Outlaw Hearts(182)

“Good morning, Louise.” Beth liked the old woman, who mothered her as if she were her own child. “I still don’t think I can eat.”

“Well, you must try.” Beth sat up a little, and Louise placed a tray over her lap. “Did you have a good rest?”

“Pretty good, I guess.” I would have slept better in Lloyd’s arms.

“Well, you got home so late, I didn’t have a chance to tell you about your visitor.”

Beth felt a quick rush of hope. “Visitor?”

“Yes, it was the strangest thing. He came knocking on the door late last night, and I do believe he’d had some little bit to drink. I could smell the whiskey. He asked specifically for you. When he found out you were not here, he asked the strangest question. He wanted to know if you were happy.”

Beth looked away to hide the mixture of excitement and sorrow she knew showed in her eyes. “If I was happy?” Lloyd! “What did he look like? Did he give his name?”

“No, ma’am. He was tall, quite handsome, dark eyes and dark hair, as much as I could tell in the dim light. I would guess he was twenty or so. He said to tell you, well, he said, ‘I think I understand.’ And then he said to tell you good-bye.”

Beth closed her eyes and put a hand to her stomach. “Take the food away, Louise.”

“Oh, but you really must eat—”

“Just take it away.”

“Oh, my, did I say something to upset you? Is he someone you’re afraid of? Shall I tell Master David?”

“No!” Beth lay back against her pillow, struggling against tears. “No, you must not tell him. I’ll be all right. Just leave me alone for a little while.”

The old woman sighed, taking the tray. “If you don’t eat by lunchtime, your Aunt Trudy says she will send for the doctor again. I know being newly married can be difficult sometimes, especially for one so young; but Master David is ever so kind a man. You’ll get used to being a wife and learn to run this big house for him.”

The old woman left, and Beth curled up against the pillow again. “Oh, Lloyd,” she whispered. She had no doubt it had been him. He must have wanted to talk to her and then changed his mind. He had said to tell her good-bye. What an awful thing to discover on top of the shocking news about his father, to find out the girl he loved had married someone else. What did he mean by saying he understood? Did he think she had married because she thought he was a terrible person now and wanted to be sure he left her alone? If only he knew the truth, but that was out of the question. For the sake of the baby, she had to keep up this charade of a happy marriage, had to let the baby think David was its father.

Poor, sweet, trusting Lloyd. He had no one now. Everything familiar had been taken from him. Everything. She at least had the baby to remember him by. And what would happen to his father? How his mother and poor Evie must also be suffering. Evie had been such a dear friend.

She thought how she would trade all the luxury of living here in this mansion in Chicago, as well as all the land and riches she would inherit from her father one day, all for a crude little cabin in the mountains where she could live with Lloyd, if only it could be so.

Tell her I said good-bye, he had said.

“Good-bye, my love,” she whispered. He would not be back. She knew it in her heart. Everything he had loved and trusted had been destroyed, and she in turn had not only lost the love of her life; she had lost her best friend. She wept into her satin pillow.

***

June 1888

Miranda waited impatiently for Jake to be brought out of the dark entrance to Wyoming’s territorial penitentiary. With each monthly visit, all that she was allowed, he looked a little older, limped a little more. Sometimes she felt she was in a prison of her own, having to watch her husband slowly die, a big man cramped into a six-foot by eight-foot brick cell for most of the twenty-four hours of every day for three years now. He would never make it another five. Of that she was certain, and every day she prayed for a miracle that would see him freed.

She had suffered her own torture through all of this, and Jake knew it. That was killing him too. She had waited nearly a year for him to be sent to Laramie. During that year she had had to pack and leave the beloved home they had shared in Colorado.

She lived in Laramie City now, worked as an assistant to young Doctor Brian Stewart, who had come to Laramie a year ago from New York with a sincere desire to come to a place where he was most needed. She had delivered babies, helped remove bullets, and knew how to stitch wounds. Laramie was one of those cities that was still rough and sometimes wild, and there was plenty of work for the doctor, who was sweet on Evie. She did not doubt that before long he would ask for her hand in marriage.