He hadn’t planned to say it. It had just come out. Was it because he had always dreamed of having such a father? Was it because in the heat of the moment he had spoken what he yearned for in his heart?
They stumbled up the porch steps and inside the house under the covering fire of the men in the bunkhouse. Rand settled his father on a chair at the table and hurried back to replace the door in its frame and roll the flour barrel back into place. He had just pivoted back around when screams and gunshots erupted in the bedroom.
Both men headed for the closed bedroom door on the run.
Freddy had dreaded facing Miles and Verity after the ordeal she had been through. Rand had convinced her that neither of them would do or say anything to make her feel uncomfortable.
“Mother loves you, Freddy. And she knows I love you. She’ll welcome you back with open arms.”
He had been blessedly right. Freddy had felt a great weight drop from her shoulders when Verity had hugged her. What guilt and shame was left, she could carry with Rand’s help.
She and Verity had each claimed one of the gun holes on either side of the bedroom window. Freddy had a Winchester rifle. Verity had Miles’s Colt .45.
“Do you see anything?” Freddy asked.
“Nothing’s moving over here,” Verity replied.
“Do you think anyone in London would believe me if I told them about this?” Freddy said with a whimsical smile.
Verity looked at Freddy standing there in jeans, holding a rifle aimed out a hole in a log wall at savages on the other side and laughed. “No. They’d think you were making it up.”
Both women sobered as their eyes met and held.
What was happening now was all too real. What had happened to Freddy had been real, too.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Verity asked.
Freddy’s breath shuddered out. “I’m not sure I can.”
Both women froze at the sounds of commotion in the next room. Their eyes focused on the closed bedroom door.
“Rand, is something going on in there?” Verity called.
“Everything’s fine, Mother. Stay where you are,” Rand called back.
Verity stared at the door a moment longer, but when there was no further disturbance, she turned her attention back to Freddy.
“What have you and Rand been doing all these weeks?”
“Rand spent the time hunting … I gathered wood and carried water … And we got married.”
“You what?”
The waggish smile that curled Freddy’s lips was a mere shadow of her former mischievous grin, Verity thought, but it was a start.
“Of course, it was only an Indian ceremony,” Freddy said. “But Rand says we’ll be seeing the chaplain at Fort Laramie the first chance we get.”
“I’m so happy for you, Freddy,” Verity said. “And for Rand. He’s lucky to have you.”
“How can you say that,” Freddy whispered, “after …?”
Verity dropped the Colt on the foot of the bed as she crossed to put her arms around Freddy. “A beastly act performed upon you can’t take away who you are inside,” she said.
Freddy shivered. “Rand said the same thing. But I feel … I feel …”
“Unclean?” she supplied.
Freddy nodded.
Verity stepped back arm’s length to look into Freddy’s eyes. “I don’t know what comfort I can give. I—”
A fifty-pound barrel of horseshoe nails came crashing through the shuttered window, spraying nails everywhere when it broke apart on landing and leaving a gaping sunlit hole through which two ferocious, war-painted Indians could clearly be seen.
Both women screamed.
For a panicked instant, Verity forgot what she had done with her gun. The Indians were already climbing inside the hole they had created by the time she remembered where it was.
“Freddy, get away from the window!” she shrieked as she raced for the bed.
Freddy had already begun to level the Winchester at the first Indian coming through the ragged opening. Before she could gather the nerve to fire, he grabbed the end of the barrel and shoved it upward. When she pulled the trigger, the shot blasted harmlessly into the ceiling.
By then, Verity had the Colt in hand, but the second Indian was upon her. He grabbed her wrist to wrench the weapon from her and the gun went off, wounding him in the stomach. He lurched but didn’t fall.
Then all hell broke loose.
The two men charged through the bedroom door like avenging angels, faces contorted in masks of rage and retribution. The Indians tried to disengage to meet this new foe, but seeing reinforcements, the women harried their attackers as best they could.
Miles leveled the mortally wounded Indian with one powerful blow of his fist.
The other Indian had managed to wrest the rifle from Freddy’s hands. When he turned to fire at Rand, Freddy gave a fearsome shriek and threw her shoulder into his body, knocking his aim askew.
The bullet landed with a thunk in the wall beyond Rand’s head.
The Indian dropped the rifle, which was useless in close combat, to grab a knife from the sheath at his waist, while Rand closed the distance between them.
Using his own rifle as a defense against the Indian’s first deadly swipes, Rand saw an opening and slammed the butt of his Winchester hard up under the Indian’s chin, sending him flying head over heels backward through the hole in the wall.
The Sioux scrambled to his feet and ran for safety around the corner of the house. Rand started out through the window after him, but Freddy grabbed his arm.
“No, Rand. Let him go. Please.”
Rand ushered Freddy and Verity to the relative safety to be found in the front of the house. Miles followed as soon as he made sure the dying Indian had no weapon, closing the bedroom door behind him.
