In Your Arms (Montana Romance) (30 page)

“We’ve got a little bit to add to your feast if you need it,” Christian said as they passed through the door and into the tiny house.

“Thank you, but we have enough,” Rebecca answered.

The nicest thing that could be said about the house was that it was clean.
However much money Bo Turner had gained from his thievery, it was clear none of it had been spent here. Three more neat but thin children waited inside. They were quiet but cheerful, singing a spirited hymn as they carried dishes from the kitchen to the long table in the main room. The scene felt as out of place and disjointed as finding Sturdy Oak’s house abandoned.

“Look, Rebecca,” Christian began, taking off his hat.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Bo.”

“Don’t be,” Rebecca answered.

Christian shifted his weight, brushing a speck of dust off of the brim of his hat.

“
You know it was Lily and I who caught him at the store and….”

“I know,” Rebecca said.
“Please, sit.”

She walked to the head of the table and pulled out the chair, the place of honor, for Christian, then did the same with the chair on the right for Lily.
Lily and Christian exchanged a look, then took the seats they were offered.

“There will be a trial, I’m sure,” Christian went on as Rebecca handed the baby off to the oldest girl.
“With any luck, Bo will serve his time and—”

“I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in nearly
thirteen years, Mr. Avery,” Rebecca interrupted him. “These last two nights I’ve slept safe and sound for the first time since my wedding night. We all have. I have you to thank for that.”

She didn’t say another word.
Instead she took a bowl of potatoes from the center of the table and served both Lily and Christian heaping spoonfuls.

A new, uncomfortable emotion closed Lily’s throat and brought tears to her eyes.
For the past two days all she had been able to think about was the scandal that had been caused by her and Christian being discovered together. It had never dawned on her that the reason they had been caught together, the crime they had foiled, had stopped chaos of a different kind. She had lost her job, yes, but as Rebecca served them then sat down, Grover returning to join them in a simple grace, it dawned on her that they had caught a criminal. More than just a robbery had been stopped that night.

“You’re coming to the play tonight, aren’t you, Miss Singer?” Grover asked from his place across the table from her as they ate.

“Play?” Lily blinked. She sucked in a breath when she remembered. “It’s History Night!”

“You’re coming, right?” Grover asked again.

Lily thought of the disappointment in Mr. Prescott’s face as he’d dismissed her. She remembered the bitter insults Alicia Kuhn had hurled at her classroom door. She imagined the distain the town council must have felt when neither she nor Christian showed up for the meeting to decide her fate.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she told Grover, eyes downcast.

“Of course it would!” Grover exclaimed. “You have to come!” His bold, twelve-year-old petulance only broke Lily’s heart further.

“We’ll see when we get back into town, son,” Christian answered for her.
“For now, let’s just enjoy this good food your mother made for us”

He glanced across the table to where Rebecca sat eating with one hand and nursing her baby with the other.
For the first time in what Lily imagined was a long time, Rebecca smiled.

A swell of pride filled Lily’s heart.
She understood. Her whole life she’d yearned to belong to someone, to something, only to feel lost. Christian, on the other hand, knew what it was to be a part of a community. He had risked so much to do what was right, to bring justice and peace to people like Rebecca and Grover and the rest of the family. She had fought for the rights of Sturdy Oak’s grandchildren even though it had seemed to her like she was working against them. He wasn’t. He had worked for the benefit of the whole town. She understood why as the Turner children laughed and chewed their food, no fear in their eyes.

She had never felt prouder or
been more in love in her life.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Lily faced the drive back to Cold Springs with a heart full of dread.

“Everyone in town will know what happened now,” she whispered to Christian
. They sat huddled together in the sleigh as Grover drove them slowly along snow-covered roads. “They’ll see us returning together and that will be the end of it.”

“The end of what?” Christian answered her, an irritating grin tweaking the corners of his mouth.

“My job,” she hissed back, “my reputation, my good standing. I would say yours too, but—”

“It’s safe to say that’s already ruined?” he finished for her with a wink.

She huffed in irritation. “No, it’s safe to say that as a man, a white man, you’ll be forgiven. As for me….” She would let him draw his own conclusions.

“Stop now.
Enough of this.” Christian chuckled, tucking his arm around her. “I’m not worried about you one bit.”

“How can you say that?”
She shook her head, hugging herself to keep her anxious heart from pounding out of her chest as much as to keep warm.

“Because.”
He leaned closer. “Because of the look in Rebecca Turner’s eyes.”

Lily glanced at her shoulder at the wispy woman who sat wrapped in a blanket with her younger children.
It didn’t seem to bother her that she’d been relegated to baggage in her own sleigh. Lily had insisted on sitting in the back while she rode up front with Grover, but Rebecca had refused, saying she always sat in the back. The implication still hung heavily in her gut.

