by Lilah Rivers
Amy pushed again, her body trembling with her frustrated energy. Jodi could feel her straining, the stress building up in her body. She could almost feel Amy’s pains, as if her own body was Amy’s; arms and legs numbing, torso bending and pulling and ripping around her, imploding and exploding at the same time.
When Amy let out a terrible cry, Jodi could hardly keep the tears from pushing out of her eyes. She tightened her grip on Scott, and she could feel him holding her even closer. As much as Jodi hoped to deliver her own strength to Amy, Scott seemed to be pouring his own strength and energy into Jodi, a transfer of hope and love and finally life.
“Keep trying, Amy, keep pushing…”
“I can’t… I… I can’t…”
“Yes, you can,” Clinton encouraged. “You can, and you will!”
Amy kept huffing and puffing, straining and pushing, sweating and swelling until it was as if she was about to explode.
Jodi held onto Scott, the two of them able only to help each other remain standing.
“You can do it, Amy,” Martin said, “just stay with us… stay with us!”
“I… I will, I… I will, I… I can’t—”
“Don’t talk,” Martin said gently, “just do as I tell you and keep breathing.” After a few more pants, he instructed, “Now push, Amy, push!”
As Amy did, Jodi’s blood built up in her own veins as it surely was building up in Amy’s, pressure enough to cause internal hemorrhaging. Jodi could almost feel it filling up her tissue, bleeding to death while she drowned in her own fluids.
“Clinton,” Amy rasped, “remember… remember what I said—”
Clinton said, “Not now, Amy, you have to concentrate.”
“I… I am… but you… you have to remember…. remember what I said…”
“I know,” Clinton told her quietly, “and I remember. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re going to be fine, you’re both going to be fine.”
“Just keep pushing,” Martin said to Amy, “no more talk now, just push and breathe, push and breathe.”
Holding onto Scott, Jodi was unable to turn away from the sight of her best friend in a mortal lock with fate, wrestling to do God’s bidding; the most natural thing in the world appearing to be the single most impossible.
And between all the straining and pushing and breathing, Jodi felt she couldn’t take it anymore. She buried her face into Scott’s shoulder, struggling to bear the sight of her friend on the edge of death just as she stood upon the precipice of life itself. Jodi’s sight went dark, but it provided no respite from the truth she knew still surrounded her.
No, Jodi told herself, I’ve been turning away from things my whole life, running away, afraid to face what was truly there, what had been there all along. And so she opened her eyes and determined to keep them open, to whatever was there and for the rest of her life.
Martin pulled the baby from Amy’s womb, slick and red. He raised the child by her feet and gave her a sharp little slap on the rump. The baby let out a confused cry, which then became a full-throated wail. Jodi’s heart felt like it had stopped beating, and it returned to functioning all at once, pounding in her chest. She clung to Scott again, but this time without the tension and the terror.
Relief pulsed in her veins, blood moving slower but with certainty. And Scott returned her embrace, his own gladness as plain and palpable as hers.
“Thank God,” Jodi muttered, “thank God.”
Martin had already cut the umbilical cord and wrapped the child in swaddling before handing the child to Amy. She lay exhausted on the bed, a weakened smile on her sweating face. Together, she and Clinton looked at the baby in her arms as it cried and reached out, a little bundle of soft flesh and grasping fingers.
“We’ll name her… Jodi.”
Quickly, Jodi said, “Oh, no, that’s—”
“We insist,” Clinton interrupted with a smile.
She was too flattered for words, to filled with satisfaction to say or do much more than wipe a happy tear from her cheek.
But the blood drained from Amy’s face, her arms suddenly slack. Clinton grabbed the infant as he reached out and tapped Amy’s face. “Amy? Amy!”
Jodi’s blood ran cold again, instinct pulling her body forward and toward her friend even while Scott eased her back. Martin swept in, the midwife taking the baby to clear the way for Martin’s emergency attempts to revive Amy.
“Amy? Speak to me, Amy!”
“Give me some room,” Martin ordered, “please!”
“Amy! Amy!”
Oh no, Jodi thought in silent prayer, God no, please, don’t do this… don’t, please! Not now, not when they’re so close to the happiness they’ve earned, which they deserve, and which I know you intend for them to have. Please do not take it from them now, Lord, please!
But the activity around Amy became more intense, Clinton’s voice ringing louder and more desperate in the little room.
