Resurrection
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RESURRECTION
L
INDA
L
AEL
M
ILLER
New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi
1
Montana Territory, Early August 1888
N
OBODY IN
P
LENTIFUL WOULD HAVE BLAMED
M
ISS
E
MMELINE IF
she’d put a bullet right between Gil Hartwell’s eyes, showing up out of nowhere the way he did, and after all that time had gone by. It only made matters worse that she’d defended him every day of those seven years, swearing up and down that Gil was dead, for he’d surely have come back to her otherwise. Most everybody else figured Gil had taken up with another woman, or gotten himself thrown into jail, though the compassionate ones kept their opinions to themselves.
Emmeline was teetering on top of a stool in the fragrant garden just off the screened veranda that fateful afternoon of his return, hanging the last of several dozen brightly colored paper lanterns from one of the lines she’d strung between the house and the sturdy oaks her grandmother had planted as a bride.
“Miss Emmeline?”
She froze at the sound of that dear and well-remembered voice, and the stool, precariously positioned in the soft, sweet grass, swayed wildly. She flung her arms out wide in a desperate bid for balance, and would have hurtled to the ground if two strong hands hadn’t closed around her waist just in the nick of time. Even that simple touch sent unseemly sensations ricocheting through Emmeline, and she put a trembling hand to her heart as she turned to face the man who had broken her heart.
Emmeline was not given to swooning. Though slender, she was tall for a woman, and strong, and she generally took a pragmatic view of things. For all of that, her head felt light enough to float away, like a soap bubble, and her heart was pounding so that she could barely catch her breath.
“Gil,” she whispered, amazed, stricken. He was solid and real, though thinner than she remembered. His dark hair was in want of barbering, and the fiercely blue eyes held a mixture of tenderness, humor, and some hard-won wisdom. He was wearing the plain, sensible suit he’d worn to their wedding.
“Sit down,” Gil said hoarsely, and took her elbow.
Emmeline allowed him to lead her to the wooden bench next to the rose arbor and seat her there. “Where have you been?” she asked, at last, in a raw whisper. Along with joyous disbelief, she was beginning to feel a cold, quiet fury.
Gil took a seat at the end of the bench, holding his battered hat by the brim, letting it dangle between his knees. He took in the carefully decorated garden with a sweep of his eyes and smiled, showing the fine white teeth she had always admired. “I didn’t stay away by choice, Emmeline,” he said quietly. “I want to tell you everything, and I plan to, if you’re inclined to listen, but it’s not a simple story, nor a short one. It needs telling in private, and from the looks of things, you’re planning some kind of celebration.”
Emmeline swallowed hard and willed herself not to break
down and sob. She’d loved this man with the whole of her being, and gone to his home and his bed in innocence, as a trusting and pliant bride. Gently and with infinite patience, he had taught her the intimate rites of marriage, and she had responded to his attentions with such primitive abandon that she blushed to recall it, even now.
Still, seven precious years had gone by, years during which Emmeline might have borne children and made a fine home. She had mourned Gil Hartwell without reservation, but she’d finally managed to set aside her grief and get on with her life.
Tears blurred her vision as she gazed at him. A shameless desire possessed her; she wanted to take him by the hand, lead him up the rear stairs to her bedroom, and close the door against the world while she lost herself in his caresses.
“This is my wedding day, Gil,” she said instead.
He stood up suddenly, but instead of looming over her, he turned, so that his back was to her. She watched as he set his shoulders, and pressed her hand to her bosom when he faced her again.
“You already have a husband,” Gil pointed out, in a quiet voice.
Emmeline dashed at her tears with the back of one hand. “Yes,” she said, reeling with joy and heartbreak, wild anger and the tenderest of affections, “it appears that I do. Not that I’d have known it by your behavior, Mr. Hartwell.”
Gil drew near and dropped to one knee before her, looking up into her wet eyes. “Do you love this other man?” he asked gruffly. “If you do, if you want him—”
She couldn’t help herself; she reached out then, and touched the beloved face, ever so lightly, with her fingertips, half expecting Gil to dissolve, like the visions she’d conjured so many times. “There won’t be a wedding today,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re forgiven, Gil Hartwell.” She withdrew her hand. “How do I know, for one thing, that you
don’t already have a wife waiting somewhere else, with a whole houseful of children?”
“You’ll have to trust me, I reckon,” he answered, with a sad smile. Gil raised himself from his knee and took a seat on the bench again, but this time he didn’t keep his distance. He sat disturbingly close, and Emmeline was aware of him in every nerve ending. “Is that what the good people of Plentiful believed, Emmeline? That I left you for some other woman?”
