Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (17 page)

“That’s not fair,” Charlie contradicted him.  “Christian just likes law and order, that’s all.”

“Yes, and he’s had his hands full trying to maintain it with Kent Porter as sheriff,” Michael said.

“Poor Christian,” Eric laughed.

A conductor called “All aboard!” from the platform.

“What exactly does a Justice of the Peace do?” Amelia asked.  “Is he a lawman?  A judge?”

“He’s somewhere between the two,” Eric answered.  “He handles a lot of the legal issues of Cold Springs and the surrounding areas.  He marries people and such.”

He arched an eyebrow.  It was both an accusation and a suggestion.  The contradictory swirl of anger and hope, shame and longing seized Amelia from the inside out.

“It’s a shame that we won’t be needing his services.”  Her lips only smiled at Eric.  Before Eric could lose his grin she added for Charlie and Michael’s benefit, “We were married in my family’s parish church last November.  It was all quite lovely.”

“A family parish church,” Charlie beamed.  “Yes, that does sound lovely.”

A mischievous grin spread across Eric’s face, making Amelia regret saving his face.

He brushed his fingers across the top of her shoulder before clearing his throat and saying, “Christian keeps other kinds of records in his office, judgments handed down by the circuit courts and deeds and stuff like that.  He’s one of the most organized people I know.”

“I look forward to meeting him then.”

Great loud puffs and hisses of steam sounded and the train jerked forward, ready to go.  The conductor called “All aboard!” again as the final few standing passengers took their seats.  Outside the window the platform inched backwards.  The train groaned and rolled forward.  It was as eager to be on its way as Amelia was.  Her old life was definitely behind her.  As soon as she could assess Eric’s situation with his ranch and lend him what help she could, her new life would begin.

Chapter Ten

“It’s hard to imagine that less than a year ago I was on a train not unlike this one, pulling into the Cold Springs station for the first time,” Charlie said with a fond sigh.

Amelia met her comment with a polite smile and glanced past Charlie and out the window.  Blue-grey mountains with vague white caps stood out on the horizon, reaching out to vast stretches of green hills.  They’d passed a dozen views just like this one in the last handful of days, but since sunrise Eric’s shoulders had relaxed and his breath came slow and steady.  He was home.

“It’s hard to imagine that less than a year ago I stood on that platform waiting for a shipment to come in, no idea what was about to hit me,” Michael echoed his wife’s words.

Michael was sitting in the seat in front of Amelia and Charlie.  He had been talking quietly with Eric for the last hour, but as the train pulled to a stop he stood and leaned over the back of his seat to kiss his wife.

“It’s a good thing I did hit you,” Charlie teased him.  Her grin and Michael’s told Amelia there was far more to the story than a sweet turn of phrase.  She tried in vain to stifle her curiosity about her new friends.

“It’s Sunday morning.”  Eric stood and reached for his and Amelia’s bags on the rack above their seats.  “Everyone should be in town at church.  Maybe I can catch Curtis before he heads back out to the ranch.”

Amelia rose, a hand on her belly, to help Eric.  The tension that clothed him now was one of purpose and energy.  It excited her.  He had so many forms of energy, not least of which was the passion that had kept them up all night during their overnight pauses in Chicago and Denver.  Guilt roiled through her at the memories, but she could no more stop herself from fanning his flames than she could contradict he
r own nature.

“Did you receive a reply to the telegraph you sent in Denver?”  It had taken convincing, but she’d finally broken th
rough his pride a few days ago.

Eric eyed her suspiciously, as if she would spill his secret then run out on him.

“We left before any reply came through.”  He touched her arm and backed a few spaces toward the train’s exit so that Charlie had space to stand.  “He’ll be around here someplace though.  It’ll be good to see him again.”

Amelia smiled in lieu of replying.  She was as eager to meet Curtis as Eric was, but for entirely different reasons.

Her smile dropped when he returned it with a frown.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.  She took his arm and let him lead her down the narrow aisle toward the door.

Eric took too long replying.  “Amelia, you got two kinds of smiles.  You got the kind that makes a man feel like the sun is shining in July and the kind that reminds me of a clear day in January, bright but none too warm.”

“And which was that?” she asked, voice unsteady.

He turned to her as they stepped through the door and were met by the sounds and scents of Cold Springs.  “January.”

Her mouth dropped open in protest, but Eric didn’t give h
er a chance to defend herself.

The station platform was busy in relation to the size of the town.  A small army of men and women shifted as they searched for friends or loved ones disembarking.  Workers in station uniforms or street clothes rushed toward the cargo car at the end of the train as a lanky stationmaster shouted directions.  A man in faded coveralls and a worn shirt hooted and scooped a woman into his arms as she stepped off the train.

“I reckon Henry there is more happy to see Laura back for her cooking than anything else,” Eric commented with a grin as he helped Amelia down the stairs and onto the station platform.  “Wonder where she’s been?”

“To see her sister in Cheyenne,” one of the station porters answered as if he’d been in conversation with Eric.  “Welcome home!”

Amelia blinked at the young man as he moved on to do his job.  “He knows you?”

Eric turned to her with a grin.  “Darling, this is Cold Springs, not London.  Everybody here knows everybody else.”

His words filled her with dread.  She moved the hand that had inched unconsciously to her belly.

Eric’s grin widened to pure joy as a pair of men strode across the platform toward them.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!”

“I could say the same for you,” one of them replied.  He was tall with dark hair and a few day’s growth of facial hair.  His clothes were cut well, but nothing the fashion journals would write on about.  He wore a frown in spite of a glimmer in his eyes, as if caught in a perpetually bad mood.  Amelia guessed at once that this was Christian Avery.

