By lunch Thursday, Mrs. Bowen was losing her mind with boredom. “All you people do around here is chores and take care of the baby. Don’t you ever do anything fun?” She pushed her food around on her plate. “I have never been so bored in all my life. We haven’t been shopping once!”

Amos sighed. “Becky isn’t strong enough to go shopping, and her mother is here to take care of her. I can drive you into town this afternoon if you just can’t stand another minute of being cooped up inside the house.” He would prefer it if she’d help out with the chores or find some way to occupy herself, but he knew he was asking the impossible.

“That would be lovely.” She stood up. “Give me a minute to put on my shopping dress and hat, and I’ll be down and ready to go.”

As soon as she was gone, Becky looked at her husband. “Find a way to lose her, would you? Are there still kidnappers in town that you could parade her in front of?” She grinned as she made the suggestion, knowing she was being cheeky, but sometimes, she couldn’t help but want her mother-in-law to just go away!

“They’d bring her back,” he said with a groan.

Minerva gasped at her daughter’s words! “Rebekah Lynn! I did not raise you to be so vindictive!”

“Sorry, Mama. I should know better. You’re right.” Becky decided to pretend to be apologetic to appease her mother. They all knew the old harridan deserved every word they said about her.

“You should ride into town with us. I think the sunshine would do you good.” Amos wasn’t looking forward to the ride with just his mother, but if Becky was there, it would be so much better.

Becky frowned for a moment. “I need to help Mama with the dishes.”

“I think Amos is right. You should go with them. It’ll be good for you. You don’t have to get out and shop. You can just sit in the wagon and soak up all the sun you can.”

Becky looked between her mother and Amos, knowing both of them expected her to refuse. “You know what? I think I will go. It sounds lovely.” She got up and went into the bedroom to make sure her hair was fixed and her dress looked clean. She changed quickly because the baby had spit up on her, and when she looked in the mirror again, she thought she wouldn’t shame her husband.

When she walked back out into the parlor, Amos was waiting with his mother. “Let’s go,” Becky said, a smile on her face. “I need some fresh air.” Every time she’d gone to sit on the porch all week, his mother had joined her there, ruining the experience for her.

Amos offered Becky his arm, and they walked out to where he’d hitched up the wagon while she got ready. He helped her up, and she sat in the middle between his mother and Amos. “What are you wanting to shop for?” Becky asked.

“Oh, I thought a nice doll for the baby.” Mrs. Bowen had yet to call the baby by her name because she said Belle was an object, not a baby’s name.

Becky frowned. “You could probably find that at the mercantile.”

“There are no doll stores in this town of yours? There’s a beautiful store that sells dolls on Madison Avenue. You should really visit New York, Becky. If you did, you’d find this town of yours very . . . lacking.” Mrs. Bowen pulled her gloves on tighter as she spoke.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve lived in Creede my whole life. I think I might find New York overwhelming, rather than being disappointed in Creede.” Becky looked straight ahead as they passed her father’s ranch. He was standing out front and seemed to be frowning at her.

“I suppose the mercantile will have to do. I’ll see if I can find a doll that would be worthy of my granddaughter.”

Amos shook his head. “You do realize that at the moment all your granddaughter does is eat, drool, and soil her diapers, right?”

“Must you be so crude? I did not raise you to speak that way!”

“No, but then you didn’t raise me, did you? The nanny took care of that.” Amos was getting so tired of his mother’s superior attitude, he wanted to shove her on a train back to New York.

“As is the custom in all good households.” Mrs. Bowen gripped the seat as they went over a deep rut in the road. “Someone needs to repair these roads.”

Amos didn’t respond. He was ready to get to town and have a few minutes away from his mother. He would stay in the wagon with his wife. “You should really get a buggy. They’re so much more . . . genteel.”

When they pulled up in front of the mercantile, Mrs. Bowen waited for him to get out and help her down. “Amos? How long are you going to keep me waiting?”

He wanted to make her get down on her own, but the truth was, he had been raised better than that—whether by his mother or a nanny. He ran around the wagon and helped her down, climbing back up beside his wife. “Do you think if I put a frog in her bed, she’d go back to New York sooner?” he asked.

Becky giggled. “If I thought it would work, I’d help you find one!”

They enjoyed their time just sitting in the wagon, watching the people who walked past them. “There go Pastor Eugene and his new wife Benita,” Amos said. “Have you ever seen a newlywed couple argue that much?”

“Never!” Becky said with a sigh. “I really think they’re going to kill one another one of these days if they can’t find a way to live peacefully.”

Ten minutes later, Mrs. Bowen rushed out of the store looking furious. She didn’t wait for Amos to help her up, instead climbing up beside Becky. “Drive, Amos.” She held no packages, which surprised them both.

“Where to?”

“Your home, please.”

Amos and Becky exchanged a glance, wondering what her problem was. As soon as they were out of town—and more importantly out of earshot of others—Mrs. Bowen began to yell. “Why did that pastor and his wife talk about the two of you marrying when Becky was almost ready to give birth? They said, and I quote, ‘It’s a good thing they married when they did. I heard Becky had her little bastard not a week later.’”

