Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (31 page)

“Yeah,” Eric answered slowly.  He stared at the contract in his free hand as if it might bite him.  “Here, talk to Amelia for a second while I just read over that bit again.”

He gestured for Amelia to come closer and handed her the earpiece.

“Hello, Ben?” Amelia said.  Her moment of fluster smoothed out as Ben said something to her.  A smile warmed her.  “You’re too kind, Mr. Chase, I’m sure.  Ben, sorry.”

She glanced up to him and nodded, then her eyes lost her focus as she concentrated on what Ben was saying.

Reassured that Amelia would keep Ben entertained while he struggled, Eric turned to the second page of the contract.  He tapped his finger on the page, screwed up his face, and willed the words to settle down.

“Lewis!  I need to send a telegram this instant!”  Jacinta’s shrill voice blew his concentration just as he was getting somewhere.

“Sure thing, Jacinta.  Just give me a second,” Lewis answered.

Eric pressed his back up against the wall, well out of sight of anyone in the main part of the stationhouse.  He would have shut the office door if he could have done it without being seen.  The best he was going to be able to do was keep silent and out of sight.  Jacinta didn’t seem interested in barging into the office anyhow.

“This is important, Lewis,” she harangued the stationmaster.  “Very, very important.”

“All right, all right, I understand.”  Lewis had evidently gone through this routine before.  “I’m ready when you are.”

Eric adjusted the contract and tried to concentrate on reading.

“To Elizabeth Cornwall, London, England.”  Jacinta was hard to ignore.

“She one of your dressmakers?” Lewis asked.

“That is not of your business, but yes.”

Eric turned his back to the open door and poured all of his energy into ignoring her.  Amelia caught his eye as she chattered away with Ben and smiled.  Hi
s heart expanded in his chest.

He barely heard Jacinta go on.  “’Need information regarding the Marquess of Horsham and his family.  Stop.  Utmost urgency.  Stop.’”  There was a slight pause before she said.  “Well that ought to do it.  How much?”

“Let’s see,” Lewis hummed.

Before Eric could stop to wonder what Jacinta was asking a dressmaker about some marquess something-or-other, Amelia whispered, “Do you want me to look for it?”  She pointed at the contract.

Eric blew out a breath.  “Yeah, I suppose so.  It’ll be faster that way.  There’s too many distractions here today.”  He winked at her for good measure.  Jacinta was forgotten.

“Ben,” Amelia spoke into the telephone, blushing, “I’m going to give you back to Eric so I can take a look at the contract.  He’s … he’s got his hands full.”

There was a pause, Amelia nodded, then handed the earpiece back to Eric, taking the contract from his hands.

“Sorry, Ben, it’s a might busy in here today,” he made his excuse.

“Not a problem, not a problem.  Your intrepid wife is here to save the day.”

“That she is,” he agreed.

Amelia scanned the second page of the contract so fast it impressed Eric as much as talking to a fellow in Toronto while he was standing in Cold Springs.

“Oh!” Amelia exclaimed, eyebrows raising.  “He just wants to make sure that the cattle are shipped through the Canadian provinces instead of across American rails.”

“Well that’s nothing,” Eric said.

“Come again?” Ben asked.

“Sorry, I haven’t quite got the knack of these telephones yet.  I forgot you can’t hear what I’m hearing,” he apologized.  “I don’t mind shipping through Canada one bit.”

“Good man!”

“We might have one problem though.”

“What problem?”

“Well, turns out we had a bitter winter out here.”

He launched into the story of his ranch and the losses it had suffered, filling in details from both Curtis and Michael and what he’d seen himself.  He tried to be realistic, but seeing as the only thing he had to look at as he gave the explanation was Amelia’s hopeful face, optimism crept into everything he said.  He felt like he could take on the world with her at his side.

“So what you’re telling me,” Ben said as his explanation wore down, “is that you won’t be able to supply as much beef as you thought you could.”

