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  I whispered, “I’m so sorry. Hang on, we’ll get you out of here.”

  “I’m all wet,” she moaned. “Oh dear God, my legs are wet!”

  “Soon,” I promised, jittering with nerves. I would carry her out of this place; I would knock out that stupid nun and carry Patricia to safety. “Ax will be here soon.”

  “Is it blood?” she whimpered, and I could tell she was about to lose her cool like nobody’s business.

  I helped her lift her skirts and was relieved to see only clear wetness, no hint of the telltale red of blood. “Your water broke, like we talked about might happen, remember?”

  “But that means he’s coming right now!” She started to cry.

  Axton! I prayed. There’s no time like the present!

  There was a small scuffle just outside the door. I couldn’t release my hold on Patricia to see what was happening but a second later the door opened and emitted Axton, holding Sister Beatrice backward against his chest, one hand over her mouth. The sister’s frantic eyes darted between Patricia and me.

  “Thank God,” I gasped, almost going to my knees with relief.

  “Help me, Ruthie, there’s rope just outside the door.”

  Patricia sank to a nearby pew as I helped Ax knot a handkerchief around Sister Beatrice’s mouth before securing her to a pew.

  “Please keep quiet,” I begged the nun, and the first essence of emotion I’d ever observed shone through as she glared like a kicked badger. I couldn’t resist whispering, “You’re a saint.”

  The moment his hands were free Axton hugged me, rocking us side to side. He whispered against my hair, “I’m so glad to see you, Ruthie, I can’t tell you.”

  But the woman he truly needed was only steps away; he released me and flew to Patricia’s side, falling to his knees before her. Gasping and crying, she threw her arms around him while he clasped her to his chest, burying his face against her neck. Patricia heaved with sobs, digging her fingers in his hair.

  “You’re alive, you came for me…”

  “Of course I did, sweetheart…”

  “I’ve been so scared…we thought you were dead.” She held his face in both hands, studying him with the desperation of the damned. “I love you, Axton, I love you so. I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”

  He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and chin. She tugged his mouth to hers and a burst of agony ricocheted through me – I was witnessing something I should not, I realized, a moment of intimacy and surrender. I thought of Cole, who was by far my second choice for Patricia but who deserved better than this; the child was his, after all. There was no other choice for her but Cole, not anymore. I bit my lower lip as Axton drew away. I couldn’t see Patricia’s face, only Axton’s, which was overcome with his aching love for her as he breathed her name. “I’ve been so worried. Are you hurting, sweetheart?”

  It was up to me to put a stop to this; I said firmly, “She’s in labor, Ax, of course she’s hurting! Come on, you two, let’s go!”

  Ax gained immediate control, nodding his understanding. “C’mon, I got the gardener’s wagon yonder in the courtyard.”

  He carried Patricia, looking both ways before navigating the expanse of brick; I followed close behind them, my heart lodged somewhere near my voice box. The nuns were at dinner but at any moment someone could spy us, Mother Superior and her lackeys could stop us –

  The gardener’s wagon, a ramshackle cart with a boxy bed and no canvas cover, was parked in the gathering gloom with its tailgate down. Ranger was hitched to it and Axton jogged the last few yards, setting Patricia on the wooden bed with as much care as he could manage. “Lie down, sweetheart, quick now. I’m so sorry I have to haul you two like this.”

  I understood his intent at once, climbing in beside Patricia and a number of barrels lined up on one edge. Patricia scooted as close to the barrels as she could manage and I squeezed beside her. She was breathing hard; there were large damp patches on her skirts.

  “Hold on,” I begged.

  Axton drew several empty cloth bags nearer to us, creating a less human-like outline, and then spread a dirty canvas tarp over us, probably the one that usually made an umbrella over the wagon bed. He murmured, “No one’s stirring yet. We have to clear the gate now. Be as quiet as you can.”

  We heard him climb on the wagon seat and command, “Gidd-up,” to Ranger. The halter chains jingled and we bumped forward, the wooden wheels creaking over the bricks. Our scant covering was translucent. I tipped my forehead against Patricia’s and we grasped hands.

