by Cassie Hayes
Shoving Easton away, she leapt to her feet and spun on him. “What, did you just put it all back the way it was to fool me into thinking you liked having me here?”
Easton stumbled, but quickly regained his footing. She jerked away when he tried reaching for her.
“No, Molly. That wasn’t it at all.”
“I don’t believe you!” she shouted, stomping past him to their — his — room and yanking her bag from under the bed. “You couldn’t wait for me to leave so everything could go back to the way it was before.”
Easton tried to stop her from shoving her few pieces of clothing into the bag, but she pulled out of his reach. “Molly, listen—“
“No, you listen! You lied to me.” He tried to break in with an objection, but she cut him off. “Not with your words, but definitely with your actions. You spent the entire week enjoying having me gone, enjoying having everything the way you like it. I know, because why else wouldn’t you have tried to see me more while I was with Constance?”
He stood, gape-mouthed, just watching her. Molly huffed.
“That’s what I thought. Now move!”
She shoved past him again, ignoring the way her body reacted at being in such close proximity to him, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” he finally asked, frustration tinging his words.
“Somewhere where I’m appreciated.” She flung open the door with great relish, only to find big, fat fluffy snowflakes falling steadily. She’d hoped to storm out and slam the door behind her, but even in her blinding rage, she wasn’t about to go out without her coat. Just as she reached for it, though, Easton slammed the door on her heart.
“Where’s that? I thought you didn’t have anywhere else to go and that’s why you had to marry me.”
Molly’s heart stopped and she let her bag slip from her fingers in shock. If her blood hadn’t been pumping so furiously through her veins, she surely would have dropped dead right there in the doorway. But she didn’t. Instead, she bolted outside without so much as a glance back. Somewhere behind her, through the whoosh of her racing heart and sound of her sobs, Easton’s shout filtered through.
“Molly, come back! The weather’s turning bad!”
So’s our marriage, she thought as she ran blindly into the falling snow.
As Molly’s fast-moving form disappeared into the thickening snow, Easton started after her. After a few steps he stopped and looked to the sky. Judging from the dark cloud mass pushing across the mountain, the weather was only going to get worse before it got any better. Maybe a whole lot worse.
A snowstorm hadn’t been predicted the day before, but the weather changed quickly in the mountains, especially in the winter, and he hadn’t been into the office yet. Surely Nathaniel or Samuel would have reported to him this morning if a storm had been in the day’s forecast, which meant this would hit the entire town by surprise.
He tried to catch Molly’s silhouette through the snow, but she was gone. She shouldn’t be out in the snow without a coat, but he tried to comfort himself with the fact she’d been heading toward the hotel. No doubt she’d hide out in Mrs. Hildebrand’s room for the duration of the storm. She’d be chilled to the bone by the time she got there, but at least she’d be safe.
Now he just needed to make sure the rest of the town was too.
When he arrived at the station, all three of his men stood outside watching the snow coming down harder and harder.
“Nice of you to join us, Commander,” Matthew teased, though Easton heard very little humor in his tone. “We were just about to send out a search party.”
Ignoring him, Easton walked straight into the office. “Where’s today’s forecast?”
Samuel handed it to him. “Calls for cloudy skies, that’s all. If it had said a storm was coming, I would have fetched you right away.”
“And the next one won’t come in till late tonight,” Easton said, going to the town map hanging on the wall. “If this is as big as I think it’s going to be, we can’t wait for that forecast before battening down the town.”
“Agreed,” Nathaniel said. “Where do you want us to start? Normally, we have time to get to everyone before the storm starts, but the way it’s coming down, we’ll top a foot pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, boss,” Matthew added. “No way will we be able to warn the folks on the outskirts and our quadrant before the road becomes impassable.”
One of the first things Easton had done as Commander was to assign each Mountie approximately one-quarter of the town itself in the event of emergencies. They all patrolled the entire town, but when a storm threatened, each man was responsible for making sure everyone in his quadrant was safe, accounted for and ready for the bad weather.
Easton sucked on his teeth as he studied the map. There were at least fifteen or so families scattered around outside of town, in pretty much every direction. Any way he looked at it, he couldn’t figure out a way to reach the families without sacrificing the safety of hundreds in town — not to mention his own men.
“If only we had telephones up here,” Samuel mused.
“Well, we don’t,” Easton said a little more sharply than he meant. “We’ll just have to hope and pray they’re all smart enough to see the signs and prepare themselves.”
Sleep would elude him until he knew each and every one of those families was safe. In the meantime, he’d do everything in his power to make sure the rest of the town was too.
“Okay, we’ll go door-to-door in our quadrants to this point.” He pointed to just past the edge of town, an area that encompassed nearly all of the local population. “We’ll rendezvous back here in two hours, at four o’clock. Remember protocol?”
Matthew sighed, as if he’d heard it a thousand times — probably because he had. “If we don’t check in or send word by four-thirty, a search party will be formed, and there’s nothing more embarrassing to a Mountie than having to be rescued by a bunch of locals.”
“And?” Easton prompted.
“And,” Samuel answered, “that man will have to sing ‘O Canada’ as loud as he can on the steps of the Institute every morning for an entire month.”
