From Flame and Ash
— Chapter 9 —
The Wrath Of Elizabeth
SO THIS was Nathan's land.
. . . and it was beautiful.
Elizabeth could hear the rushing of a nearby stream, feel the soft breeze brushing against her skin, rustling the canopy of autumn-tinged leaves overhead; the solidity of Sergeant beneath her, the grasp of Jack's little fingers clasping her forearm as he stared intently at the scene before them.
She hadn't meant to feel like a spy. She hadn't meant to be hidden here along the treeline of his property.
She hadn't known they would be here.
She had awakened later than usual that morning, having fallen into a fitful, dreamless sleep just as dawn's light was creeping through the curtains like a thief come to steal away the dark. Jack had been playing contentedly in his crib when she finally arose from her bed, the same bed that she now knew for certain Nathan had laid her down upon the night she fell asleep at the schoolhouse, his arms so exquisitely gentle it stung fierce tears in the recesses of her mind whenever her memory tumbled her back to that moment . . . something it was apt to do more often than she cared to admit. Much more about that night, she did not know, for How did I get home, Laura? had been about all the questioning her nerves could take. And Laura had seemed, at best, reticent in her answer.
Throughout the morning, as she glanced out her front windows, the road outside her house remained quiet and empty. She'd never seen Nathan or Allie, never heard their voices conversing as they walked by, and had simply assumed they were still inside their row home or were elsewhere in town.
She would never know what possessed her to saddle her dead husband's horse and ride out of town to go see the new property of this man who had replaced her husband in the NWMP office; this man who had come to Hope Valley to protect her and the small boy she so carefully gathered up before her in the saddle as they set out on their ride. Perhaps it had been watching Nathan ride by in days past, laden with tools and supplies, on his way to his new property, or the catch in her breathing when it began to sink in what it meant that he would no longer be right up the road from her . . .
But posses her, the nameless something had. And here they found themselves, she and her son.
Her eyes lingered on the figure on top the house, seeing those same strong hands and arms which had so carefully carried her through the moonlit streets of their town now engaged in tearing up sections of the old roof. Pieces of tossed roofing materials slid down the sloped roof and tumbled through the air before landing in the growing pile of discard that mounded on the grass. Nathan seemed to be working from some hidden store of energy; a fierce push driving him across the roof.
A sequence of events unfolded without warning to her heart, starting an unknown ache somewhere near its general region. A sudden weight seemed to press down on Nathan and she watched as that trim dark head lowered, drooping down between broad shoulders which bowed under a seemingly invisible load, those ever-warm hands of his locked in a death grip around an old brown rafter.
Her thoughts arced out toward him, invisible but strong. What is it, Nathan . . . ?
There was no way he could have heard the silent question that ached in her, yet he stood, swiping forearm across brow and looking out across the land, his eyes sweeping dangerously near where she was hidden. But she was unable to move, unable to flee.
His movement had frozen her in a memory, for it was the same movement he had made to dry his brow the day she had found him chopping wood as though brawn and blade could solve the woes of man's heart.
Back at the roof he went and she jolted back to awareness as the harshly ringing sound of nails being driven into wood carried across the clearing. Even from here, she could see the rigid set to his shoulders as he drove nails home with smooth, powerful blows. Finished, he sprawled against the roof flat on his back, his arms flung wide almost in a position of surrender, his face to the hot sun.
She was overcome with the urge to shield him, to stand between him and the blistering rays, to protect him from the heat with the shade of her shadow.
But when she saw the short figure of Nathan's petite-boned niece come out of the front door with what looked like a glass of water in her hand, she shifted uneasily in the saddle.
Things between her and Nathan's niece were stiff.
At best.
Allie was polite but cool whenever they rarely happened to cross paths, never speaking more than absolutely necessary, usually moving on with single nod. Elizabeth would never be able to prove it, but she would bet good money that Allie actively avoided her as much as humanly possible.
From the moment the spunky young girl had entered her life by skipping class in her schoolhouse, Elizabeth had taken an interest in the motherless girl, taking her under her wing whenever she could, and the relationship had gradually deepened. Elizabeth's maternal heart had drawn the girl close — and in a different degree and manner than her other students. After Allie had tried to play matchmaker during her adoption ceremony and had hand-delivered a dinner invitation that subsequently ended up on the floor in ripped pieces, a stilted awkwardness had entered their relationship. And once Elizabeth had rejected Nathan, everything stiffened further still.
She swallowed against a swell of emotion that was tumbling against her ribs like ocean waves against a cliff.
Ahead, high on the roof, she watched as Nathan accepted the water from Allie and poured some of it over his face, smiling at his niece as her face split in a responsive grin at his playfulness. When he reached out and affectionately touched the girl's cheek with one finger, Elizabeth felt her stomach swoop.
She knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of this man's love. It didn't take much to imagine what his finger would feel like against her own cheek, and she closed her eyes against the emotion it stirred up in her as swiftly as a prairie breeze swooping in like a swallow to push a tumbleweed across the plains.
Shaking herself out of the dangerous line of thought, she attempted to turn her attention back to the pair at the house, her glazed eyes gradually clearing as the rooftop scene came into focus again. Her teeth worried her bottom lip as she wondered what he was going to do about Allie's position on the ladder, which was making her anxious even from this distance. The little girl was so small and that roof so far from the ground . . .
She got her answer as Nathan pulled Allie up to join him with both hands, the care evident in every line of his figure. She could see the girl's happy face turn out toward the land as she did what her uncle had done minutes before and surveyed all that was now theirs. The careful hold he kept on the small girl, the way his watchful figure went down the ladder before her, the protective curl of his hand around her shoulder as they walked side by side to the front door — it had her own arm tightening around Jack as an ache she didn't dare name swept over her.
Loss.