  Axton murmured, “Here comes the gate now, just ahead.”

  I didn’t dare breathe. Patricia closed her eyes as Axton halted Ranger and we heard a man’s voice; I hadn’t realized there was another man besides Father Doherty on the property.

  But of course they’d have a man watching the gate, I thought. Again I felt an imminent heart attack, my pulse firing so hard my veins hurt. What if he asks to check the wagon? What if this is one of Fallon’s men? Oh Jesus…

  But this man sounded ancient as he greeted Axton. My gaze clung to the canvas covering a few inches from my nose as I listened, wild with fear. Patricia’s hands were damp and trembling. I enfolded them more securely within mine.

  Axton said, “Fine evening, ain’t it?”

  He sounds natural.

  The man responded by asking, “You headed to town, young feller?”

  Go with it, I tried to tell Axton. Go with that.

  Ax said, “Surely am,” and I pictured his winsome smile. “I’ll return before full dark.”

  There was a pause and I figured we were done for. Patricia’s shaking increased. But then came the sound of clinking iron and Axton’s calm, “Thank you, sir. Good evening!”

  And the wagon resumed motion, carrying us from the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the first time since last autumn.

  We traveled over extremely bumpy ground. After maybe a mile and a half, when we were probably at last out of sight of the convent, Axton said, “We’re away!”

  I shoved aside the canvas like someone surfacing from a river, overcome by relief that I was not about to drown. We were traveling west and the evening sky arched above us, smooth as velvet and painted with warm lavender hues. I inhaled great gulps of air, tears streaking my cheeks. The open prairie stretched to all sides around us, as beautiful as freedom.

  I cupped Patricia’s face and exulted, “We’re away!”

  She managed to nod acknowledgment, breathing harshly, clutching her belly, and Axton halted Ranger and jumped to the ground, racing to the back of the wagon where he reached for Patricia, letting her grip his hands. I realized he’d lost all traces of boyishness since I’d last seen him. He moved now without hesitation.

  “It’s all right,” I assured Patricia, kneeling beside her in the wagon bed. I looked to Ax. “Where are we going? Is it safe in town?”

  He held my somber gaze. “No, we’ve been avoiding the town. They’ll be half-crazy with worry by now. I’ve not been able to talk to them since I made the trip to town yesterday evening and they don’t know that I’ve talked to you.”

  “Is Cole with you?” I asked.

  Axton’s eyes were almost unreadable but I knew him well enough to perceive the depth of agony; he nodded.

  “Does he know, Ax?”

  Before he could respond something west of us caught his attention. He lifted his left arm, waving in wide arcs, and hollered “I got them!”

  I spied the outline of a horse and rider silhouetted against the sunset, the horse at a full-out gallop. My breath twisted and caught. I thought wildly, Miles?

  “Who…” I whispered.

  I heard a voice, shouting my name. A deep, husky voice, one I knew way down deep in my bones. Disbelief became instant, blazing recognition. And then I gathered my skirts and leaped from the wagon, heedless of nothing else but getting to him.

  “Ruthann!”

  He drew on the reins, dismounting before the horse had halted
, but nothing could stop him now. Joy exploded within me, hot and swift and potent as he rushed to me.

  And then I was wrapped in his arms.

  I heard choking sobs and harsh, exerted breathing, both mine and his. We were in perpetual motion, trying to defy all known physics and crawl at once into each other’s skin. The force of our embrace took us to the ground, where we continued to tangle around each other, struggling to become one entity rather than two. I stared at him as one tortured and deprived, at the man I had once known better than anyone else in my life. He took my face between his hands, tears streaming over his cheeks.