“Yes, sir, this year at least.”  Eric nodded to Amelia who returned the gesture with her own encouraging nod.  “But give me a year or two and with some concentrated effort I should be able to get the ranch back to where it was.”

“I believe you,” Ben said, his cheerful confidence evident even over the telephone.  “And if you have that beautiful wife helping you, then I’m sure in a couple years’ time you’ll double what you said you could supply me.”

“You got that right.”

“Now I’ll let you go,” Ben finished.  “This call is going to be expensive enough for you as it is.  Sign that contract and send a copy back and we’ll get this horn tooting.”

“You better believe it.”

Eric said his good-byes to Ben, handed the telephone’s earpiece to Amelia so she could say good-bye, then ended the call.  The sense of satisfaction deep in his gut was growing by leaps and bounds.

“What do you say we head on out to the ranch now?” he asked Amelia.

“I’d like that.”  She smiled.

Instead of holding out his arm to escort Amelia like a proper gentleman should, he took her hand before walking out into the office.  The place was crowded with people who had come to pick up their mail or buy tickets for the next train or whatever other business folks had at a train station.

“How much do I owe you for the telephone call, Lewis?” Eric asked over the head of an older woman filling out a postal order form.

“What?  Huh?”  Lewis rubbed his forehead and glanced hopelessly around at his desk.  He sighed.  “Hold on just a second.”

“Don’t forget about us now,” Eric said.  He stepped back and shared a grin with Amelia.  She was too busy watching the patrons of the stationhouse with wide, wary eyes to notice.

They hadn’t been standing there for more than five minutes before Michael’s stock boy, Oliver, came tearing through the door, panting and wide-eyed.

“Mr. Jones!  Mr. Jones!  Do you know where Dr. Greene is?”

Lewis was still distracted but managed to look up to say, “Huh?  Dr. Greene?”

“Yeah.  Where’d he go?  He’s not at his office and Mrs. West is having her baby.”

“Charlie?”  Amelia’s eyebrows flew up.

“Good for her!”  Eric’s joy was quick to evaporate.  “Is everything all right?  Does she need a doctor?”

“I dunno.”  Oliver shrugged, dancing from one foot to the other.  “Mr. West told me to go fetch Dr. Greene, but I can’t find him.”

“He’s out at the church,” one of the women waiting in line for Lewis said.  “Rev. Tilson called him over because he’s got a stomach ache.”

“Probably ate too much ice cream,” someone else said.

The waiting patrons laughed.  Eric managed half a chuckle as well.  He took Amelia’s hand.

“You go check at the church, Oliver, and see if he’s there.  We’ll go look in on Charlie and Michael.”

“I’d be much obliged, Mr. Quinlan,” Oliver nodded and scrambled for the door.  “Mr. West ain’t doing so well.”

“I bet he isn’t,” Eric said.  “Lewis I’ll be back later to pay for the telephone call.”

“Sure thing, Eric.”

“Let us know how it goes,” the woman in line called after them as Eric and Amelia dashed out into Main Street.

A thousand different emotions coursed through Amelia’s heart as Eric led her up the back stairs behind the counter of the general store.  She’d never been around a woman in labor, but she knew what she would find.  She would find herself in a few months’ time.  A twist of terror shot through her as they heard a long grunt of pain coming from down the hall of Mi
chael and Charlie’s apartment.

“Eric!  What are you doing here?” Michael West greeted them in a state of complete disarray as they crossed the tight hallway to the bedroom at the end of the hall.  His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his glasses were askew.  His hair stood up at odd angles.  He paced the room, short of breath, with a wild, fearful look in his eyes.

“Is everything all right?” Eric asked, laying a hand on his friend’s arm.

“Everything’s fine!” Charlie growled from the bed.  “Somebody calm him down!”

Amelia stepped past the baffled men and entered the room.  Charlie sat propped up in bed in her nightdress, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.  She panted, easing her grip on the sheets on either side of her.  Amelia threw her own fear aside and rushed to her friend, sitting on the side of the bed and taking one of her hands.