All this — this man, this little girl, the house this man worked on with such passion and the future family life it would encompass within its walls, this beautiful land towering, sprawling all around them in shades of green and brown and blue — it all could have been hers. Been her son's. Been part of a life they could have woven here, like so many threads coming together to form a beautiful tapestry full of warmth and color.
Life with Nathan would never be grey.
—ooO0Ooo—
Elizabeth felt pensive and jaggedly disrupted, like fragments of disquiet had been dislodged inside her, as she rode away from what could have been.
Her arm remained tight around her own child as she thought back on what she had just witnessed.
The tenderness, the guidance, the warmth and humor, and the protectiveness that Nathan's steadfast presence filled Allie's life with was something that she had been quietly caught by ever since the day he had come to her schoolhouse to pick up his niece after her first day of school, only to find that she had never set foot in Elizabeth's classroom and had instead played hooky, running off to catch fish. The ensuing search for the missing girl she had partaken in with Nathan had told her much about the relationship between uncle and niece, a relationship that had only grown in the years they had been in Hope Valley.
The way he gave her freedom, but carefully guided her.
The way he loved her, but gave her boundaries.
The way he corrected her, but always with love.
The way he'd spoken to her of what adopting Allie had meant to him. "Adopting Allie . . . is the best thing I've ever done in my life."
The way he could morph into father bear mode when anything threatened the little girl; most recently in the form of her dirt-bag of a biological father.
The way he distrusted himself enough to look to others for advice on parenting her.
Yes, the way Nathan Grant loved was one for the ages. And that thought made her feel an emptiness she didn't know how to define.
—ooO0Ooo—
As evening fell across their peaceful little town, Elizabeth rounded a street corner, heading home in the gathering dusk. Over her arm was a basket containing fresh milk she'd purchased from a farmer who had a dairy farm beyond the outskirts of town. As she passed the oil office, the sound of men's voices slipped through its door, cracked open a bare inch or two; just enough to allow their voices to escape.
" . . . Nathan Grant out at the derrick site today."
Her heels skidded, she came to a halt so fast. Wait, wait, wait — was that Nathan's name she had heard? She cocked her head, listening. Again, the voices from inside the office leaked around the open door. She recognized one of them. Mike Hickam. The other was unknown to her.
"Those two men aren't exactly friendly, are they," the unknown voice mused.
"Well," Hickam sounded hesitant, "there are reasons for that."
"Like the boss telling the Constable to stop pressuring the schoolteacher and questioning his parenting of that young niece of his at Ned Yost's wedding reception?"
Outside, the schoolteacher froze, a tingling freeze starting in her fingertips. Lucas had done what?
An ember of flame began to crackle to life low beneath her heart.
"Grant just walked away, though; man didn't give him a single word in response."
The . . . wedding reception? The one where she had sought Nathan out!? Approaching him mere seconds after seeing him walk away from a short conversation — THIS conversation? — with Lucas!?
"Well . . . " Hickam sounded both uncomfortable and reticent.
The other man continued, sounding unaware of his faux pas . . . or of the ears listening from beyond, ears that were most certainly never intended to hear this conversation.
"You recall the Constable coming by the derrick on his rounds and that little spat he and the boss got into? I heard him telling the boss that he wasn't ready to give up on the schoolteacher's heart. Sure don't think it helped matters any when the boss implied that the Constable was pursuing the schoolteacher for selfish reasons, putting his interests before hers or his own niece's."
W-H-A-T!?
The basket fell unnoticed to the ground, spilled milk gurgling forth to twine rivers around it, pooling under gravel and soaking into the street beneath it.
There was the sound of Hickam uncomfortably clearing his throat from within. But the other voice went on, a verbal shrug in it. "Dunno about all that, but the Constable seems like a standup fellow to me. Took that little girl right in when he didn't have to; raised her all by himself. Dotes on her like he were her real blood father, too."
Elizabeth was reeling; a high-pitched ringing in her ears.
Fire licked at her heart. The crackling ember of earlier had caught fire; the flames began to catch, building one upon the other as memories of Nathan caring for Allie poured over her, the scenes she had witnessed over the last two plus years searing the breath from her lungs.
Then the frigid and stony silence of anger descended over her ringing ears.
How DARE Lucas!?
. . . and how dare she have thought his comments to or about Nathan and Allie humorous or thoughtful once up a time? So many little things, now that she thought back, going back years . . . why had she brushed them off, why had she thought they were harmless?
The anger, the flames, the red and orange heat of it all spun her, propelling her into motion, and her feet were carrying her of their own volition in a beeline straight for the saloon.
Straight for Lucas Bouchard.
She could feel her heart beating in her chest, pulsing in rhythm with her fierce footsteps as they ate up the distance, and in between every heartbeat, a furnace of anger billowed, forging through the corridors of her heart.
Ahead, the windows of the saloon spilled light out across the boardwalk and into the street. She could hear the muted chatter of voices from inside, the clatter of cutlery and crystal, the dice bouncing off each other at the gaming tables. None of it slowed her. Gravel spat out from under her feet, pinging off nearby buildings, but she paid it no heed. There was a vague impression of someone, tall on horseback, headed toward her in the street, but that too was swept aside in the all-consuming wave of her fury.
The metal door handles of the saloon were cold in her hands as she grabbed them and flung the doors wide, heedless of them banging wildly against the saloon's outside wall. Inside, surprised faces turned towards her.
But the schoolteacher of Hope Valley seemed oblivious to it all, standing tall with eyes that burned, rigidly framed in the saloon doorway as blackening thunderclouds seemed to radiate from her.
—ooO0Ooo—
Like a ship's bow cleaving through a rolling wave, she strode arrow-straight across the saloon floor — a floor that she hadn't set foot on since the day she'd ended Lucas's romantic attentions — her trailing skirt snapping against chair legs as it swished furiously in her wake.