  “It’s you, it’s you,oh Marshall, it’s you…”

  He fell into my eyes, studying me as if unable to believe we were touching, alive in the same space together at last, hearts beating and blood flowing. He pressed his lips to my forehead, crushing my body to his and shuddering with silent sobs, rolling us again, so that I was cradled to his chest.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he moaned, his voice raw, unimaginably pained. “Ruthann. Oh Jesus Christ, you’re here. You’re alive. I love you…you know I love you, don’t you? Tell me you know…”

  “I do know, Marshall, I do, come here,” I begged, shifting to wrap my arms around his neck. “I have never stopped loving you. Not ever. I knew you didn’t mean what you said that night…” It seemed so long ago now, in another life we might never again be allowed to inhabit.

  “I can never forgive myself for speaking to you that way. I can only pray you’ll forgive me. I was sure I cursed myself by saying those things to you. And then you…” He choked on a sob before finishing in a hoarse whisper, “You disappeared. And I haven’t seen you since, until this moment.”

  “You’re here. You’re here with me. I’ve never been so happy,” and even though I was weeping, within my chest cavity there was a sense of repair – of my heart being made again whole.

  He kissed my face and neck, soft and honoring kisses, breathing against my skin, my hips anchored between his bent legs. He said passionately, “You’ve been restored to me and I will never ask for another thing in this life. You are everything I need, my beautiful angel-woman. Is it really you?”

  “It’s me,” I whispered, my fingers curled around strands of his hair, which was loose and tangled and hung well below his shoulders. “It’s me, sweetheart. I’ve been going by Ruthann Rawley here, from the first. That’s how I think of myself.”

  His eyes flashed with a deep and yet cautious joy as he studied me at close range in the sunset light, for the first time in so long. I drank in the sight of his familiar handsome face, seeing for the first time the evidence of his heritage – his beautiful gray eyes with their secondary spokes of color, just like Celia’s, unchanged except for the pain, which would take time to fully dissipate. He had not experienced any lightness of spirit in far too long. His nose – long and knife-edged, just like Miles’s – and his wide, sensual mouth, jaws peppered with thick black stubble; his dark hair was longer than I’d ever seen it, streaked with a few threads of silver, giving him a distinctly more mature aura.

  “That’s how I always think of you, my darling, my sweet darling. Will you let me kiss you?” He spoke with such longing, a haunted remembrance of pain. He held my face, gently thumbing away my tears.

  In response I lifted my mouth, exhaling softly against his lips before pressing near. Marshall groaned and drew me immediately closer. My body had never forgotten his kisses and responded instinctively. I opened my lips, flooded with memories of all our past kissing, all our lovemaking, the beauty and joy of it; the dam in my mind broke, after so long, and I moaned as our tongues joined, sleek and hot, tasting him and letting myself remember everything.

  Low, wordless sounds of love lifted from my throat, meshing with the same sounds from Marshall’s. The taste of him was so familiar, and so good, his taste I had not allowed myself to think about, in order to survive…the feel of his tongue stroking my skin, the way his lips played over mine and how our mouths fit so perfectly, molded for each other alone. I held his head with both hands, feeling his jaws moving as we kissed. Marshall ran his hands without ceasing over my body, shoulders and ribs and hips, down and back up again before anchoring possessively around me. I rubbed my cheek on the stubble of his beard as he released a shuddering breath against the side of my neck.

  At least partially sated upon one another, he whispered, “There’s so much to tell you. Oh Jesus, have you been hurt? Oh God, you’re so vulnerable here…”

  “I haven’t been hurt, not how you’re thinking,” I assured him, and his eyes closed in temporary relief.

  “Come with me, we’re on the ground for the love of all that’s holy.” Marshall rolled to his knees and then his feet, lifting me with, keeping me close to his heart. It wasn’t until then I remembered we were not alone, and saw two other horses and riders near the wagon, along with Blade, who Marshall had been riding. Marshall tucked me to his side and together we hurried back to everyone else. Axton had relinquished Patricia to Cole; Cole was holding both her hands, speaking in low tones. Ax stood yards away, watching Marshall and me approach. A man I didn’t at first recognize sat astride a tall chestnut horse, observing with curious dark eyes.

  Ax said quietly to Marshall, “Well, I guess you do know Ruthie.”