“Amy? I love you, Amy, I love you so much… Please, Amy! Come back to me, Amy, please? Please!”
Scott pulled Jodi back and out of the room, nothing more either of them able to do.
“I can’t live without you, and I won’t! You hear me, Amy, I won’t do what you said!” Clinton pleaded.“So you have to come back to us, Amy, you have to! Please, Amy, please come back to us!”
Chapter 59
“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again,” Pastor Beaumont read, his voice booming out over the congregation, filling the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Angeldale. “Even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.”
Jodi looked out over the familiar faces of her new friends and family, the good and decent people who had taken her into their community. They’d had reason to reject her, and even more reason on that solemn occasion. But they’d embraced her instead, in spite of everything, and she could not be more grateful, or more filled with warmth and love.
Pastor Beaumont went on, “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.”
Scott stood beside Jodi, handsome in black, blue eyes piercing as he looked into Jodi’s. He was calm and quiet and as unemotional as always, revealing nothing of what he was feeling.
“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.”
Martin and Ellen stood nearby, hand in hand, two old marrieds for whom such occasions had come and gone; so had it always been and so also would it always be. They shared their love with each other, and with all those around them, freely giving all they could to all who needed and deserved it.
“And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Clinton sat with his infant daughter, who had no way of knowing what was going on before her. But it would be a day she would hear about later in life, stories she’d no doubt be told as she grew up and grew old.
“Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”
Clinton looked at Amy sitting next to him, and their little family gazed up at the wedding altar—at Jodi in her bridal white, with Scott standing before her.
“Do you, Sheriff Scott Covey, take this woman, Jodi Hoffman, to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, in joy and in suffering, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”
Scott said, “I do,” before slipping the gold ring on Jodi’s trembling finger.
Pastor Beaumont asked of Jodi, “Do you, Jodi Hoffman, take this man, Scott Covey, to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, in joy and in suffering, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” she said, as she slipped the larger gold band on Scott’s finger.
&n
bsp; “Is there anybody here,” Pastor Beaumont said to the congregation, “who knows any reason why these two should not be wed? Let them speak now, or forever hold their peace.”
Jodi glanced at Giles and Alice, seated in the front row. They looked up at her and smiled, offering kindly nods of familial love and support.
Pastor Beaumont went on, “Very well, then, by the power vested in me by the great state of New Mexico, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Jodi stood as Scott pushed her white veil away and kissed her, strong lips light upon hers, a gentle touch that said everything that needed to be said between them—everything which ever needed to be said between them.
The entire town was invited to celebrate the wedding, musicians playing and people dancing out on the street. Everybody enjoyed the cupcakes Jodi had baked out of her new bakery, already one of the most popular new businesses in Angeldale. The only new business that was more exciting to the citizens was the medical office of Dr. Martin Hoffman, who’d hung his shingle once he and his wife decided to make their move to Angeldale permanent. They would stay and raise their grandchild and their daughter’s namesake, Jodi Burnett. Nobody doubted that Jodi and Amy’s children would be fast friends, another generation of blood brothers and sisters, family just the same; united in love and friendship and loyalty, bound together by fate and by God’s perfect will, which nobody and nothing could thwart, defy, or deny.
THE END
Can't get enough of Jodi and Scott? Then make sure to check out the Extended Epilogue to find out…
How will Scott’s faith be tested after an unexpected change in his family’s life?
Who will return from the couple’s past to seek revenge in an unexpected way?
How will Amy show that her friendship with Jodi is still going strong?
Click the link or enter it into your browser
http://lilahrivers.com/jodi
(After reading the Extended Epilogue, turn the page to read the first chapters from “A Bet on Love and Hope”, my Amazon Best-Selling novel!)
A Bet on Love and Hope
Introduction
Rena Olsen will not let her parents decide her fate. Taking her life into her own hands, she runs away from home and finds refuge in her grandfather’s ranch in Montana. Life is much simpler yet harder than what she was used to. There are upsides in this new beginning of hers, however, including a handsome ranch hand… Can she prove to him but mostly to herself, that she’s strong enough to survive in this lifestyle?