“I believe Rebecca Turner is one of the more forgiving souls in Cold Springs,” Lily muttered to Christian.

He shrugged and pulled her closer. “We’ll see.”

Cold Springs was bustling with activity by the time Grover drove the sleigh into the yard beside the new hotel where half a dozen others were already parked.
The hotel itself was lit up with strings of electric lights lining the front porch. A few groups of children with one or two parent to guide them walked up and into the building, bubbling with excitement.

“I have to go in early,”
Grover explained, hopping down from the seat with more energy than Lily had ever seen in the boy. “Got to get my costume on and all. You are coming, right, Miss Singer?” he asked her for the dozenth time.

“We’ll see,” she answered as she had each time.

He smiled as if she’d agreed whole-heartedly and started unhitching his horse from the front of the sleigh. After his year of struggles, Grover was like a new boy, a new young man.

“You let me take care of that, Grover,” Christian moved to intercept him once he’d helped Lily and Rebecca and all of the Turner children down.
“I’ve got to take Ike Twitchel’s horses to the livery for safe-keeping anyhow.”

“Thanks, Mr. Avery.”

Grover scurried off. As he climbed the hotel stairs two at a time, Lewis Jones strode down, fixing his hat on his head. He noticed Christian and Lily and stumbled in surprise.

“Mr. Avery!”
He shifted direction to stride towards them on his long legs. “There you are! I’ve been looking for you since this morning when the train finally came in.”

“Is that so?” Christian asked, continuing his work with the horses.

“It is. A package came in for you. From Baltimore. I’ve never seen anything delivered so fast in all my life!”

Christian jerked straight and shot a furtive look at Lily.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you go find your brother and let him know you’re in one piece?”

“I should.”
Lily sighed and stepped around the carriage and onto the shoveled path. She was grateful for the excuse to leave the brightness and exposure of the hotel.

“Lend me a hand with these horses, Lewis, and I’ll, uh, come pick up that package right away,” Christian said behind her.

The snow had been cleared from the roads and paths in the heart of the town and heaped at the end of streets and between buildings. Lily was able to rush from the new hotel, around the corner to Main Street, and into the West’s store without being recognized or stopped by anyone. As much as she wanted to find Seeks For Her and assure him she was all right, she needed a bath and clean clothes first.

“Good heavens, there you are!” Charlie greeted her with boundless enthusiasm the moment she stepped through the door.
She rushed out from behind the counter and hugged Lily with all her might. “We were all so worried about you!”

“Is that Lily Singer?
”

Lily glanced up from Charlie’s hug to find Delilah Reynolds rushing down a shop aisle towards her.
Lily found herself jostled from one hug to another as Delilah threw her arms around her and sighed in relief, a sack of coffee still in one hand.

“Honey, we were all beside ourselves!” Delilah said.
“Your brother and the boys said that you and Christian rode out to find Sturdy Oak’s people in the middle of a blizzard!” She took a step back and swatted Lily with the sack of coffee. “Of all the stupid, foolhardy things to do!”

“I know,” Lily answered sheepishly.

In her gut, a new emotion was growing. These people had missed her. They had cared what happened to her. She hardly knew Delilah Reynolds at all.

“Michael wanted to send out a search party to find you, but Phin and Eric talked him out of it,” Charlie went on.
“Good thing too. He ended up stuck here at the store while I was out at the house with Eloise all by myself!”

“Eric
told us that Christian had enough sense to take shelter when things got bad. Looks like he was right,” Delilah said.

“He was.
We reached Sturdy Oak’s place just as the snow really started coming down,” Lily explained.

“Well, it’s a blessing the storm was a quick and mean one and not a long, miserable one,” Delilah declared.

“We were still away too long,” Lily sighed.

“Too long?”
Charlie balked. “But it’s only been two days!”

Lily shook her head.
“The town council meeting was yesterday at noon, wasn’t it?”

A bright grin lit Charlie’s face.
“No, it was not. Everyone was stuck inside. The meeting never took place.”

For a moment, Lily didn’t dare to breathe.
Hope sprung up so fast and so hard in her chest that it made her faint.

“You mean I haven’t lost my position yet?”

Charlie exchanged a triumphant look with Delilah. “Not by a long shot. The meeting has been rescheduled for Friday.”

“That’s two days from now!”

“It certainly is. Half the town has heard about the whole incident now, including how you helped Christian nab those two useless pieces of trash, Bo Turner and Jed Archer.”

“I’ve never seen Jacinta so silent in all my life!” Charlie added.
“Finally, something to shut her up!”