“Right. So be safe and don’t get yourselves lost out there.”
As Easton made his way through his quadrant, reminding folks to bring in their children, pets, horses, or anything else they didn’t want to get frozen and buried in snow, his mind never strayed far from Molly. He itched to stop at the Institute first to make sure she was okay, but he always saved the hotel for last because it took so much time. Most guests were somewhere on-site anyway.
So he did his duty — his mind flashed to Molly snuggling with him in bed whenever he heard the word ‘duty’ anymore — and made his way through town. Second-to-last stop: Sam’s Saloon.
Only one patron stood at the bar nursing a half-empty beer mug when Easton strolled in, brushing the snow from his coat and hat at the entrance. Sam was nowhere in sight.
“Looks like a storm’s coming, Sam,” he called toward the bar.
The woman popped her head up, caught sight of him and stood. “Afternoon, Commander. What was that now?”
“Unforecasted storm coming in,” he said as he tapped the brooding beer-drinker on the shoulder. When the man turned cloudy eyes on him, Easton said, “You better get home while you still can, sir. Where do you live?”
The man blinked slowly, a sure sign he was inebriated. “Just over at the Institute.” Only, it came out sounding like, Juss over t’Inshtitoo.
“Oh boy,” Easton mumbled, shooting Sam a scolding glance. She shrugged in response. “Gonna have to ask you to close up shop until it passes, I’m afraid. Don’t want to tempt anyone to risk their lives for a drink.”
“I understand,” Sam said with a sigh and threw a dishtowel on the bar. “It must be a bad one, huh?”
“No idea. Wasn’t forecast. Why?”
Sam narrowed her eyes as she assessed him. “Because you look like half the town
is already dead, Commander.”
“Sir,” Easton said to the customer, “why don’t you go get your coat and scarf on, and I’ll escort you to the hotel. It’s my last stop anyway.”
The man gave a wobbly nod, and as soon as he teetered off, Easton told Sam all about the morning’s argument with Molly. “One minute, everything was peaches and cream, the next she was yelling at me for something she told me to do!”
Sam threw her head back, her cackle echoing through the empty saloon. “You know how I said you should put yourself in her shoes?”
Easton nodded.
“Well, sometimes you can do everything right and we’ll still want to hit you in the head with a skillet. Women’s emotions can come out in strange ways.”
Sam might as well have been speaking a foreign language. He felt utterly, hopelessly lost. “Don’t know what any of that means.”
She smiled and reached across the bar to pat him on the shoulder. “I know, honey. Just keep the faith. She’ll be back. That gal looks at you like you’re the ice in her whiskey. She ain’t going anywhere.”
“You comin’, Mountie?” the drunk man called as he waited by the door, swaying gently.
Easton looked deep in Sam’s eyes, hoping the answer — an answer he could understand, anyway — lay there, but all he saw was amusement. Shaking his head, he tipped his hat to her and headed for the door. Whatever she meant, Easton wouldn’t relax until he saw Molly again.
Chapter 8
“Better get inside, miss,” said a young hotel porter as Molly labored through the deepening snow.
“It sure is coming down,” she said, smiling at him with gratitude, though her heart was still on fire from her argument with her husband. “It was just a dusting this morning.”
The young man looked to the darkening sky and shook his head. “Looks like a whopper, you ask me.”
Molly stood in front of the roaring fire in the hotel’s lobby to warm up before she headed up to Constance’s suite. As the feeling returned to her wet, frozen toes and fingers, she cursed herself for not grabbing her coat as she stormed out of the cabin, but she’d just been so angry.
The warmer Molly became, the cooler her temper grew. The heat from her anger had kept her going until she reached the hotel, but now the gravity of the situation sat heavy on her heart. With each draft of cold air that trickled in from outside and chilled her warming skin, a dagger of icy shame stabbed her soul.
She’d behaved like a spoiled child when Easton had told her the truth. He could have just as easily lied and pretended he had indeed left the place exactly as-is, but he’d trusted her with his honesty. And just look at how she’d betrayed that trust.
One glance out the big picture window told Molly she wasn’t going anywhere until the snow died down, which hurt her heart even more. All she wanted to do — now that she wasn’t consumed by her own self-pity — was to run back into Easton’s arms and beg his forgiveness for behaving like a brat.
With a deep, bracing breath, she pulled herself from the comfort of the fire and ascended the magnificent grand staircase until she reached the top floor of the Institute. This floor, she’d learned, was reserved for the most wealthy clients, as it afforded the best views and was comprised solely of suites. The medical section of the Institute sat on the opposite side of the sprawling complex.
With each step, Molly’s pain lightened just a little. The thought of talking with Constance about her fight with Easton would help, no doubt about it. Constance had been married for ten years, and had given Molly quite a lot of sound advice already. Of course, it went both ways, since Molly had advised Constance on many aspects of pregnancy, birth and caring for her baby. What had started out as an adversarial relationship had blossomed into a true and sincere friendship.
Molly rapped on Constance’s door, hoping she wouldn’t wake her from a nap. She waited patiently because she knew exactly how difficult it was for a heavily pregnant woman to get up from a chair. If she’d been lying down, the time would double or even triple.
