The Midwife's Secret

As silently as it started, it ended. Without looking at him, she withdrew her hand. “You’ve got Clarissa to think about.” Escaping into the dark shack, Amanda pressed the door closed behind her. Getting caught up with a man was just too wretchedly painful.

She was right, he had Clarissa to think about.

Tom swore softly under his breath as he found his way from his cabin door to the sawmill. The full moon glinted over his shoulder. With a jangle of keys, he unlocked the side door and entered. He struck a match and lit the largest lantern.

What in heaven’s name had happened back there at the shack? Why had he completely lost himself in Amanda? Every time he looked into her heavy, blue eyes, he had to stifle his urge to touch her.

She didn’t have a father to watch out for her, no brother to ward off Tom’s advances. She had only herself to protect, and it wasn’t fair to take advantage of a lone woman if he wasn’t free to take it further. Was he free? Where did he stand with Clarissa? Where did he want to stand with Clarissa?

He dipped his brush in a pail of white paint, then swept it over a three-legged stool, more furniture designated for the big hotel.

“You in here, Tom?” Graham’s voice shattered the silence. “I’ve got some news for you.”

Tom rose. “What is it?”

Boots thudded across the floor. The fringes dangling from Graham’s coat swayed as he walked. “A warrant’s been put out for Finnigan’s arrest. Robbery, fraud and larceny. I’ve wired the information across the country. The last sighting of him was in the coal mines just east of here. He’s disappeared, but we’ll flush him out.”

Tom pulled in a long breath.

“I’ve had to ask some questions around town for Finnigan’s last whereabouts, but I don’t think anyone’s suspicious.”

“Good.”

“About Clarissa…”

“She’s not in Calgary, is she?”

Graham shook his head. “Can’t seem to locate her. She never showed up there. Bought a train ticket but never used it.”

Tom snorted in disgust. He started painting again, coating the stool’s legs.

Graham pulled out a chair, sat and scratched his curly blond sideburn. “Why aren’t you surprised?”

Tom’s spirits sank. “What would you say if I told you I think they disappeared together?”

“Aw, hell.”

Betrayed. Tom swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. What was worse? Losing his business to Finnigan? Or losing his woman to the man? Tom had been betrayed by two of the people he trusted most.

Clarissa wasn’t the dignified woman he thought she was. How could he have been involved with a woman who tore off with his partner?

Amanda wasn’t like her. She was as far removed from the word conniving as one could get. Amanda didn’t have the easy life that Clarissa had. Amanda was a tender, widowed woman trying to survive on her own. She didn’t have anything to do with Finnigan’s scam, either, because he’d overcharged her.

Amanda was an honest woman, and right about now, he held the virtue of honesty highest on his list.

“About Amanda Ryan.”

“Yeah?” Tom held his breath.

“I did some checking. You were right. She’s got a hell of a secret. She’s not widowed. The woman’s divorced.”

Chapter Four

Divorced. Tom scowled as he hitched the mules to the stump-puller on Amanda’s property the next morning. She hadn’t been waiting for him as she usually was—which made him happy—but stepped out of the shack and into the thick forest thirty minutes after he, Donald and Pa arrived.

They’d all lied to him. Finnigan, Clarissa, then her.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Amanda’s welcoming smile and pretense of a blush sickened him. A shaft of light struck her high cheekbones beneath the bonnet. Wasn’t she an innocent? A naive divorcée, blushing at the man who’d brazenly kissed her hand the day before. Damn her anyway, for getting to him.

His muscles clenched. “Good for working,” he muttered.

He turned his back, not caring how rude he was, and secured one of two wooden columns to the mule’s harness. The contraption looked like an inverted V over the stump. With a long, sauntering stride, pulling his hat closer to his brow to shade himself from the sun, he left her standing there and joined Donald by the other mule. The animals would walk the columns in a circle, turning the screw and chains attached to the stump, thereby pulling out the root. Tom would finish his work as quickly as he could, and in five weeks time he’d say good riddance to Mrs. Amanda Ryan.

Amanda had looked into his eyes and stole his affections—stole—under false pretenses of him feeling sorry for a widow. And her grandma wasn’t any better. How the two of them must have laughed that day when he’d first met Miss Clementine and they’d discussed widowhood. He’d made a fool of himself for falling for Amanda’s fabrications.

Persistent, dressed in her old flannel, Amanda slid her slender figure next to his broad one, dressed in denim. The demure smile he’d found so endearing yesterday looked like one of deceit today. What did the woman want from him? A friendly conversation? More kisses? Although she’d pulled back yesterday, maybe she’d changed her mind and thought he’d make a good catch. Maybe he’d be able to support her down the road!

“What happened to your two big draft horses?” she asked in a friendly tone that he found irritating.

“I sold them,” he snapped. “I can rent Donald’s mules any time I need them.”

He’d sold them so that Pa could keep his gentle mares. Tom’s secret credit note at the bank had gotten Quaid his new shipment of instruments, but Tom hadn’t wanted to borrow too much. Fortunately, he still had his three best horses, and when he dug out of this financial mess, he’d be able to buy the others back.

He felt a movement beside his boot and looked down. Wolf was digging a deep hole.

“Stop that,” Tom reprimanded. “If someone falls in that hole, they could twist their ankle. Go chase a squirrel.” After a friendly pat on the head, the dog bounced away, but Amanda frowned at his gruffness. When he ignored her, she left. Good. He gently slapped the rear of one of the mules to start it walking in a circle, then adjusted his big leather work gloves.

He admitted, being divorced wasn’t a thing most people would brag about, but why hide who you are?

He knew of only three people who’d ever been divorced; none in this town. One older gent back in Toronto who was an alcoholic, one young miner in the Rockies whose poor wife couldn’t take any more beatings, and a tourist passing through last summer whose wife had caught him with his third mistress.

It was common knowledge that more women were divorced in the West than the East. Women were scarcer here, so if their husbands mistreated them in any way, they divorced, taking their children and quickly remarrying—to one of many men in the West grateful for the company and partnership of a woman. But that’s not what had happened to Amanda.

From what Graham had said, it was Amanda’s husband who’d divorced her. Graham hadn’t uncovered the circumstances, and Tom had stopped Amanda’s investigation. No sense asking Graham to uncover more about a woman Tom didn’t care for. Besides, it was bordering on prying, and he still had his code of honor.

While Donald tended to the mules and gave them water, Tom cleared brush beside his father, who was creating a garden for the women. Pa was in a jovial mood this morning, causing Tom to brighten.

“Sure is nice today,” Pa said. “The blackflies are gone, and the sun is warm.”

Squinting in the warm rays, Tom gazed up at the hills. The landscape quivered in the wind, with a dozen hues of green. The soft yellow-green of fresh grass, the brilliant green of unfolding maple leaves, and the blue-green growth of spruce needles. Blue jays and cardinals rustled through the woods, and insects hummed above his head. The earthy scent was intoxicating.

Tom blurted affectionately, “Pa, why don’t you come live with me?”

The old man took off his straw hat and fanned the air. “Go on now. Come live with you and Clarissa? You know me and her don’t see eye to eye. Why, she’d have my things packed and bundled by the door before I got back from the privy.”

Lifting his shovel, Tom flipped a furrow of dirt. The hard muscles of his biceps tightened. “Clarissa’s not going to be around.”

“Whaddya mean?”