Thomas is like a second son to Rena’s grandfather and he takes his job very seriously. The last thing he wants is to have to babysit his boss’s beautiful, city-bred granddaughter. When the rest of the ranch workers make fun of him, he will make a bet that he’ll remember for the rest of his life. But as he gets to know Rena, he will realise that she is nothing like he expected. Will he be able to win the heart of the woman in the elaborate dresses?
Rena was running away from something, and she has nowhere else to go. Only love and faith can keep her safe. Can she and Thomas find common ground and let what is in their hearts come out to the surface?
Chapter 1
Rena Olsen stared out the window of that B&O train car, gently rocking with its steady progress northeastward. The whistle blew, muffled in the distance from many cars ahead, a cloud of white steam rising and passing, leaving beads of dew on the glass.
Like tears, Rena couldn’t help thinking. But the train was moving fast pushing those beads back and away, wiping them away to reveal a clean slate. But Rena knew somehow that the train could not do the same for her or her tears, that they’d follow her no matter where she went; how far or how fast.
Rena’s reflection stared back at her on that translucent glass pane, pines and hickory passing by in the rugged landscape behind it.
Twenty years old, she thought, and I’m already starting to look like Aunt Jean; same chestnut hair, same diamond-shaped face and wide-set, hazel eyes. But Aunt Jean had been beautiful in her youth, and that’s how I remember her being. But that was before she lost her Herbert to consumption, before the road agents and the years of bitter loneliness.
Loneliness, Rena silently repeated; that’s the true danger in the world. It’s as deadly as a bullet, as destructive as a raging storm.
But there were other storms gathering behind Rena, and in front of her, and no mere train was going to deliver her. She knew that. But she knew she had no choice but to do what she did, whatever the consequence, however great the storm.
He’s found the letter by now, Rena had to silently admit, still not sure how he or her mother would have reacted to it. She’ll feel the way he feels, as always. She never had Aunt Jean’s pluck or gusto, the things about her Rena had loved best, the things she’d lost most tragically.
The same way I’m losing mine, Rena knew, that train shaking a bit more with a bank in the tracks.
But father, he’ll be furious. Rena could readily imagine him, stalking through the mansion, the letter in one hand, the other clenched in a frustrated fist. Nobody cheats Keith Olsen out of anything, especially not his own daughter, his one and only child; even if that person happens to be his own daughter, his one and only child.
Despite all he has, all he’s gained, all the power he’s accrued, Keith Olsen has lost as much as any man. It drives him, the notion of losing more, of being seen as less than the engaging and entertaining host of Philadelphia high society. And this, this could do serious damage to his reputation among those whose adoration he craves. This could reveal more about him to them, and to himself, than he would be willing to tolerate.
And it’s not like he’ll be at all sympathetic to my plight. He never was before, and this will only turn him further against me. If only there’d been some other way. But I was miserable, not that he ever cared. His life was about him, not about me; my leaving will just be more of the same.
A big black bear roamed through the oaks and dogwood as the train passed, a perfect reminder of the man on her mind; all that he could do, all that he would do.
He’s probably on his way after me right now. He’ll know where I’m headed, even without me having mentioned it. And he would most definitely not want me to get all the way to Montana; there are people and things that even the great Keith Olsen doesn’t want to face.
The possibilities were numerous, and all of them treacherous, streaming across her imagination.
He’ll have Pinkertons waiting for me at the next stop, Rena felt certain, easy to imagine them stalking through the train, car to car, until they find me and drag me off the train. Should have cut my hair, down to my waist! Should have dyed it, worn men’s clothes to disguise myself.
But it was too late for that, and all Rena could do was sit on that train as it hurled her toward failure.
Then what’ll happen once Father’s brought me back? He’ll keep me locked up in that mansion for the rest of my life, little more than one of his house servants. Rena could see herself skulking around the mansion, her height of nearly six feet slowly shrinking, narrow shoulders getting narrower.
Or he’ll finally just marry me off, as he’s threatened to do so often. I’d only barely managed to forestall that, but now? It’ll be the son of that importer, or the heir to the whaling company. Whaling! A perfect way for such a lowly man’s family to make a fortune!
I’d rather waste away in the kitchen or be shot by train bandits than face such a life. Surely, that’s not what God intends for me; I hope and pray not.
The train’s whistle blew again, barely registering through Rena’s worries and reflections.
Rena’s blood ran cold as she had to silently admit to herself, Or he won’t care at all. Maybe he’ll just be relieved to be rid of me.