Verity could see through the gun hole nearest the front door that the Sioux were retreating, sprinting to safety on horseback amid a hail of bullets from Miles’s men stationed in the bunkhouse and the barn. As she watched, the Indian she had left wounded in the bedroom, who had seemed on the verge of death, came into view perched precariously on his mount, racing to catch up with the others.
In the distance, she saw that several other Sioux had stampeded the cattle.
“They’re taking our cattle, Miles!” she cried.
The look on his face was bitter, angry. “They’ll keep them running until they’re scattered all over hell and gone,” he said. “It’ll take us a month to round them all up again. At least, all of them we’re going to find. Hawk will cut out a herd for himself, just like he did last time.”
Verity didn’t suggest going after the Sioux. A few cattle weren’t worth putting Miles and Rand in danger. She held her breath waiting to see whether the idea would occur to Miles.
It did.
“Could you find Hawk’s village again?” Miles asked Rand as the two men rolled the flour barrel away from the door and yanked it ajar.
“Probably,” Rand answered, as all four of them flooded out onto the porch.
“I’ll get the men,” Miles said, heading down the porch steps. “This time Hawk isn’t going to get away.”
“Miles, let them go,” Verity pleaded.
“This has to be done, Verity,” he said, not even turning around, his voice implacable.
“Father,” Rand said.
Verity watched the word stop Miles in his tracks. He pivoted to face Rand, one foot on the bottom step, one on the ground.
“Let him go, Father. Hawk saved our lives. Not willingly, but Freddy and I would have died in the blizzard if he hadn’t helped us. We’ve been guests in his village. I’ve met a great many of the people who live there. I don’t want to kill them.”
“So we let him get away with this?” Miles asked. “He’ll be back, you know.”
“We’ll be ready for him,” Rand said.
In that one sentence Rand had revealed his intention to stay at the Muleshoe, to be a son to his
father. Verity felt her heart leap with gladness. She saw the fierce light of joy in Miles’s eyes.
“Son, I—” Miles’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “We’ll need to get started on a place for you and Freddy,” he said.
Freddy came up beside Rand and laced her arm through his. “What do we need to do first?”
“First,” Verity said, eyeing the front door hanging cattywampus, “somebody needs to fix all the holes in this house, or we’re going to end up with drifts to the ceiling the next time it snows.”
“Yes, dear,” Miles said with a grin. “Anything else?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I think there’s something else you should tell Rand.”
Miles looked at her quizzically. She saw the moment he realized she was talking about the baby. He walked up the steps onto the porch, held out his arms, and closed them around her as she stepped into his embrace. They turned together to face Rand and Freddy.
“Mother?” Rand asked, his expression worried.
Miles cleared his throat again. “Your mother and I have an announcement to make.”
“What is it?” Freddy asked, now as anxious as Rand.
“I … we …” Miles looked at her helplessly.
She realized suddenly what held him mute. He had just made peace with Rand. Would this news cause a rift between them again? But it had to be said. It wasn’t something she could hide for very long. And better now than later, when Rand might think another secret had purposely been kept from him.
Verity turned to her son and said, “You’re going to have a brother or sister, Rand. I’m expecting a child in the spring.”
Rand stood thunderstruck for an instant. He thrust a hand through his hair in a way that reminded her of Miles. Then his glance slid to Miles and a smile teased his lips. “Are you sure you can handle two of us at one time, Father?”
Verity felt the tension ease in Miles’s body.
He chuckled and said, “Believe me, son, I’m sure willing to give it a try.”
“Well,” Freddy said, “wait until Mother and Father hear about this!”
“I don’t know, Freddy,” Rand said with a grin. “I don’t think this holds a candle to the story about the bear.”
“Personally, if you’re looking to provide exciting dinner conversation in London, I think my rescue of your mother in the buffalo stampede deserves some consideration,” Miles said.
Rand and Freddy laughed.
Verity looked around her and found she had everything a woman could want. A home—full of holes though it might be—a family—growing larger every day—and a husband who loved her—though he had never said the words.
She knew she would hear them someday. All she had to do was keep loving him until that day came.
Epilogue
WYOMING TERRITORY 1876
She could hear him pacing in the other room, his booted feet echoing on the hollow floorboards. When he reached the log wall, he pivoted and marched back the other direction.
She gripped the bedsheets as another pain racked her belly.
Verity, Lady Broderick, Viscountess Linden, writhed as she labored to expel the child, biting back the scream that sought voice because she didn’t want to worry the child’s father.
“Please let me call him, Verity,” Freddy said. “Miles should be here at your side.”
She wanted him there, desperately. But Miles had tried to sit with her earlier and had turned so completely white when he saw the pain she was in that she had thought he was going to faint. But it had been wonderful grasping his hand as the pains clawed periodically at her belly, feeling his strong fingers massaging the continuous ache in her lower back.
Before she could call him, the pain passed, as many others had since she had woken that morning. They were not so bad yet that she could not last a little longer without him.
Sunlight streamed through the bedroom windows, lighting the corners, chasing the shadows away. Freddy turned down the kerosene lamp before heading into the kitchen for more hot water.