Becky felt her stomach drop. She had no idea how to respond.

“It’s true, Mother. I married Becky a week before Belle was born. Do you have a problem with that?” Amos kept his voice calm. He was obviously not going to let his mother get the best of him.

“Why didn’t you tell me that baby wasn’t yours? They said her real father is nothing but a coal miner!”

“I’m Belle’s real father. I held her when she was first born. I wake up with her every night. I married her mother, knowing full well she was on the way, and I was excited about her from the moment Becky said she’d marry me. I am her real father.”

“You let me travel all this way thinking that child was my granddaughter! And she’s not!”

“If you accept me as your son, you’ll accept Belle as your granddaughter. If you don’t want to accept her, you can get right back on a train and return to New York where you belong.” Amos’s voice was low, but there was no question about whether he meant every word he said.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Amos! If you can’t see the difference between this floozy you married and a decent, respectable woman who would give you children of your own, then I’m happy to leave.”

Amos stopped the wagon right there in the middle of the road. “You will apologize to my wife—the woman I love—or you will walk.”

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Bowen replied furiously.

“You’ve never apologized for any of the evil things you’ve said to people. That’s very true. You’ll apologize now or walk. You have five seconds.”

“I won’t do it!”

“Then get down and walk. I won’t be taking you back into town either.” He watched her for a moment. “Go!”

Instead his mother closed her eyes for a moment. “I apologize for being rude to you, Becky.”

Becky didn’t know how to even respond to that. “All right.” It seemed to be best. She wasn’t going to tell her she forgave her because she knew the apology was not given freely.

“Now take me to your home, let me pack my things, and take me to the hotel in town. I can find my way back to New York.”

“Fine.” Amos started driving again, heading to the house. He wanted her gone just as soon as possible. He put his hand on Becky’s knee. He needed to let her know that he supported her fully, and nothing his mother said would ever sway him.

Becky felt paralyzed. She was afraid to say anything to anger the woman beside her even more, but she didn’t ever want to look at her again either. Hopefully she really would go back to New York and never bother them again.

When they got back to the house, Mrs. Bowen went upstairs, and Becky sought out her mother, speaking in low tones of what had happened. Amos waited with the wagon for his mother to come back out to him. He wouldn’t carry her bags or help her at all. He was finished with the way she’d treated good people.

After her mother-in-law was gone, Becky allowed the tears to fall. “People in town are still talking about me. I had hoped they’d all stop when I married Amos.”

“Who was talking about you?”

Becky made a face. “Pastor Eugene and his viper-tongued wife. Rumor has it they married because they were caught in a compromising position, and he’s a pastor! But they still feel like they should drag me through the mud.” Becky looked down at her hands. “Mrs. Bowen called Belle a bastard.”

Her mother frowned at that. “No one is going to call my grandbaby that. You were married before she was born, and that means she’s technically not a bastard, no matter what anyone says.”

“I know that’s how Father feels. I was the apple of his eye, and then I got pregnant, and he hasn’t looked at me since. He was standing out front when we drove past on the way to Creede today, and I swear I felt his eyes looking right through me. Am I going to spend the rest of my life paying for one mistake with a man I was planning to marry just a few days later?”

Looking directly at her daughter, Minerva said, “You might. There’s really a very good chance that you will. You are a good mother, and I know you were very much in love with Cliff when you . . . got pregnant with Belle. But you have to understand that people will criticize you for your actions for the rest of your life. There’s no getting around it. Now most people will be understanding, and in a few years people might forget, but if you stay in Creede, where people have known you your whole life, you’re running the risk of being talked about.”

Becky sighed. “I love Creede. It’s my home. I love this house that Amos built with his own two hands. How could I want anything else in life than to stay here and be happy? I want my little girl to play in the same places that I played. Is that too much to ask?”

Her mother shook her head. “No, I really don’t think it is. But for some, it’s too much to ask that they not talk about your indiscretion.”

“All right. I guess I need to deal with that then, don’t I?”

“Yes, you probably do.”

* * *

Herbert Brown was doing what he did best. He was dealing with his cattle and doing spring round-up. He had his employees at his side—loyal men who would never go off and get pregnant or choose the side of someone who had over his.

Becky had always known that he would not accept any type of disloyalty. What had she thought would happen when she told them she was expecting two months after her fiancé was in the ground?

He rode harder than any of his men, though he was years older. He expected the same work ethic from everyone around him that he had himself. People called him hard, but he wasn’t. He just expected the same morals and standards from the people around him that he expected from himself. Was that too much to ask?

At the end of the day, he went into the house, wondering what he was going to make for his supper. He had never learned to cook because he had a wife to do it for him. Sometimes he ate with the ranch hands, but it was embarrassing when they all looked at him, wondering how he’d run his wife off. Why couldn’t anyone understand that he needed things a certain way, and he wouldn’t put up with anything less?

He stood in the kitchen, slicing off strips of bacon, standing in his bare feet because his wife had always hated it when he’d tracked mud into her house. He missed her every moment of every day, but he couldn’t bend enough to let her back in. His love for her had been stronger than his anger with her, and he’d almost told her she could stay, but he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. His wife had betrayed him by going to their daughter, and keeping that in his head was always for the best.