After a couple of minutes, she knocked again, this time harder, thinking the first time hadn’t been loud enough to wake her friend. Still nothing. Not even a rustle from behind the heavy wooden door. Molly pressed her ear up against it to listen for signs of movement from inside, but the door gave way from the pressure.
“Oh!” she squeaked, surprised that Constance had not only left the door unlocked, but ajar. “Constance?”
Molly closed the door softly behind her. A shiver rippled across her skin at the chill in the room. The fireplace showed no signs of embers, which meant it hadn’t been lit in hours. Alarm bells clanged in her head, but she did her best to tune them out as she looked around the place.
“Constance! It’s Molly!”
Nothing seemed out of place. The coat rack stood next to the door, as usual. The magazines were splayed in a perfect fan on the coffee table. The roses in the vase on the dining table looked fresh.
Only…nothing moved. Not even the soft rustle of a bedsheets could be heard. Only the quiet patter of snow against the window and the sounds of her own feet on the plush carpet gave Molly any confidence she hadn’t lost her sense of hearing.
Frosty tendrils of dread wound their way through her gut as she searched every room, but no Constance. Standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, Molly took in the rumpled bed linens, the drawn curtains, the book lying on the floor. Panic tried to catch hold, but she pounded it down by telling herself her friend must be somewhere in the hotel. Or maybe with a doctor.
Then it hit her. “Oh, maybe she’s in the medical wing giving birth!”
Hope brushed aside any remaining fear as she rushed for the door. Some tiny tickle at the back of her brain tried to come forward, but she had more important things to think about. As much as she regretted arguing with Easton, at least it led to her being in the Institute before Constance gave birth. Too much longer and no one would have been able to fetch her.
Shoving her way through the doors to the medical wing, Molly rushed up to the nurses’ station so out of breath it took a moment for her to speak clearly. The nurse waited patiently.
“Constance…Hildebrand,” Molly finally managed between gasps for air.
The nurse consulted a list, then shook her head. “I don’t see her name.”
“She’s having a baby?” That sense of unease leaked back into Molly’s heart.
“Hmm, let me check again.” A deep furrow creased the nurse’s brow. “No, I’m sorry. She hasn’t been checked in.”
“No, she has to be. Please check again.”
“Miss—“
“Please!”
The woman sighed and double-checked her list, finally shaking her head again. “I’m sorry. She hasn’t been admitted.”
Connections Molly’s brain hadn’t made earlier finally clicked into place. The coat rack by the door had been empty, and Constance’s bedside table, which had been cluttered with half-empty bottles of various elixirs, had also been cleared.
Then it hit her like a lightning bolt. How had she missed it? How had she forgotten?
Her mother’s shawl. She’d taken it off before leaving Constance that morning so she could put on her coat. Her eagerness to see Easton had apparently overpowered her memory because she realized she hadn’t packed it. Yet it had been nowhere in the suites or she would have noticed it. That meant only one thing: Constance had it…wherever she was.
Molly took ten steps to leave the medical wing, but she was already out of breath by the time she passed through the door. Real, justified panic gripped her, which was why she didn’t look where she was going and smacked face-first into a towering wall of red.
“Oof!” a masculine voice she’d recognize anywhere coughed.
“Easton!” she cried. Easton would know what to do!
“Molly? What are you doing down here? Nevermind that. Molly, I’m so sorry for—“
Molly shook her head frantically and waved away his unwar
ranted apology. “No, I’m sorry. I let my temper get the better of me again. But we don’t have time for all that right now.”
His brow furrowed, and that look of genuine concern cemented Molly’s love for him. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Constance. She’s not in her room, and she hasn’t been checked into the medical wing. Something’s wrong.”
Easton rubbed her arms, which soothed her more than she’d thought possible. “She’s probably somewhere in the hotel. Don’t worry.”
“No, I have a bad feeling, Easton. Her coat was gone, and she took my shawl with her. And her bottles of that snake-oil elixir are gone.”
Easton dug a finger under his hat to scratch his head. “So?”
“So?” Molly asked, incredulous.
No, stay calm. Constance needs you.
Taking a deep breath, Molly explained. “She bundled up to go outside in the cold, Easton. And even if she doesn’t think the elixir will do her any good, there’s so much alcohol in it, she probably thinks it will keep her warm, wherever she’s going.”
“And where do you think she’s going?”
Molly chewed her lip. “No idea.”
Easton took less than three seconds to make a decision. “Okay, then. I need to make sure everyone is accounted for in the hotel, so we’ll form a team and take it floor by floor. If we don’t find her…”
He let the words die on his lips. Molly only hoped Constance wouldn’t die before they found her.
After an hour of searching every room in the hotel, as well as confirming with the medical ward’s staff, Mrs. Hildebrand was nowhere to be found. The hotel manager, Mr. Jackson, had accompanied Easton on the search, and along the way they ticked off every other guest registered at the hotel.
“I wonder where she could be,” Jackson pondered, looking far less worried than Easton felt. The man had soft hands and a soft conscious.