The stares, the whispers, Gustave frowning from the kitchen doorway; she saw none of it. Her vision was honed in on her objective and she saw and felt nothing else. She moved as if through a narrowing tunnel of anger, blackening everything else around her.
The doorway she sought was in front of her now, wide ajar as if in invitation. The gold plate on the door read, in elegant script: Lucas Bouchard, Proprietor.
Without pausing her steps one instant, she stepped through and turned sharply, walking without a single glance right past the wood-backed settee where she had nearly kissed Lucas what felt like a million lifetimes ago as a shudder of grieved regret rippled through her at the memory; it was the same settee where he had sat, solitary and serious, as she told him that she could not offer him romantic love and wished to bring their courtship to an end.
Tonight, the office was occupied by two people.
Lucas was leaning his hips back against the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his chest, tie and jacket discarded, draped over the back of his chair. Fiona stood beside him, her hand dabbing at his cheek with a square of cotton, her trim, fashionable figure in its red skirt and stark white and black shirtwaist turned sideways to face him as she leaned close to examine the long scratch along his cheekbone. Both looked tense and reserved, an atmosphere that quickly changed to one of startlement when their faces turned to see her approaching figure stalking closer to them.
"Elizabeth," Fiona's generous, deep-rose lips turned up in a surprised little smile, "how nice to see you. Are . . . are you alright? You seem upset."
Elizabeth barely heard her; her focus was honed in on the man who was watching her with a quizzical tilt to his head. "Fiona, I'd like a word with Lucas, if you don't mind. Alone." Her look was quivering with the restraint it took to not launch missile-like words at Lucas.
Concern began to show in the tiny lines around Fiona's eyes as she tore them away from Elizabeth to glance at Lucas. His eyes also left Elizabeth and met hers, his dark head moving minutely as he gave her a sharp nod. Fiona spoke not another word, and dropping the square of gauze from her hand onto the desk, quietly exited the office, moving around Elizabeth like a wraith.
Elizabeth didn't give Lucas a chance to speak.
"Tell me, Lucas," her voice came out deceptively soft, prowling like a tiger through the air toward him, "what experience do you have raising children?"
He blinked and pulled his head back, a frown forming across his features. But she swept on, the crackle of fire simmering just below the surface of her words, which dropped from her lips, deadly in their softness.
"What vast child-rearing knowledge do you draw upon when you criticize, implicitly or explicitly, the parenting of a man who took in a motherless little girl and raised her as his own at an age when most single young men are focused on themselves and would rather do most anything but give up their life to raise a little child!?"
That crackle should have warned Lucas. It really should. But he raised an eyebrow, saying, "I take it we're talking about Nathan Grant?"
Elizabeth's eyes snapped. "Ahhh. Smart man." The subtle derision in her cutting whisper was not like the daughter her parents raised, but Elizabeth was beyond noticing. "Unless there are other Hope Valley parents whose parenting you recall critiquing to their faces — ?"
By her side, her hand twitched spasmodically as anger roiled through her.
"Elizabeth . . . " The businessman rose, his hands up as if trying to reason with her. "I don't know what you heard or think you know, but I think you're — "
Elizabeth's voice let loose, lashing at him with the force of a bullwhip, all her years as a teacher behind it. "DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT, IMPLY OR SAY TO NATHAN ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION THAT HE WAS LACKING AS A PARENT?!"
Lucas froze. There was a look of shock on his bearded face. And then, truth.
Elizabeth's wrath boiled over.
"And DID YOU or DID YOU NOT, imply or say to Nathan that his motivation for not walking away from me was SELFISH and that he was thinking of himself and NOT of my best interests or Allie's!?"
Lucas's face tightened.
And she knew.
She didn't move from her spot, but the lines of her figure nearly quivered with the steam that was billowing like thunder within her.
"I wouldn't say that's exactly how I worded it," Lucas said. "And I was trying to look out for you — "
An avalanche of icy coals seemed to leap from her spirit and it was all she could do not to shake with the coldness of the rage that coiled all around her ramrod-stiff spine.
"Save it, Lucas!" she seethed. "This wasn't about me, this was about YOU."
"You know," there was a snap entering his own voice, "I seem to recall not too terribly long ago you seemed quite pleased by my consideration for Nathan and Allie."
"Bridge? Graduation ceremony?" She was terse, her eyes swarming with anger and regret.
He nodded.
Her face was set, her voice raising decibels as her cheeks bloomed with shamed wrath. "Yes, you're right, Lucas — you know what, you're right! I was. And how STUPID was I, thinking that your motivations were pure and unselfish when you said you would stay away from the ceremony to spare Nathan and Allie's feelings?!" She rounded on him with fury and ice, eyes blazing like blue lightning. "Since when did you care about their feelings? How many times did you not take a dig at Nathan, sometimes right in front of me, and I" — a despairing laugh rattled loose from her heated lungs — "I smiled! Laughed and let it go, always attributing your comments to one harmless motivation or another."
Lucas's face whiter than she'd ever seen it. "Who exactly are you angry with here, Elizabeth? Me? Or yourself?"
"Both!" It was loud, bald, furious. "Neither one of us gets a prize for good behavior."
His dark brows pulled together grimly. "Let's not forget in all this how you used me. And don't play innocent; we both know why."
That last transfixed her and for a second she forgot to breath. Truth impaled her. A pair of piercing blue eyes swam before her heated vision. Nathan . . .
But those eyes and that truth hurt too much and she flinched away from them, from it.
"Don't you try to deflect this on me," she flamed, pinning him with her eyes. "You used me as well."
His head lowered and all of a sudden, all the conflict in him seemed to drain away.
Her anger only built as she brought the conversation back to what had brought her there. "Tell me why on earth you thought you had ANY right to criticize Nathan's raising of Allie? Have you not SEEN the way he is with her, the way h-he" — her voice broke, then lashed fiercely — "the way that man adores that little girl and would lay down his life for her!?"
