessary and he felt the pressure of words he needed to say. Things he had wanted to say for months now but that he’d held back. He hadn’t wanted her to think he was just saying them because he had to. But now was the perfect time, their son in her arms between them.

  “Effie,” he began, swallowing with the force of the emotions he was feeling, “I have to tell you something, and you need to know that I mean it with all of my heart.”

  “All right,” she said, a small smile lifting the corner of her mouth.

  Before he spoke, he reached up and tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear. She was exhausted, pale, and her hair still held the remnants of sweat, but to him she was beautiful.

  “I want you to know that, no matter what, I will always love our son and,” he paused, making sure she could see the truth in his eyes, “And I love you. Very much.”

  Now she had tears in her eyes, but they were from joy, that much he could tell. This time she wasn’t going to run off in a torrent of emotions, she was going to sit there in front of him and let him see all of her.

  “I love you too, Mack.” She cupped his face with her hand. “You have been so kind to me—to us—and I can never repay you. I know I don’t need to. I hope that my love can be enough.”

  “It is more than enough. It’s all that I want.”

  Then he leaned forward, careful not to crush their son between them, and he kissed her with passion, showing her he meant everything he’d said and so much more.

  When they broke apart she was ginning. “There’s one very important thing left for you to do.”

  “What’s that?” he asked with a frown.

  “Name your son.”

  He felt the weight of responsibility at her words but knew it was an honor she wanted to give him. To show him her trust and the fact that they truly were a family.

  Looking down at the little on in her arms he thought back to how God had provided for them. Then it came to him and he knew exactly what he would name the boy.

  “Let’s call him Nathan. It means ‘gift of God’ and I think that is exactly what he is.”

  She smiled, the tiredness momentarily gone from her features as she nodded in agreement with him.

  “It’s perfect.”

  Mack shifted on the bed so he was sitting next to her and could warp his arm around his wife as she held their son. And they rested there, Mack thanking the Lord for his provision and of a family that he could not only provide for, but love as well.

  THE END.

  The Cowboy’s Bride

  Mail Order Bride

  CHRISTIAN MICHAEL

  1876 Minnesota

  John stood on the hill overlooking his home and smiled. It had been five years since he had left his small Minnesota town for the war and he had never thought he would have made it back alive. To be frank, he had all but prepared himself to come home in a body bag or box. His fiancé would have been the one to be handed the flag that would have been used to cover the box he arrived in and the theatrical sounds of sixty-one guns would have rung out as he was buried.

  “Home sweet home,” he whispered on the cold winds that whipped around him. Oh, how he had missed being here. He had missed everything about being home, everything including the cold winters and early autumn winds that had always cut his summers short. He had missed it all.

  With glee in abundance he slowly skipped his way down to the hillside and to the sprawling mansion that had been his family home. As an only child he had inherited it, but unsure carrying on his family’s legacy was what he had wanted to do for the rest of his life he had opted to go off to war. The family’s caretaker, Clive, had been the one left in charge of it all and by the looks of things as he walked onto the compound; he had done a fine job.

  His father had died the year he had gone off to war and it had been the catalyst for his decision but that wasn’t the only thing that had made him go off. His mother’s refusal to accept the woman he loved had also been a motivating factor. Now five years later she had sent him a letter begging his forgiveness and stating that she had remarried, moved south and wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. It had been a burden lifted from his shoulders in a time when parental approval was necessary for almost everything.

  “John!” An overjoyed Clive flung the brass doors to his house open and rushed out to him. The older man who walked with a limp covered ground faster than John would have thought was possible and his burly figure near knocked him on his rump. He dropped his duffel bag and embraced him with the kind of love that only family could share. His family had been many things, from cantankerous to deceitful and even downright filthy but the one bond that had held them together all these years was the fact that they valued loyalty. They valued every single bit of it and Clive had been heavily rewarded for his. This was a man who had been a friend, brother and a father to him and John could have been no happier than he was now at seeing him.

  “I woke this morning and felt I was in for a change! For a grand surprise!” Clive said with happy laughs punctuating his every word. “I woke this morning and I felt in my bones that I would be in for some wonderful news and here you are!”

  John laughed and pulled him in for a hug. “I am happy to see you too Clive. I have never been happier.”