“Yes,” she said, and she had to push the word out of her mouth, it was so hard to say. She had suffered greatly from the gossip that surrounded Gil’s disappearance, and she dreaded the idea of going through the singular agonies of it all over again.
“And what did you believe?”
“That you were dead,” Emmeline replied, as fury swelled within her again, fresh and bitter. “I even erected a fancy monument to your memory, over in the churchyard. Would you like to see it?”
Gil flinched slightly, in mock horror, and though there was humor in his eyes, it was tempered, as before, with some deep and very private pain. Before he could reply, a third voice spoke from behind them.
“I was told,” said Neal Montgomery, as both Gil and Emmeline turned to watch him descend the veranda steps, “that it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride the day of the wedding. I should have heeded the warning.”
Emmeline had no opportunity to offer a reply, for by the time she’d recovered, Gil was on his feet, facing his old antagonist. Gil’s small but well-chosen homestead, abandoned all this while, bordered Neal’s much larger ranch, and there had been bad blood between them from the first. Neal had never made a secret of the fact that he wanted to annex Gil’s hundred and sixty acres to his own one thousand.
“I might have known it would be you,” Gil said. “How long
was I gone, Montgomery, before you started courting my wife?”
Emmeline touched Gil’s arm in a feeble effort to silence him, but her gaze was fixed on Neal. Tall and broad-shouldered, with fair hair and golden-amber eyes, he was a handsome man, much sought after even in Plentiful, where women, respectable or otherwise, were scarce. She sighed.
“I am sorry, Neal,” she said, and if her voice was a bit tremulous, it still carried. “I certainly didn’t expect this to happen.”
Neal was not looking at her, but at Gil. Something intangible but innately violent passed between the two men, and even though the weather had been fair for a week, a chilly breeze came up all of a sudden, causing the Chinese lanterns to rustle and flutter overhead, like dry leaves. “No,” Mr. Montgomery replied. “Nor did I, my dear.”
“I’ll just bet you didn’t,” Gil answered. His eyes were slightly narrowed as he assessed Neal. “Tell me, Montgomery—did you sweet-talk Emmeline into selling you my land, or were you marrying her to get it?”
Emmeline stiffened in indignation, realized that Gil had taken a light grasp on her arm, and wrenched free of him. Since anything she’d have tried to say would have come out as an insensible sputter, she held her tongue.
Neal crossed the grass to stand a few feet away, and his fancy spurs, fashioned of pure Mexican silver, like the wide band gleaming on his hat, made faint, jingling music as he moved. His dark suit was expensive and flawlessly tailored, like his white linen shirt, and even though this was his wedding day, he wore a Colt .45 strapped low on one hip. His gaze was locked with Gil’s, and a tiny muscle leaped in his jaw before he deigned to answer the other man’s inflammatory question.
“I was marrying Miss Emmeline because I love her, and my
plans haven’t changed. Your presence is irksome, Hartwell, but probably temporary, and therefore of no real concern to me.”
Gil’s smile was anything but genial. He slid one arm around Emmeline’s waist, and this time she didn’t—couldn’t—pull away. “We’ve got things to settle between us, Emmeline and I, and maybe when all the dust settles, she’ll choose you for a husband. In the meantime, the lady is still my wife, and I’ll thank you to keep a proper distance.”
“A divorce should be a simple matter,” Neal observed easily, even cheerfully, as he tugged at one glove and flexed his fingers under leather so thin and pliant that it fitted like a layer of skin. “God knows you’ve given the woman ample grounds.”
Emmeline flushed. “I would like to participate in this discussion, if neither of you mind,” she announced, gathering the skirts of her practical serge dress and starting toward the veranda. “It will be continued inside, in the parlor.”
The two men followed her into the house in the end, but Emmeline had a few bad moments in the interim, wondering if they would engage in fisticuffs right there in the garden.
“Izannah!” she called, as soon as she’d crossed the threshold into the spacious room that had been her grandfather’s study until his death eighteen months before.
Her young cousin, resplendent in her pink organza dress, glided down the main staircase as Emmeline entered the foyer. The poor girl was going to be disappointed that the wedding was being called off; social events were thin on the ground in Plentiful.
Izannah, a pretty child with brown hair and eyes, blushed fetchingly at the sight of Neal, for she found him charming. Her mouth formed a perfect O when her gaze drifted past Mr. Montgomery to rest upon Gil.
“Great Zeus,” she murmured.
Gil bowed, his eyes dancing. “I am gratified, Miss Izannah,” he said, “that you remember me.”
“Of course I remember you,” Izannah said, and though she’d come to a stop in the middle of the stairway earlier, she now descended with theatrical grace. “You were Emmeline’s husband.” Her complexion paled slightly as she realized the implications of this fact, and she sat heavily on the bottom step. “Good heavens,” she said.