Lucas looked up, but his dark eyes seemed weary now.
"Let Nathan and Allie be, Lucas." Fire leaped from her eyes across the distance between them. "And maybe try waiting until you actually HAVE a child before you lecture actual parents on their parenting!"
And with that, she spun around and stormed out, still as furious as when she entered. Her skirt, wielding itself like a rapier behind her, caught a delicate end table, toppling it over.
Chess pieces scattered across the floor, carved black and white figurines bleak and forlorn in their abandoned sprawl.
Elizabeth never so much as glanced back.
There wasn't even a ghost of a temptation to.
—ooO0Ooo—
Elizabeth did not see the slender figure of Fiona Miller rise from where she'd been seated, just a short distance from Lucas's office door, which had been ajar for the duration, and walk back to the doorway she herself had so recently vacated.
She didn't see the delicacy with which the woman hesitated in the doorway, poised like a red and black butterfly fluttering for balance on a fence post, ready to be carried to or fro depending which way the wind blew.
She didn't see how the woman's brown eyes, eyes that resembled copper poured through warm caramel, looked at the man at the desk from between long dark lashes, falling over his bowed head and shoulders.
She didn't see the slow way the man lifted his head. Or the way he met the woman's eyes; his own dark and somber and shadowed.
—ooO0Ooo—
Elizabeth's shaking hand knocked so hard, tiny splinters found a home in her skin.
The familiar door opened. Lee Coulter stood there, his dressing gown belted, surprise lightening the tension that had been straining his eyebrows. "Elizabeth! What is it at this hour? Is everything alright?"
"I'm sorry to call at this time but I need to speak with Rosemary. Please." Her breath was hot inside her chest, vaporizing in the slight chill of the autumn evening.
He hesitated and looked over his shoulder. "Elizabeth, this really isn't a good time. Today has been — "
"Who is it, Lee?" His wife appeared behind him, her hair a cloud of blonde around the shoulders of her velour dressing gown. Lee reluctantly turned a little, partially unblocking her view through the doorway, and Rosemary's eyes quickly surveyed Elizabeth, alone and shaking with pent-up emotion on their porch.
"Elizabeth?! You look like you're ready to burst at the seams. Come in." She pulled Elizabeth into the house, her hands alarmed. "What is it?"
Lee closed the front door and put a hand on his wife's arm. Their eyes met. A silent communication passed between them as she gave him a tiny nod as if in reassurance. Quietly, he ascended the stairs to the second floor and the two ladies were left alone.
Elizabeth was breathing hard, the lace on her soft-blue shirtwaist fluttering with the rapid rise and fall of her chest, but she wasn't blind to the undercurrents in the room. "I'm sorry, this is a bad time, I should come back — "
"No, no." Her friend shook her head. "No coming back. We deal with this here and now. Now, what on earth has happened?"
"Lucas - I overheard - that is —" She broke off, the anger cracking her voice. She tried again. And this time, the words came.
She ranted. She raved. She told Rosemary all. The words spilled forth like lava from a volcano as she paced and stormed back and forth across the Coulter's small living room, her shoes wearing paths in the plush area rugs whose surfaces she traversed. Her arms waved, her hands gesticulated. Her face was flushed, the red spreading as she went on, eyes shining with anger.
Rosemary's eyes, at first widening as she listened, began to constrict, and a finger began to tap, slowly, then with increasing force, against her leg. And just when Elizabeth's voice reached a crescendo, breathless with anger, something happened between the friends that had never happened before.
Rosemary Coulter well and truly lost her temper with Elizabeth Thornton.
"Elizabeth — E-N-O-U-G-H!" Rosemary near roared at her, eyes flashing as she snapped her hands together in a razor-sharp clap that cut through Elizabeth's rant with the force of a lightning bolt, then pointed decisively at the sofa with one stern finger. "SIT DOWN, Elizabeth, and face reality for once!"
Elizabeth gaped at her, her mouth still open with words she'd been in the middle of spewing, her eyes bright with shock. Her features, had she been able to see them, were stunned, rigid.
Rosemary's full lips thinned into a grim line. She advanced on Elizabeth. "You and your heart are spinning like a weather vane in a gale, Elizabeth Thornton, turning about until neither your head nor your heart knows which way is true north." She grasped Elizabeth's frozen elbows and pushed her down onto the sofa cushions. Hard. "Now sit down and think about this logically for a change."
Elizabeth was speechless.
Rosemary was not.
"You are exhausting, Elizabeth — do you know that!? I'd venture a guess if you asked Lucas, he would tell you the same, what with your wallowing back and forth while you were seeing him. Not that I think he was a saint in all that, either," she added sharply. "And Nathan — I know Nathan could confirm! It's a wonder that man hasn't worn down and left town long since; instead, he has stayed the course, by some miracle." Her eyes pierced right through Elizabeth. "And I think we both know why." Her gaze never let up. "One way or another, you owe that man a response to the question he put to you that stormy night outside his office."
Elizabeth stared up at her, shocked, her mind reeling.
Rosemary's face was stern and set as she went relentlessly on. "He LOVES you, Elizabeth! Do you understand what that means!? He opened up his heart and let God write your name on it — and you've owned it, every last bit and corner of it, to this day! And what have you given in return, but silence and delays, and distracting yourself from dealing with your issues by playing pretend courtship with another man?"
Elizabeth quivered from head to toe, horrified, shaken, anger rising.
"Rosemary," she began weakly, then stronger as her voice picked up steam, "you're supposed to be my best friend — why can't you just support me?!"
Rosemary's hair swirled back and forth around her shoulders as she decisively shook her head at Elizabeth's words. "No. You don't want me to support you; you want me to meekly agree with whatever you come to say or think about this topic. That, I cannot, will not, do. I care too much about you and Jack for that."