Then Miles was there, standing in the doorway.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Freddy said you were between pains.”
Which was why he had felt it safe to come in, she thought with an inward smile. She patted the bed beside her. “Come sit here, Miles.”
He came and sat. “How much longer is this going to take?”
She did smile then. “Babies have their own schedules to keep.”
“I didn’t know it would hurt you this much,” he admitted with a guilty look. “I had no idea.”
“The pain is a small price to pay for the joy to come.” Verity gripped his hand and groaned. She tried to keep her face bland, not to let the pain show. If the agony on his face was any indication, she wasn’t doing very well.
“Freddy!” Miles shouted. “Freddy, get in here!”
Rand appeared in the doorway. “Freddy went outside—to the necessary. Is there anything I can do?”
Verity watched the two men eye each other helplessly and felt the urge to laugh. She gasped instead when she felt the urge to push. She was shocked, because it had been so little time since the pains had started. This labor wasn’t at all like the one before. There should be more pains. It should take longer.
“The baby’s coming!” she said, surprised and a little frightened by the speed of events.
“Oh, my God!” Miles said. “Go get Freddy!” he ordered Rand.
Verity met Miles’s panicked glance and said, “Please don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” She wasn’t really sure of that anymore. Maybe she should have gone to the fort two weeks ago, as Miles had asked her to do.
“Damn you, Verity! You need a woman at a time like this who knows what to do. I don’t know how I let you talk me into waiting for the labor to start before sending for Mrs. Peters. I should have known she wouldn’t get back here in time.”
At least they were assured Mrs. Peters’s journey wouldn’t be held up by the threat of an Indian attack. The Sioux were no longer a danger this far south. They had all headed north to join with others of their kind who were intent on resisting the white man’s encroachment on their land. An army led by General Custer was searching for them even now.
Hawk had not raided the Muleshoe for more than a month. Verity and Miles had speculated that he had retreated north with the other bands of Sioux.
“Didn’t want to … be away from you so … long at the fort,” she said between panting gasps. “Besides … I’ve been through this … before.”
In anticipation of just such an emergency as this, she had explained to Freddy everything that needed to be done. Freddy had been more than willing to help with the birthing. Miles had joked that he would probably be more help than Freddy, because he had delivered his fair share of calves and colts over the years.
Now, Verity realized, his boast was going to be put to the test. “Miles,” she said. She didn’t have to say the rest. He knew he was going to have to deliver their child.
He looked at her with something close to resignation, his face serious, his eyes anxious, his mouth pressed flat with fear. He glanced one last time at the doorway for help. No one was there. He moved aside the sheet that covered her.
“I can see the baby’s head!”
Verity grunted with effort as her abdominal muscles clamped down, forcing the child out. There was no breath for speech, no time to tell Miles what to do.
She felt the child slip from her body along with the last of the pain and heard Miles make an exclamation of surprise and delight.
She lifted herself on her elbows and looked between her upraised knees at the grinning man supporting a tiny, slippery baby in his large hands.
“We have a daughter, Verity.”
Verity felt her nose sting, felt her chin quiver, felt tears of joy well in her eyes.
Rand and Freddy appeared breathless at the door and stood frozen in a tableau of disbelief at the sight of Miles with a bab
y in his hands.
Tears glistened in Miles’s eyes as he said, “You have a sister, Rand.”
Several things happened quickly after that.
Rand and Freddy ran to get more hot water and cloths to clean the baby and Verity.
Miles laid the baby down on the bed near Verity’s hips to wait for the expulsion of the afterbirth and to cut the cord. When that was done, he wrapped the placenta in the newspaper that had been laid under her and put it aside on the floor. He swaddled the babe in a cloth that had been laid nearby for that purpose and carried the child to the head of the bed to lay her in Verity’s arms.
She unwrapped the cloth and looked at her daughter.
She had black hair. Like her father.
Miles sat beside her. “She’s so unbelievably small,” he said, touching the tips of the baby’s fingers and noting the tiny fingernails. Five tiny fingers closed immediately around his forefinger. He tried to pull away, but his daughter hung on tight. “And so strong,” he marveled.
“What shall we name her?” Verity asked. The first time Miles had been given no say. She wanted him to have it now.
“She’s your daughter, too,” Miles said. “What name would you like?”
“Whatever name you choose,” she told him with a smile.
He smiled back. “Then I’d like to name her after my mother, Margaret Caroline Broderick. We can call her Maggie, or Meg, if you like.”
“Hello, Meg,” Verity crooned to her daughter.
“I love you, Verity.”
Verity looked up slowly from her daughter’s face into the face of her child’s father. It was the first time Miles had said the words aloud. She hardly believed she had heard them. “Would you mind repeating that?”
His lips curved. “I love you. I have for quite some time, you know.”
“I know,” she answered with a cheeky grin. “I’ve just been waiting an awful long time to hear you say it.”
He chuckled and leaned forward to press a gentle kiss on her mouth. “I appreciate your patience. I won’t make you wait so long to hear it again.”
“Right now would be nice.”
“I love you, Verity.”
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