He made a particularly violent slicing motion with the knife and dropped it. It cut through his pant leg and into his calf, landing point down into his foot. He leaned down and pulled it out of his foot as he watched the blood flow freely from his wound onto the floor. He fell to the floor, wondering how he’d gotten himself into this position.

There was already a puddle of blood on the floor, and he knew there was no way anyone would find him before he bled out. He scooted along the floor to the table and pulled down the tablecloth, wrapping it around his leg. It was Minerva’s good tablecloth, and he knew she’d not be happy if she saw him bleeding all over it, but he couldn’t think of another way to stop the bleeding.

“You’re bleeding, and you can think of no one but the woman you love. Yet you kicked her out of your house? What is wrong with you?” There was a man standing across the kitchen from him, frowning down at him. Herbert had never seen the man before, but there was a glow behind him that told Herbert he was no ordinary man.

“Who are you?”

“What does it matter? You care about nothing more than your own rigid sense of justice. You lay there bleeding, and you think of the woman you love, but you don’t wish she was with you. You still think you did the right thing asking her to leave because she saved your daughter’s life. You have a good woman and a beautiful love. She’s stood beside you all these years when you wouldn’t allow her to be a midwife or anything but a wife and mother. She wanted so much more.”

“What do you know about anything?” Herbert growled angrily. Why was the man kicking him while he was already down?

“I know all about you and your type. You judge your daughter for making one mistake. Yes, it was a big mistake, and yes, everyone in town knew about it. She has almost died for that mistake. You have a granddaughter, you know. Her name is Anabelle, and she is the sweetest little girl on this earth. By denying your daughter, you are losing out on three generations of loving women. Your wife, your daughter, and your granddaughter.”

Herbert knew the man was right. He had no idea who he was, or how he knew all these things, but he was right about the fact that he was missing out. “If I could go back and do things over . . . I’d do it differently.” Of course, none of it mattered now. He was about to die, and there was no one left to mourn him. No one would care.

“You would? Would you accept your wife back if she stepped in this house? Would you allow your daughter to come back?”

“Yes, I would. I’ve been so lonely without them. What is the purpose behind living if you have no one to live for?” Herbert looked at the large pool of blood that was rapidly growing. The tablecloth may have slowed the bleeding, but it hadn’t slowed it very much. “I’m going to die, and they’ll never know I loved them.” He looked up at where the man had stood, but no one was there. “I’m lying here imagining I’m seeing people. What is wrong with me? Oh, that’s right. I’m dying.”

* * *

Amos was on the ladder working on the barn roof again. Thankfully his mother had said nothing to him on their way back to town the day before. He wasn’t sure if he could have controlled his temper if she had.

As he worked, he noticed the stranger, who he hadn’t seen since the morning Belle was born. He climbed down, looking the man in the eye. “What can I do for you today?”

“Your mother-in-law needs to go home, and she needs to do it fast. He’s going to die otherwise. You take her there, and you keep riding for the doctor.” The man disappeared before his eyes, which had always bothered, Amos, but he’d never been able to stop the strange behavior.

Amos knew the man wouldn’t lie, though, and he ran for the house. “Minerva!”

She came out of the kitchen, frowning at him. “The baby’s sleeping. What is your problem?”

“I need to get you to your house. He’s going to die otherwise.”

She frowned. “Who’s going to die? Herbert?”

“Yes! I don’t know what happened. I just know you need to be there immediately. I’m going to drop you off and then head for the doctor.”

Minerva picked up her skirts and ran. “I’ll let Becky know I’m leaving. I think she’ll be just fine here alone, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I’ll saddle the horse!” He ran to the stable and quickly saddled his gelding.

Minerva ran to the stable just as he was mounting his horse. He reached down a hand for her, and she stepped on his foot and swung up behind him. “Hurry!”

The whole way to the ranch, she prayed constantly. She didn’t know why she believed the urgency of what had happened, but she did. When they reached the ranch, she ran inside and found Herbert lying in a pool of his own blood. His face was pale, and his eyes were closed. She knew that Amos had ridden on for the doctor, and she was glad because she wasn’t certain if she had the skills to keep her husband alive.

She unwrapped the tablecloth from around his leg and saw how bad the wound was. Running for her sewing basket, she carefully sewed the biggest gash closed. “Only you would use my best tablecloth to stop bleeding. That thing is never going to come clean.”

Herbert’s eyes opened slightly. “I knew you’d be mad.”

“Hush, you. I’m going to stop this bleeding, no matter what it takes. Amos is riding for the doctor.” She was determined to keep him alive, no matter what.

“You take care of me, Minerva. I don’t want no doctor charging me more than my ranch is worth to sew my leg.”

Minerva shook her head. “Only you would be worried about money at a time like this. You’re about to bleed to death.”

“I didn’t want to die without you and Becky knowing . . .”

“Knowing what? That you’ll never forgive us? I think we’ve figured that out. Now, shh . . . you need to save your strength. I’m not letting you die yet.” She started to work on his foot, noting that the knife had gone clean through it. How had he managed to do so much damage to himself?