Stunned, Elizabeth opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out. Because wasn't Rosemary right?
But her tongue suddenly, from somewhere, found other words. "You're not listening to me, Rosemary; even before when we talked about Nathan." Her eyes flickered as she remembered their last tense conversation about Nathan, right here in this very same spot.
Rosemary bent down till her face was at Elizabeth's level, not a hint of validation in her eyes towards Elizabeth's accusation, just a kind of steely determination.
" . . . kind of like how you wouldn't listen to me or give credence to my thoughts on Nathan?" she asked with a slow softness.
Elizabeth winced, a hectic flush burning high on her white cheekbones.
"And for the record," Rosemary slowly straightened, "I both listened and heard every word you said to me about Nathan." Elizabeth felt the truth of that resonate to her bones and cringed on the inside. "And, dear friend of my heart . . . I was so honored that you shared them with me. But enough is enough."
Rosemary took a deep breath, slightly unsteady, a light sheen coating her eyes now. "Do you think it's been fun, that I've enjoyed saying these things to you? Do you think I haven't wanted to knock on your door ten times a day to talk this out, to try and help you? Do you know how it breaks my heart" — her voice wobbled — "to see you wasting away, so thin and shadowed a breeze could knock you over? Did you think I hadn't noticed? I noticed. I hurt. I love you."
Tears stung Elizabeth's eyes and she dug her fingernails into her palms, breathing in through her nose to control the sudden rush of flooding emotions, emotions that were now as far removed from anger as they could possibly be.
"Now, you listen to me, Elizabeth." Rosemary sat down beside her, facing her, and caught both her hands. "I can't give you all the answers about your conversation with Lucas tonight; only Lucas knows why Lucas said or did what he did. But I can try and help you understand why you said and did what you did tonight."
A little broken inside, it was all Elizabeth could do to force her neck to nod her head. Even her kneecaps were trembling under the draping folds of her soft pumpkin skirt.
"Honestly, Elizabeth, your conversation with Lucas and what and why he did what he did, is not what this is about. Not one bit of it. As your own pacing and ranting here just a few moments ago confirmed, what this is really about, and always has been about . . . is Nathan Grant."
She let that hang in the air between them for a minute, then stated with soft clarity, "You were only angry with Lucas because of Nathan." She peered at Elizabeth from eyes that were stern with unclouded truth. "True?"
Elizabeth's lips managed to admit waveringly. "T-true." And something inside her died a little. Another self-deception, probably.
"And would I be correct in saying you're finding yourself angry tonight at more than a few of your own actions towards Nathan?"
A mute nod. What could she say? How could she try to explain the tumult in her heart over the quiet man who watched over his town — and her — with such watchful protectiveness?
"I'm just . . . " She stumbled over her own words. Her head dropped. Then she lifted it and met Rosemary's unwavering gaze with eyes that felt bruised. "I'm just so unsettled and - and" — again she stumbled, then whispered hesitantly — "miserable over Nathan, Rosemary, and I don't know why."
Rosemary tilted her head. "Don't you?"
"I-I just can't make sense of it."
"Can't you?"
When Elizabeth didn't answer, Rosemary leaned forward, her eyes softening slightly even as they probed into hers. "And can you say that you've always treated Nathan as you yourself would have wished to be treated in his position? You chastised Lucas tonight, and he deserved that, but have you looked in the mirror? You speak of feeling miserable, but have you ever considered how your actions, or lack thereof, have so many times made Nathan miserable?"
Her voice was quiet, but it cut like a knife.
Elizabeth was perfectly still, only her heart, beating with dread and a slow-growing trickle of shame, reminding her that she was still alive.
"Think about it." Rosemary's hands tightened around her cold ones. "I've known you for a long time now and I've seen you irate, worried, or in a tumult many times, with many different people — but I've never you like this, and especially not over someone whom you say you see only an echo of your dead husband in." She shifted, but only to move a hair closer. "Nathan may remind you of Jack due to his occupation or the uniform he wears, but you are an intelligent woman, capable of discernment, and I know, deep inside, you are only too painfully aware that outside of their shared occupation, Jack was Jack, and Nathan is . . . definitely not Jack."
A numb sort of chill settled over Elizabeth, as though someone had dropped a cold, wet sheet over her. But somewhere, somewhere, a tiny flicker of warming truth was feebly trying to ignite. Her teeth were chattering from nerves. She clamped her jaw shut, trying to stifle the movement.
Rosemary wasn't finished. Her body language was focused and intense as she went on. "You've not been able to give me much of an answer when I've asked how and when you looked at Nathan Grant and saw, or wanted to see, Jack Thornton. I suspect it's because, somewhere deep down, you knew it was a lie."
Elizabeth's vision was blanketed in white, her breathing shallow. Rosemary's voice still came through. "I won't say that you now have all the answers you need, or that you don't still have things you need to decide upon — but I hope you can be more honest with yourself when you do. It might hurt. It almost certainly won't be easy. But, Elizabeth, dearest . . . nothing worth anything ever is."
Slowly, the room swam back into focus, one object at a time. Elizabeth's eyes felt like they had been rattled in their sockets.
"And maybe, when you think about why you reacted so strongly about Nathan today, as you've done in so many instances before, answers might come more clearly to you now that you won't allow yourself to fall back onto the patent untruth of Nathan being some kind of Jack-substitute for you." Rosemary's hold on Elizabeth's hands was strong now, empowering. "Some of the strength of your reactions to him of late might be due to the tumult in your recent history, given the sensitivity of our feminine hearts, but I think if you dig deeper beyond that, you'll find perhaps the clearest truth of them all."
Each tick-tock of the clock on the fireplace mantel was thunderous in the silence.