  Marshall lifted my chin and kissed me flush on the lips, smiling into my eyes; I refused to release my hold on him. His voice was huskier than normal as he said, “Ruthann is my heart and my soul. I told you I’m not much good without either.”

  “I know it ain’t the time to bring up particulars but I’m Malcolm Carter, ma’am,” said the man on horseback, tipping his hat brim.

  Why, it’s Mathias, I realized, punched anew in the gut. Mathias, my sister Camille’s husband.

  Marshall knew exactly what I was thinking. He nuzzled my hair and acknowledged the strangeness of it all, whispering, “I know.”

  Without thinking I cried, “Aces! Your horse! Why, he’s beautiful.” I recognized the animal from the old picture Camille kept on her nightstand. I could only just imagine my sister’s joy to know I was meeting them.

  Malcolm nodded, obviously pleased; he patted his horse’s neck with pure affection. “We’re both pleased to meet you, Miss Ruthann.”

  And then from the back of the wagon Cole said urgently, “My son is about to enter this world, you-all, can we hold off on the introductions?!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  COLE MONTGOMERY SPICER, JUNIOR, WAS BORN SO QUICKLY there was still the afterglow of sunset in the sky as he entered the world. At my rapid-fire orders (as I was the only one of us who’d ever actually attended a birth), Axton climbed into the wagon bed and braced Patricia from behind, bolstering her with his chest against her spine, while I hurried to help her scoot closer to the end of the tailgate and lifted her heavy black skirts; we’d never been given underwear at the convent, other than the binding cloths I’d needed for my periods. None of us was concerned about anything but helping Patricia; there was no embarrassment, no awkwardness at her partial nudity.

  I tried to keep blatant alarm from my voice as I beheld the sight of her parted thighs. “He’s crowning. Oh wow, he’s crowning right now.”

  The delicate skin between Patricia’s legs bulged unimaginably far to accommodate the blood-smeared oval of the baby’s head. Cole’s face went slack with amazement before he gathered himself and moved closer, gripping her knees in his strong hands.

  I told Cole, “That’s good, you keep holding her knees. When she pushes him out, we’ll both be ready.”

  Patricia, braced against Ax in a half-reclining position, was trying her best to look brave, I could tell. Her belly clamped with continuous contractions, her face pale as a moonlit rock. Just observing the clenching of her muscles made my own stomach hurt. She groaned and sweat beaded on her upper lip but she studied my face for instructions.

  “He’s almost ready to be born. When I say so, I want you to push,” I said,
and she rallied, chewing her bottom lip and nodding with vigor. Axton cupped his hands about her elbows. He also watched my face for orders and I felt a tremble ripple through my limbs.

  “You can do this, Ruthie.” Marshall bolstered me from the left side, kissing my temple. He said to Patricia, “We’ll all help, don’t worry.”

  She tried to smile. And then she gritted her teeth as muscle spasms shuddered over her. I cringed in sympathy – simply observing was painful. I thought of the night my niece Millie Jo was born, back home in Landon; I’d been twelve years old and slightly horrified by the messy process, honored to be there, sure, but it was terrible watching Camille go through what seemed like the worst physical pain of her life. At least that night there had been an entire hospital staff available if anything went wrong.

  Cole kept firm hold of Patricia’s knees, making circles with his thumbs; he gritted his teeth with each low, groaning cry that emerged from Patricia’s throat, hating to see her in such pain.

  “Hold her hand,” I instructed Malcolm Carter, who’d dismounted and hurried to assist. “And Marsh, you take her other hand. Let her grip you.”

  The men obeyed my orders without question. Despite the danger looming literally just over the horizon – Sister Beatrice and our absence from the convent had surely been discovered by now – there was a blazing beacon of joy inside me as I beheld Marshall, only a few feet away, here in the nineteenth century. He had come for me. Of course he had, and my heart soared with the realization. He and Malcolm each took one of Patricia’s hands, letting her squeeze them as she would.

  Buoyed by sudden optimism, I ordered, “All right, Patricia, I want you to push! Push hard! He’s right here!”