The Mail Order Midwife's Secret (Wanted: Wives In The West 2) (8 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Hours passed as Millie, Clara, Mabel and Pastor Littlejohn sat waiting to hear word of what was happening. Mabel couldn’t sit still, so she went into the kitchen and started cooking for the group. Clara and Pastor Littlejohn listened as Millie told them more about her life with Henry, how she had met him and married him in the hopes of escaping her abusive father. She talked about the fact that she never had children with him, and
why
—and each time a new revelation came out, they simply embraced her without judgment.

Shortly before sunrise, hoofbeats approached outside. Millie sat up on edge, ready to run if Henry walked through the door. A knock sounded, and Pastor Littlejohn stood up to see who it was. When the door opened, Doc, Daniel and John walked in. John walked over to Millie and took her hand in his, helping her stand up out of the chair, and leading her out onto the porch. The others stayed inside as Doc and Daniel told them what had happened.

John gently closed the door so they could speak in private. “I’m not sure how much you told them,” he said.

“Everything,” Millie said, hanging her head, partly because she was drained of energy and partly because she was ashamed of her truth, now that it was known by everyone.

“Millie,” he said, lifting her head up so he could look her in her eyes. “He’s gone. I took care of it.” Millie didn’t know what that meant. Was Henry run out of town? Was he dead? Did he escape and would come back later to find her?

“No,” she said. “He’ll never be gone. I’ll always be running from him, and I can’t bring that upon everyone here.”

“Millie, listen,” John said, holding both of her hands in his. “When Daniel showed up at the saloon, he told us what you’d said to Clara about Henry finding you. Henry was
strongly persuaded
to sign some divorce papers, and once you sign, too, it’ll all be behind you.”

“But…where
is
he?” she asked, unable to believe she was safe from Henry.

“Well, I gave him two choices,” John said with a grin. “I could bury him under the jail, or he could go back to Kansas and never show up here again. He chose the latter.”

John reached into his vest and took out the folded divorce papers. “Put it all behind you, Millie,” John said, “And then be mine forever.”

Millie’s eyes filled with tears as she took the papers from John and held them close to her heart. “Not yet!” she said. She turned and ran back inside to find something to write with. She signed the papers and hurried back out onto the porch. “Now,” she said, showing John her signature.

John dropped to one knee and took a ring out of his pocket. “I’ve been carrying this with me in case you ever changed your mind,” he said. “Millie, will you marry me?”

“Yes!” Millie cried, tears streaming down her face as she knelt down on the porch with John and hugged him tightly. Finally, she could feel his arms wrapped around her and not feel fear or guilt.

“You two okay out here?” Mabel asked, poking her head out the door.

“Mabel!” Pastor Littlejohn yelled. “Leave those two lovebirds alone!” She promptly scurried back inside, leaving John and Millie in a fit of laughter and happy tears.

Chapter Nineteen

Millie and John wasted no time getting married. The following weekend, surrounded by all of their friends, they said their vows and started their life over together. Everyone who had been there the night Henry showed up kept Millie’s secret to themselves, allowing her the opportunity for a fresh start.

John was happy that Millie had decided to quit working the Acre and focus solely on her midwifing skills. It made her happy to help women bring their babies into the world, even though she wasn’t able to have one of her own.

He still worked nights there occasionally, mainly when Millie was attending a late-night birth, but he let the marshal work most of them. “How you doing tonight, Billy?” he asked, walking into the Peacock Saloon to see how business was since the panther’s recent release.

“Picking back up now that the meat processing plant’s expanding,” Billy answered.

“Well, that’s great news,” John said. He spotted Doc sitting at the bar, eating. “Want me to grab another panther to keep you busy, Doc?” he joked.

“No, thanks,” Doc said, taking a swig of his water. “Had enough of that mess.” Just then, a young man burst through the doors and ran up to the doctor.

“Millie sent me!” he said, gasping for breath. “Sarah’s having a real hard time—can’t stop the bleeding!”

Doc grabbed his bag and tossed some money onto the bar. He rushed out without saying goodbye to anyone. John felt bad for Sarah. She’d come to Fort Worth with her husband, Timothy, to help settle the community, and no sooner had they arrived than he died in an accident on the rail where he worked. She was already eight-and-a-half months pregnant and had no family, no money, and now—no husband. The congregation had rallied around her, of course, taking care of all her needs.

John walked around the Acre for a few hours, checking in on the locals. Some were regulars, and a few from faraway places. He liked to hear about their travels—reminded him of his days as a Ranger. He walked down to Kitty’s and asked about another young girl he’d given money to a few months back—hoping to save her from the same fate as Nellie Watkins. “She up and left me,” Kitty said. “Ungrateful. Must have been holding out on me, too, because she hopped a train back to her home in Virginia. Now where’d she get the money for
that
?”

John smiled, knowing his generosity had helped one girl get out of the Acre and start her life over. Just like his Millie, who’d gotten a fresh start for a different reason. “No idea,” John fibbed, not wanting to start a war with the bawd.

As the sun began to rise, John headed home, ready to stop at the top of his favorite hill. He figured Millie might not be home for hours—especially if Sarah was having a hard birth. But coming up over the hill, he saw Millie’s wagon pulled off on the side of the road.
Maybe her wheel broke,
he thought. He hopped off his horse and tied it to the wagon. “Millie?” he asked, unable to find her sitting outside.

“In here, John,” she said, calling to him from inside the wagon, where she was shielded from his view. He walked around to the back and pushed open the covering. Millie sat nestled in the middle of a quilt, her arms each holding a newborn baby, swaddled in a blanket. “I knew you’d come here first,” she said.

“Millie?” John said, confused. “Why do you have two babies?”

“Oh, John, she didn’t make it,” Millie said, her eyes a sea of tears that were a mixture of sorrow for the loss of the woman’s life and gratitude for the opportunity God had given her to raise babies as her own. “There’s no one to take them.”

John stood there in shock, unable to move or speak. He remembered Rose giving birth to Grace and Anna and holding them the same way. While there was part of him that instantly felt sad being reminded about the loss of his daughters, and now the community’s loss of Sarah, he couldn’t help but allow his heart to swell at the idea of getting to be a dad again. The Lord had truly blessed him—not once, but twice. John climbed up into the back of the wagon and reached out for one of the babies. Millie gently placed the little girl in his hands and he held her up against his chest.

“Are they girls?” he asked.

“One of each,” Millie said. “A boy and a girl.”

“We’ll name her Sarah,” John said, wishing to respect their mother’s sacrifice.

“And Timothy,” Millie added. “For their father.”

John nodded his head in agreement and pulled Millie and the baby boy in close to him. “Thank you, Lord,” he whispered, closing his eyes in prayer as he cradled Millie and the baby in his strong, loving arms. “Thank you for making me whole again.”

Millie rested her head on John’s shoulder, staring into the sweet faces of their precious newborn babies. “John?” she said softly.

“Yes, my love?” he answered.

“What do you think about building a house here on the top of this hill?” she asked. Millie knew that Rose, Grace and Anna used to wait for him here when he came home from work—that this special spot had helped her husband heal after the tragedy.

John looked out of the back of the wagon, the sun rising up over the hillside, now blanketed in dew-covered flowers and tall, green grass. “I think it’s meant to be,” he said as he smiled and turned toward Millie, a single tear running down his face to mark the end of one beautiful life and the beginning of another.

…The End…

I hope you’ve enjoyed story #2 in the Wanted: Wives in the West series.

Story #1:
Hannah Saves Samuel

Please visit
http://trinityford.com
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xox

Trinity

Special thanks to Cover Art by Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design

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