Elizabeth forgot to breathe for a moment, her lungs frozen, then Rosemary took her breath away even further. "And I suspect you may also find that you were far from immune to him even prior to your recent history."
The air in the room seemed burning hot, stifling one minute and glazed with ice the next. Elizabeth shivered almost uncontrollably even as a heat that didn't warm seemed to suffuse her from within. Silence swirled between the two friends, thicker than sap in winter.
Elizabeth felt a spiraling sensation within herself, like she was at the center of a tornado, being sucked around and around as she went under. It was as if her mind, her heart, and her conscience were having a conference and had neglected to invite her.
Was it possible to be on the outside looking in . . . of yourself?
She could feel the brink of something big beneath her feet, though they were buried in the thick pile of the Coulter's rug. She teetered on that brink, her breathing fast and hard. But reality and truth won out and called her back from the edge. She panted for a moment with thin breaths, her shoulders curled in on themselves as she fought through the brambles and thorns in her mind; brambles and thorns that she herself had planted, grown, and nourished there.
But Rosemary, dear Rosemary, was ever steady. Her grip on her hands never faltered. They weren't Nathan hands, they radiated no heat into her the way his did — but what they were was a solid base of love, calling her back to herself.
"I want to tell you something," she finally whispered through dry lips, her breathing erratic but gradually slowing.
Rosemary's nod was an acceptance the likes of which only a friend could give.
And, her hands going from passive in Rosemary's to gripping them back with a hold that was shaky, Elizabeth told a tale of falling asleep in the schoolhouse one recent night, of fuzzy, undefined memories of a full moon shining down as she was carried, warm and secure, through still and abandoned streets; of being laid into her bed and of masculine lips brushing her brow before whispering shattered words that kept her awake at night.
"He loves me, Rosemary," she whispered. Brokenly.
Rosemary looked at her in the deep silence that fell, eyes both tart and grim. "Yes," she said evenly. "I think that is quite apparent."
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Silence fell, pervasive and deep.
Elizabeth swallowed, pulling another truth from deep inside. "I don't know . . . what I really feel."
"Well, that's an improvement," Rosemary was sharply incisive. "Previously, you swore you knew exactly what you felt for him. At least this, though less certain, is far more honest." Her head moved in a decisive nod. "This is good." She tapped Elizabeth's wrist with one trenchant finger. "However, I think you'll find that you have been more, not less, certain of your heart all this time; simply too afraid to face it."
"Rosemary . . . !" Elizabeth whispered the beginnings of a protest.
Rosemary shook her head firmly. "Mark my words, Elizabeth. You'll see."
Something roiled through Elizabeth's unsettled stomach.
Rosemary's loving gaze was like a firm bedrock as she spoke again. Loving, but tough. "But, Elizabeth . . . you cannot keep going back to a default position that is a lie. We have to start making some progress out of the mud here." Her eyes firmed further still. "Can we at least settle on one fact — that it is, at minimum, now highly questionable if you are, or ever were, trying to find Jack in Nathan?"
There was only one answer and it was about all Elizabeth was capable of in that moment. "Y-yes."
One word.
Just one tiny word. But so much was stripped away, and so much added on, with that solitary word as it fell, entrancing as a pure white snowflake, between the two friends.
Rosemary's eyes filled and it seemed as though bursting words were brimming over, but she carefully controlled herself, contenting herself with a smile that said so much more than words ever could as she briefly clasped Elizabeth's face in both her hands before dabbing her ladylike fingers at the inner corner of her wet eyes.
The two friends sat in silence for what felt like ages, more perhaps being said in the silence that had been said in words, as they both took their time adjusting to what going forward from this conversation might entail for both of them.
Finally, Elizabeth found her voice. "Thank you, Rosemary." It was unsteady and quiet, but it was there.
Gratitude. Humility. A new shade of reality.
"Always," Rosemary whispered, equally unsteady. Then she gave a tearful laugh. "Look at us! We're going to become watering pots if we're not careful."
Elizabeth tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a sob. She made a weak attempt to compose herself. "Well, if friends can't have a good cry together now and then, what kind of friendship is that?"
"My thoughts exactly!" Rosemary's smile was brighter than it had been. Then, she added more seriously, "And I'm sorry if Lee didn't seem quite himself when he answered the door. He didn't mean anything by it; today has just been . . . long."
"Would you . . . like to tell me?" Elizabeth's voice faltered, more than a little uncertain with this, given their history of late, but she pressed on, tentatively. "You've been a sounding board — or a punching bag — so often for me; I'd like to return the favor. If you care to share." Hastily, she clarified, "The sounding board part, I mean; not the punching bag."
She was ashamed of her punching bag treatment of Rosemary, and she hoped her friend could hear it in her voice.
Rosemary's lips turned up in a quick smile, but her eyes were heavy with emotion. "We got some bad news from Faith today. I might have . . . " she hesitated, then said delicately, "a feminine problem. One which might make it even harder to conceive. Nothing is certain, it was just an initial visit, but Faith wants to do a more thorough test. It hadn't come up before as the condition is relatively new to being codified and Faith only just read about it in a medical journal that came to the infirmary."
Elizabeth thought of her own son; of being able to conceive with no difficulty, of the blessing of a healthy child after a relatively uneventful pregnancy despite dealing with the loss of her husband, and felt a creeping sense of shame for not understanding sooner what this was costing Rosemary.
Rosemary yearned and pined for the blessing she took for granted in her own life.
She thought of all the things she could say, but they all sounded trite. So instead she whispered, tightening her hold on her friend's hands, "Would you like me to come with you when you go for the second test?"
Rosemary's eyes were a little startled when they met hers. It shamed her. Her best friend should not have any surprise at her offer of accompaniment to an anxiety-inducing doctor's appointment — and the fact that she did was a source of remorseful sorrow for Elizabeth . . . for she knew her behavior was the cause.