“It won’t last long,” Delilah drawled.

“But…but they know how the two were apprehended?” Lily asked, sick butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

“Yes, they do.”
Delilah arched an eyebrow. “Congratulations, by the way.”

Lily’s cheeks burned hot.
“I hardly think causing a scandal and losing a position doing the thing I’ve trained my life to do is cause for congratulations.”

“Did you have fun?” Delilah asked.
“Did you hear the angels sing?”

Lily couldn’t meet her eyes.
Flashes of the last two days came to her, making her face burn hotter.

“Then congratulations are most definitely in order,” Delilah finished with a sly grin.

“Besides, everyone knows you and Christian have been secretly engaged for weeks now,” Charlie said, eyes sparkling.

“They do?”
Lily blinked. It was news to her.

“Rumor has it that the two of you are married already and have been since Christmas,” Delilah said.

“People think that?” It was beyond unbelievable, like something out of a pulp novel.

“Oh, we made sure of that,” Charlie answered.
She and Delilah exchanged cunning grins.

There was more behind Delilah and Charlie’s smiles that Lily couldn’t put her finger on.
It made her nervous to the point of quaking and light with hope at the same time. These were the people she was certain hardly knew she existed and disapproved if they did know. Their smiles tied her mind and heart in knots.

“But enough about that.”
Charlie waved the issue away. “The town’s all abuzz about History Night tonight! You are coming, aren’t you? I hear your students have quite a show to put on.”

“I
…I’m not sure,” Lily answered.

Her emotions were in such a jumble that she didn’t know what to do.
She certainly wasn’t ready to face a hostile crowd, but Charlie and Delilah’s reaction to seeing her safe, their implications of the rumors swirling through town with the snow, hadn’t been what she had expected.

“I need to take a bath first.”
She dodged the issue.

“Then by all means, go upstairs and take one!” Charlie urged her.
“But hurry. The performances start in less than an hour!”

Lily nodded, then turned to head back through the doorway to the storeroom and up to the apartment.
None of what Charlie and Delilah had told her made a lick of sense. Rumors that she and Christian were already married? Rumors the two women had had a hand in? But why? Why would two women whom she admired but had barely spoken to in her months in Cold Springs have spread such ridiculousness on her behalf?

She washed as quickly as she could and dressed in one of her nicer dresses.
Everything was just as she had left it in the small apartment bedroom. Charlie and Michael West had every right to toss it out on the street when she was gone, but instead she had the feeling that it had been guarded with care.

She blinked as she looked at herself in the mirror while putting her hair up.
First Jessica, then Rebecca Turner, and now Charlie West and Delilah Reynolds. Not to mention Snow In Her Hair and River Woman. The woman in the mirror stared back at her and smiled. So many friends. She was blessed indeed.

“Lily, are you up here?”

She twisted away from the mirror to peer through the open bedroom door as Christian rounded the corner at the top of the stairs in the hall. He must have run home to clean up as well. His suit was fresh, and even though he hadn’t shaved, he was clean.

“Are the horses taken care of?” she asked.
It felt strange to be concerned with such mundane things, but the loan of the horses—even if it had been an emergency—had been another sign of friendship. She would return that friendship a hundredfold as soon as she could.

“They’re safe and sound,” Christian answered.

“And Lewis Jones. Did he get what he needed?”

She hardly knew the man, but he was part of her world now, part of her community.
Just the idea filled her with a need to be sure he was well. It was the kind of need Christian must have felt all along.

“He certainly did.”

To Lily’s surprise, Christian reached into his coat pocket then sank to one knee. He took her left hand. Without warning, she burst into laughter.

“Another proposal?” she asked through her giggles.
“Isn’t this the third one?”

“
Yes it is,” he answered. “My dearest sweetheart, Lily Singing Bird, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She couldn’t still her giggles.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve just been informed that we are already married, that we have been since Christmas,” she told him.

“Is that so?”
He turned one hand palm up, revealing the most exquisite diamond and emerald ring Lily had ever seen. “I guess you don’t want this then.”

She gasped.
“It’s beautiful!”

“It’s my grandmother’s,” he explained, sliding it onto her finger.
“I sent for it last week. I should have sent for it a lot sooner.”

He rose, taking her in his arms and kissing her thoroughly.
She relaxed against him, arms fitting so perfectly around his body that she knew she must have been made for his embrace.

“But if we’re already married….”
He teased her by reaching for her hand as if to remove the ring.

“No!” she exclaimed.
“It’s perfect just where it is.”

“No, sweetheart, you’re perfect just where you are.”

He squeezed her tighter, arms holding her close.