  “Welcome home Sir,” the man who had been his butler for years answered with respect. John would have told him that he needed not call him Sir, but he knew it would do no good. He had been telling the man that ever since he was a child and here he was twenty-nine years later still doing the same thing.

  “How have you been?” he asked him as they walked into
the foyer of the mansion and the familiar scents of family and home assaulted his nostril. He smelt the lavender incense his mother always burned filling the house and the paintings decorating the walls were the same. An old woman who was supposed to be his grandmother smiling down at him from the entrance and as always he wondered what it would have been like to know her. His father had been a gentle soul but a conniving one. He had always wondered if those were mannerisms he had learnt from his mother.

  Maybe....maybe not, and he would never know for sure given that they were both dead.

  “I have been good,” Clive was answering his question. “The last couple winters were horrible and I suspect this one will be just as cold but it has been wonderful.”

  “And the estate?” he asked taking on a serious tone as he queried his finances. He wasn’t a superficial man but he would honour his father’s legacy.

  “It has grown,” Clive said with a smile. “We have procured more lands to the east and we have bought a couple of the local businesses that were suffering and built them up. I have done as best as I could and I hope you will be pleased,” the man said and John could see he was searching for some sort of approval.

  “I am sure I will be,” he said. “Have you married yet, Clive?” he asked with a smiled.

  The man, whose neat sideburns were greying just the smallest bit, blushed in the most vulnerable of ways. “There was someone about two years after you left but she could not understand my dedication to this estate and so it did not work out.”

  “Your dedication?” John asked, a bit surprised at the reason and worried his love with whom he had conversed every month would feel the same way. He got nervous at the prospect seeing that he was to be visiting her before the day’s end to put an end to the long wait for marriage to happen.

  “Yes, she didn’t think it was healthy,” Clive said sadly. “I understood early out that we would not work and I ended it before we got too entangled.”

  “So you have been alone in this big ole house?”

  Clive laughed. He was good looking and a gentleman so his response was not a surprising one. “I have had the occasional company but nothing too serious.”

  Marin smiled. “At least you weren’t alone. Maybe now that I am home and intend to be married within the fortnight you will find more time on your hands to go wow the women who must no doubt be clamouring for your attentions.”

  The solemn look that flashed across Clive’s face and stayed there was enough to tell him that something was wrong. “What is it?” he asked.

  Clive walked to the bar in the foyer and poured them two very large shots of bourbon. “I think you will need to take a seat.”

  “Tell me what it is!” he demanded ignoring the drink the man offered him but Clive would not be coerced into responding until he was ready.

  “Drink your drink and let’s have a seat out front.”

  John took the glass from the older man and waited until he exited the house to take a seat on the front steps. “What is it?” John asked him again and this time he dug for all the patience he had left in the deepest part of his soul and tried to wait on the response.

  Clive’s grey eyes bore into the dark brown of his and he could feel the arrival of bad news before it even got to him. “She has taken up with someone else,” he said softly, looking away to the trees that swayed gently in the late summer winds.

  “What?!”

  “Emma, your betrothed. She has taken up with another man,” he repeated.

  “Impossible! I wrote to her just three weeks ago saying I was coming home and we spoke for every single month that I was away.”

  Clive looked at him in surprise. “But she has been married for two years and is now carrying his second child,” he said confused.

  John lost all control of his fingers and the glass slipped from his hand breaking in echo to his heart in a million pieces. “Impossible...” he croaked around his throat that was tightening painfully.

  “Do you wish to go see for yourself?” Clive asked and it took him a minute before he could nod. If it hurt this much hearing the news then he could only imagine how much more devastated he would be at seeing its reality.

  “Take me,” he said calmly, knowing he would never be able to believe it until he saw it and even more was the fact that he would need closure. How could she? He had professed his love for her in each letter of every month that he had been away and she had echoed his every sentiment in her elegant hand writing that had been a solace to his aching soul. He had loved Emma for years and had been willing to defy the love of his other to be with her. Clive must be mistaken for there was no way she could have done him such a wrong.

  They saddled their horses in silence and rode out at a gallop towards the town with Clive warning him to be calm and not create a scene when he found what he was being told to be true. Less than an hour later they hitched their horses to the post outside what was supposed to be her husband’s saloon and when he entered he would have fallen to his knees had Clive not stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

  “Emma?” he questioned to the woman sporting a baby bum and a smile as gorgeous as he had remembered. Her long flowing hair that used to whip around when she walked was cut into a short bob and her eyes were now strangers to his soul.