"Yes. Maybe so." Rosemary's eyes searched hers as her voice strengthened. "I . . . that would be nice. I would like that."
"Thank you. I'm glad." It was soft. Then she rose to her feet and Rosemary stood also. The two friends faced each other. Elizabeth again became aware that her friend was in her dressing gown and had obviously been headed to bed when she had so unceremoniously burst into their cozy home. "I'm so sorry to keep you up this late." She glanced toward the stairs. "Would you apologize to Lee for me? For the intrusion . . . and for the ruckus."
"I will, but he understands. That's what friends do."
And as she left the doorway she'd entered not so very long ago, Elizabeth sent a prayer heavenward, asking God if, in His compassion, He could see fit to send the blessing of a child into the yearning and empty hearts and arms of Lee and Rosemary Coulter.
She also prayed, with words that she didn't know, words that she didn't understand, words that she could never remember, about the tumultuous passage of events that she was leaving behind her as she left the Coulter's house.
But she wasn't leaving them behind. They followed her.
They were becoming part of the fabric of her new outlook on certain things, barely flowering in the delicacy of their raw new beginning, but still they grew, sending tender new stalks above the surface while anchoring roots below.
It was hard to say which was stronger in her; the terror of the new . . . or the great unclenching beginning inside her.
Peace won, and that night, Elizabeth slept like she hadn't slept since the night she sat — or rather, Nathan forced her to sit — under the moon with him on her front steps and silently ate the dinner he had prepared.
—ooO0Ooo—
From up above in the starry heavens, Almighty God looked down on a certain household in a frontier town of Canada. This child of His, this stubborn daughter whom He loved beyond measure; finally, she was removing the blinders she had herself handicapped her own sight with, and finally, she was beginning to let herself see the lights He had sent to help illumine and guide her path.
Still, she never said the name as she prayed, still The Man remained he and him, yet still, behind each and every heartbeat a name persistently echoed in the vastness of her silent truth — Nathan, Nathan, Nathan — and still, God was patient with her. The souls of his beloved children, purchased at such great cost, often grew with small steps. What mattered was the progress. And so God waited. And Elizabeth Thornton kept praying.
—ooO0Ooo—
"Ride, Elizabeth, ride!"
So Elizabeth did.
Faith's voice was lost in the rush of wind in her ears as she leaned low over Sergeant's shoulders and gave him free rein, relishing the the wind in her hair and the old, familiarly soft jarring of her bones with every hoof beat that hit the ground. Galloping him back to their start point, she slowed him to a gentle cadence and wheeled him around to come alongside Faith. Her little son beamed at her from where he sat in front of the doctor, sharing the saddle with her.
"It's good to see you ride like that." Faith's smile was warm.
Elizabeth felt it. The joy and exultation of a good run on her horse. But greater still was a certain loosening that had come over her since she'd talked with Rosemary, like someone had reached over and shifted a heavy greyness from her shoulders. And maybe, just a tiny bit, from her vision.
"I'm glad I came today," she said simply. And she meant it.
They broke through a line of trees and the view that opened before them took her breath away. From Faith's indrawn breath, she felt the same. Acres of green grazing land, fenced about with woods, lay before them, dotted with swarms of cattle. A red barn served as a vivid splash of color against the palette of nature that surrounded it, and serving as a backdrop to it all, mountains ranged high above, stark against the bright blue of the sky.
The cattle and the sheer size of it aside, it reminded her so much of Nathan's new property that a poignant pang shot through her — one which she tried to tamp down as they rapidly approached the closest corral, where they could see a familiar figure working with a horse inside. He turned, seeming to sense them before they spoke.
"Hello!" Faith called out, raising a hand in a quick wave as the face of the man in the corral broke into a smile at the sound of her voice.
"Hey there, Doc." Gunner walked over to the fence, a slight saunter to his gait, and hung his arms on the top rung, looking at them over the smooth wood. He had a very marked expression on his face as he took in the sight of the young doctor with the little boy cuddled against her, both so blond they might have been mother and son. But all he said was: "You made good time."
Faith smiled at him, seeming unaware of the look she was under. "This little one" — she ruffled little Jack's hair affectionately — "kept us moving, so you can thank him for our timely arrival."
"He did, did he?" Gunner grinned, then swung up and over the fence in a lithe move, landing lightly on his feet. He looped both sets of their reins over a lower fence rail before stepping to Faith's side, his shoulder brushing her knee as he reached up to little Jack, and with a quiet May I?, pulled him from the saddle.
"Howdy again, little fella," Elizabeth heard him greet her son softly and she saw the look on Faith's face as she gazed down on the man in his dusty cowboy hat holding the little boy securely tucked against him in the crook of one arm.
She knew that look. She remembered at little Jack's christening, looking at —
She caught her breath.
— looking at Nathan like that.
Mmm, right. But that was just because you wanted to see Jack in him, r-e-m-e-m-b-e-r? A derisive little voice trailed its way through her mind, leaving its scorn in its wake.
"No." The whisper slipped out of her lips before she was aware it was there. "No. It was just Nathan." I was only looking at Nathan Grant, the man. The only Jack I was looking at or for was Jack Thornton's son, safe in the arms of . . . Nathan.
A breath shuddered out of her as the truth slid into place.
"Well, Doc" — Gunner was holding a helping hand up to Faith as she swung a leg over the saddle — "all the boys are more than a little curious to see what you have to say today."
A strange look slid over Faith's face, there and gone in a flash as she looked at his extended hand, then she reached out and slipped her palm into his.
"You did tell them I'm a female doctor?" Faith asked as she slid off her horse to land before him, tipping her head up to look at him.
"What's that got to do with it?" he asked, low-toned. He was serious. "You earned your stripes same as any male doctor."