“I don’t think it’s quite time yet, but it’s close,” Charlie told her.  She laughed and added, “Not that I’d know.  I’ve never done this before.”  Her voice had a manic edge.

“Neither have I.”  Amelia returned her laugh.

“Neither has Michael,” Charlie added with a significant look at her husband who stood in the doorway wringing his hands.  “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t worry,” Amelia said, “We were in the stationhouse when your shop boy Oliver came looking for Dr. Greene.”

“Dr. Greene?”  Charlie spoke the name as though it were a curse.

“Yes.  Apparently he’s at the church.  Oliver went to fetch him.  He’s on his way.”

Rather than being relieved, Charlie glared at her husband and said, “What about Mrs. McGee, the midwife?  I told you to send for her, not Dr. Greene!”

“Now Charlie,” Michael approached them with hands outstretched as though his wife were a rabid animal, “I know you and Dr. Greene haven’t always seen eye to eye….”

“He refused to treat Phin!  I don’t want him anywhere near me.”

“Sweetheart, you’re in labor!”

Amelia got up so that Michael could sit down in her place.  He took both of Charlie’s hands and appealed to her.

“Thank you,
dear
, but I had noticed that!”

“There are some things that you can’t do by yourself, you know.”

“Then fetch Mrs. McGee, Mabel Twitchel, anyone but Dr. Greene!”

“I heard my name?”

An older middle-aged man stepped into the crowded room carrying a medical bag.  Amelia disliked him on sight.  He had a sour face and bushy eyebrows.  Charlie may have been in the bed while he stood, but the way he looked down on her would make you think he was standing on the top of a mountain.

Charlie’s reaction was to roar with the pain of another contraction.  Amelia’s brow flew up and her pulse raced.  The last one had been only a few minutes ago.

“If everyone would please leave the room,” Dr. Greene said.

Eric edged his way into the hall and Michael rose from the bed.

“No!” Charlie cried through her pain.  “Don’t leave me alone with him!”

Dr. Green sighed impatiently.  “Gentlemen, please leave.  This woman, whoever you are, can stay.”

As much as it irked her to be called ‘this woman’, Amelia was glad not to have been dismissed.  She nodded to Eric, who waited for Michael to kiss Charlie’s forehead and lips several times in succession before fleeing the room.  The doctor slammed the door behind them as Amelia rushed to Charlie’s bedside and held her hand.

“Let’s just take a look and see how far along we are,” Dr. Greene said without an ounce of joy as he returned to the bed.

Charlie was very far along.  “I went into labor during the night,” she explained, “but I told Michael we could wait before calling a
midwife
.”  She grimaced and balked at Dr. Greene’s touch.

Amelia cringed at the coldness with which he examined her friend’s intimate parts.  She didn’t have much time to be indignant about it though.

Within fifteen minutes of arriving at Charlie’s bedside, Charlie was pushing for all she was worth.

“You can do this,” Amelia told her, holding her hand from the top of the bed while Dr. Greene worked from the bottom.

“It hurts!” Charlie wailed.

“Quiet please,” Dr. Greene scolded her.

A look of bloody murder filled Charlie’s eyes.  “When you attempt to pass a watermelon through your ass, then you can tell me to be quiet!” she snapped.

All Dr. Greene did was frown and say, “Push,” as Charlie’s shout turned into a long growl.

“You’re doing fine,” Amelia took on the role of encourager, even though her friend could have been in dire straits for all she knew.  Charlie was crushing the life out of her hand, but it didn’t seem to matter.  “Just keep going.  You’re almost there.  The baby is almost here.”

Her own baby kicked and jabbed at all the excitement as if it wanted out too.  Amelia put a hand over her belly to calm it, thinking,
A little too eager to see your new friend, are you?  You’ve got weeks to go, dear one
.

Her breath caught in her throat.  She hadn’t dared to speak to her child, even in her mind.  It was real, a real life, a new life.

Charlie’s intensified cries and renewed pressure on Amelia’s hand drew her back to the present.