  “John?” she asked in shock, setting the tray she carried aside. Her smile disappeared and her eyes filled up with water. The whole diner went silent.

  “Why?” he asked her around the tears in throat, forgetting to breathe as his heart broke yet again. “Why did you lie to me?”

  She took a step towards him but he stepped away. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said sadly and a tear he did not believe in slipped down her face.

  “So you lie to a man longing to come home to you, only to know I would return to this?”

  “I am sorry,” she said and took another step towards him.

  He held a hand up to stop her. “I have known that people could be cruel, but this...this tops them all,” he said and walked out of the diner.

  Somewhere in the back of his head he heard her calling out to him but he could not make out the words she was saying and he was certain he did not want to hear them either. As fast as he had rode into town he made his way back home with Clive hot on his heels. When he got to the house he wasted no time grabbing his duffel bag and heading right back out.

  “Where are you going?” Clive asked him saddened.

  He hugged the man. “I cannot stay. Not now. You can give me a couple more months, can’t you?” he asked

  Sadness filled the man’s eyes but he nodded. “Take all the time you need. Where will you go?”

  “I think I will head to Texas. I have a friend there, Lenard Collard.”

  “I don’t know of him,” Clive said.

  John sighed. “We met in the war, he was a part of my platoon but he went home last year after a horrible accident. I think I will go see him and figure out if maybe Texas is as nice as they say it is.”

  Clive hugged him again, but this time he didn’t hold on to him, “have fun and come home soon. I will miss you.”

  “I will be back in two months,” he said and set off for a place where he hoped his heartache would be cured and maybe just maybe he would find himself a love of a lifetime.

  ***

  Jemma sneezed for the third time in that day as she walked through the town. Her nose ached and she could feel a cold coming on yet again. This would be the second time in the two weeks since she had arrived in the cool hills of Minnesota that she would be sick.

  "I will make you some soup as soon as we get home," her Auntie Jasmine said rubbing her back. Never before did she think she would have missed the dry acrid temperatures of the south. She was beginning to question her smarts as to why she had chosen to move a place so cold her first time. The town's doctor had made it clear that she wasn't in any ailing condition or suffering from some bug she might have picked up. She was simply adjusting to the thinner and colder
air. She wished she would just adjust already.

  She smiled in gratitude at her Aunt's suggestion and prayed it would be enough. She had drunk more soup in the last two weeks than she ever had in the last twenty odd years of her life. They turned into her small grocery store and Jemma immediately busied herself behind the store counter just as the rotund derriere of the town's gossip wheeled in with such flounder even the shelves could not help but be bothered.

  "Josy! Josy!" The woman called for her Aunt. "Where is she?" She turned to Jemma and demanded.

  "Good evening Mrs Hall," she pointed out politely that the woman had forgotten her manners. There was no return of a salutation and Jemma frowned at her in dismay. "She is in the back."

  "What is all the raucous about Jane?" Her Aunt rushed out addressing the woman. Jemma rolled her eyes. She had come to find her Aunt was quite a likable woman but the need to gossip as much as Jane did was an annoying tiny bit and every now and then she found herself missing the humming of the pots and pans at the ranch as she would give them a washing for cooking. She missed Jenny's soft voice chattering away about nothing in general and Lenard's insistence on bothering her in the kitchen. But even then she liked Minnesota, the difference in culture and the people she found there. She paid the women no mind as they started chattering about a war veteran who had come home today to find his fiancé had off and married another man. Apparently they had all thought he was dead.

  How cold and callous it must have been to find him in such a fix but yet these older women were amused by what must have been his heartbreak. She sighed and tuned them out as she went about restocking the empty shelves.

  "Excuse me," a soft voice interrupted her musings and she turned to look at the freckled face of Megan Jones, a bit of an outcast in town having moved there for some unknown reason.

  "Yes," Jemma said smiling at her. "How can I help you?"

  "I am looking for honey but I can't seem to find a bottle on your shelf," the woman who must have been her own age looked away from her. Jemma had heard mean things being said about her too but this was the second time she had been around her and she found the girl quite nice to be around.