“Amelia, I’d like you to meet my good friends Christian and Phin,” Eric introduced her, confirming her guess.

“How do you do?”  She tried her best to fake a July smile as she shook first Christian and then Phin’s hands.  “Eric has told me so much about you.”

“Yes, well, he hasn’t said anything about you,” Christian said.  He crossed his arms and turned to Eric.  “I thought we’d been through this sort of nonsense with Michael.”

In spite of having been warned about Christian Avery’s curt sense of plain dealing, Amelia was speechless.

“Well I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait for you to conduct a full interview before snatching her up, now was I?” Eric countered his friend.

Amelia caught the tall and stately Phineas Bell rolling his eyes at the exchange.  “It is truly lovely to meet you, Amelia,” he said, every inch as polite as Christian was not.  He was also tall but with lighter hair and blue eyes that managed to be both kind and sad at once.  His gentle manner put her at ease while also giving her the sense there was something different about him.  “Does Michael need help in there with Charlie?  He telegraphed that she’s as big as a house now.”

“I’m sure he does,” Eric said.  “Tell them we’ll meet up with them at Delilah’s.”

Phin nodded, tipping his hat to Amelia, then climbed
the stairs into the train car.

Eric took Amelia’s hand and settled it firmly in the crook of his arm once more, marking them as a couple as sure as Henry and Laura.  The ruse was on and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

“Amelia is expecting, Christian,” Eric said as they paraded across the platform toward the stationhouse.

“I can see that,” Christian replied, adding a conciliatory, “Congratulations.”

“So unless you want a fist in your solid patrician jaw, I recommend you treat her with some respect.”

“I am treating her with respect,” Christian said.  Amelia was sure he was just baiting Eric until she saw his look of genuine surprise.

“I take no offense at your remarks, Mr. Avery,” she said, half to soothe ruffled feathers and half to prove that if anyone was going to defend the way she was spoken to, it was going to be her.

“He’s just surprised that I came back married,” Eric added.  The comment was for her benefit as much as Christian’s.  Eric wouldn’t let her go without a struggle.

Christian shrugged.  “It was less of a surprise than Michael marrying Charlie off the train last year, I’ll give you that.”

“Thank you.  And I suppose if any woman is ever fool enough to marry you, you’d have to be engaged for ten years first,” Eric ribbed him.  “After having a complete criminal investigation done on her background,” he added for Amelia’s sake.

Amelia arched an eyebrow.

“And you could be certain that I would find no surprises and nothing to interfere with my duty to uphold the law if I did,” Christian said.

They had to be bickering.  Grown men didn’t take jabs like that unless they were at odds with one another.  Yet Eric and Christian burst into chuckles when they entered the stationhouse as if they had sorely missed the argument.  The interaction was so different from any Amelia had ever known that it left her speechless.

There wasn’t much to do in the way of disembarking or collecting luggage.  Michael and Charlie West lived in town and an employee of Michael’s took their things home along with an order for the store.  Eric, on the other hand, lived so far out of town that he arranged to have their luggage housed at the stationhouse until he could drive a wagon from the ranch to pick them up.  Within a few minutes Michael and Charlie and Phin had joined them and the group of six stepped down from the station and into the town of Cold Springs.

If it could even be called a town.  As far as Amelia could tell, the entire location consisted of a tiny handful of streets intersecting at an even smaller number of crossroads.  There wasn’t a single building that didn’t border on large patches of open land.  At the same time, new construction could be seen in every direction.  Half of the houses appeared new and several larger buildings stood apart from the heart of the town, including what Amelia’s puzzled mind could only call a power station half a mile away to their left.  The smell of earth and sawdust was thick in the air and a church bell rang in the distance.

“Hell,” Eric muttered.  “I don’t hardly recognize the place!”

“And you won’t recognize it still given another year or two,” Michael said.

“Cold Springs is an oasis in the wilderness,” Charlie added and smiled with pride.

Eric swiped his hat off of his head and rubbed his forehead.  He plunked his hat back on and took in the new sights of his home as if touring New York City.

The church bell continued to ring.  As the citizens of Cold Springs filtered from the church across the field into the heart of the town, several stopped to greet Eric with open arms and wide smiles.

“It’s good to see you back!” a man about Eric’s age thumped him on the back.  “Maybe I’ll finally get a decent game of poker this summer.”

He moved on but another friend swooped down on them, shaking Eric’s hand.  “Mighty glad to see you, Eric.  I got some questions about my herd no one else seems to know the answers to.”

“Well I’ll be happy to help you just as soon as I can, Jasper,” Eric replied with a smile.

“Who’s this?” Jasper asked, nodding to Amelia.

Eric broke into a genuine grin.  “Why, this here is my wife, Amelia.”

Jasper laughed.  “Well I’ll be!  Does Jacinta know about this?”

Eric’s smile faltered.  “No.”

Michael and Charlie, Christian and Phineas passed around wide grins and ill-concealed giggles.

Jasper moved on and so did they.  They hadn’t gotten more than two feet before a pair of middle-aged women with a cluster of rambunctious children in tow stopped them.

“Eric Quinlan!  You’re home!”

“I am.  Mabel, Miss Jones.”

“It’s good to see you too, Charlie,” Mabel greeted Charlie, but quickly turned back to Eric with, “I thought you were only going to be away for six months and here it’s nearly June!”

“I got a little side-tracked, ma’am.  I’d like you to meet Amelia, my wife.”

Again Eric introduced her with a little too much relish for Amelia’s liking.  Her ire could only go so far though.  Deal or no deal, it was sweet of h
im to introduce her so kindly.

“I’m Mabel Twitchel,” the woman extended her hand.  Amelia took it.

“How do you do, Mrs. Twitchel?”  She nodded to the women.