She gave him a look and he tilted his head at her, silently acknowledging he did know what she was getting at. "Yes, Doc, I did. And it's fine. If anyone gives you a lick of trouble — and they won't — they'll have me to answer to."
Elizabeth watched the little silent moment that fell over the two. Then she discreetly dismounted, giving Sergeant a pat before making her way to where the doctor and the cowboy stood. They both started a little as she came around Faith's horse, as if becoming aware of their surroundings.
And Elizabeth couldn't help but smile to herself.
Gunner cleared his throat. "Let me take you to where the boys are waiting, ladies." He moved with them up a small hill towards a long, one story building resting at its peak. All along its front ran a wide, covered veranda with a railing running its length.
Elizabeth smiled at her son, who peeked back at her around Gunner's arm, his towhead gently bobbing up and down with the cowboy's long strides. His answering smile made her heart sing. Then he ducked his head back around to watch their surroundings with bright eyes. Elizabeth took a moment to glance around herself, soaking in the sunshine, the bright blue of the sunny sky, and the staggering mountains rising up as a majestic backdrop to the ranch sprawled at its feet.
As they approached the house, Gunner covered Jack's little ears, then let loose a piercing whistle.
From the front door of the dwelling, a slow exodus of lanky men in varying degrees of dustiness ambled forth and watched them reach the veranda steps with eyes that were both curious and reserved.
"Doc lady's right pretty," Elizabeth heard one of them mutter as she ascended the stairs and followed Gunner to the far end of the porch where a long table with chairs was set up.
She was woman enough to feel an instinctive pinch of hurt as she fleetingly wondered why she didn't qualify for a mention when Gunner shot a stern glance over his shoulder at the speaker from hazel eyes that carried an unmistakable message, and the muttering abruptly subsided, but not before another voice retorted: "Well, I like the blonde one. I think she's prettier."
For a second, Elizabeth's cheeks burned with the realization that she'd been relegated to second place. Then it hit her. They thought she was the doctor.
She looked ahead at where Faith's pretty blonde head was tipped up to Gunner's as he murmured something to her, and then at her son in the cowboy's arm, his blond hair slightly mussed. They looked for all the world like a family and she felt a flash of understanding for the man who'd thought her the doctor and Faith the widowed friend with a child.
In the center of the long table was a large handful of autumn wildflowers, carefully placed inside a chipped blue pitcher of ceramic. The table was immaculately clean. Elizabeth had a sneaking suspicion that the culprit responsible for these considerate touches was the man who, little boy wrapped in one arm, was using his free hand to pull out a chair for Faith.
Finished, he gestured toward the end of the table. "It was a decent distance out here; would either of you ladies care for a glass of water?"
At the end of the table was another pitcher through whose clear glass walls she could see the sparkling depths of the water that filled it. Several clean but mismatched glasses flanked it.
They both accepted, grateful for the chance to wet dry throats. Faith began to lay out medical supplies from her bag as Gunner poured glasses of water. He pushed their drinks to them, then poured a third glass with only a small amount in it and gently eased it to Jack's lips as boy drank thirstily.
Elizabeth noted that Faith, occupied though she was, wasn't missing a single movement between the tall man and little boy.
Her mama's heart was grateful for the cowboy's thoughtfulness and she smiled thankfully at him.
"Alright, fellas," he called to the gathering, "come in closer so the doc doesn't have to holler to be heard." He tipped his head at Faith, who straightened to her full height — barely topping out mid-chest on him — at his gesture. "This here's Doctor Carter." He nodded to Elizabeth. "And this is her friend Mrs. Thornton, whom I invited to accompany the doc, along with her young son here." He raised his arm, boosting Jack up a little as a ripple of surprise washed over the gathered men as they registered the correct identity of the women.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Faith greeted the assorted gathering, the delicate blue in her sweet eyes calm, her demeanor confident. But Elizabeth noted her hands were shaking ever so slightly. Gunner was quietly watching Faith's hands, too. "Thank you for clearing some time from your busy schedules to attend."
And as Faith continued speaking, Elizabeth was gratified to see her hands gradually grew steady and the tilt of her chin more straightforward. As she began to walk the men through the latest treatment options for injuries common to ranch life, Jack began to grow restless. Gunner discreetly and quickly approached her.
"Unless you need to stay for Doc Faith's talk, perhaps you'd like to let the little fella stretch his legs and explore a bit," he whispered to her as Jack transferred from one set of arms to another.
"He'd love that. I think I'll take him for a walk."
He nodded, started to walk back to Faith, then turned around. "You may already know this, but please don't go into the corrals or pastures by yourselves. And if you run into Scout, don't be afraid, she's as friendly as can be. Can't miss her; she's the fast-as-lightning, black and white herding dog."
Jack's head perked up. Elizabeth laughed, but very quietly so as not to disrupt Faith's talk. "You said the magic word — dog. That's all he'll be looking for now."
"Have fun, Jack." Gunner ruffled Jack's hair with a grin and headed back to Faith's side.
Since they were still a distance from any animals, Elizabeth set him down and let him run free, watching as his short legs took him here and there and back again, exploring every sound and color that caught his attention. He was particularly captivated by one shiny leaf that he found on the ground, its center a deep russet shade of autumn glory. He was only satisfied when she agreed to let him keep the leaf — but just that one! — watching attentively as she tucked it carefully into her pocket. Only then did he resume his meandering exploration of the vast ranch land that sprawled at the base of the mountains.
It was when he took off in a wobbling run, headed pell-mell for the grazing pastures that housed the Rolling K's immense herds of cattle, that she felt the need to redirect his exploration.
Hurriedly capturing his hand as she caught up to him, she gently coaxed him to instead follow her to the corrals adjacent the property's huge barn, which gleamed under the sun with its fresh coat of red paint. The corrals held one, perhaps two, horses. That was a ratio of large animals to tiny tots that she was more comfortable with than the hundreds out in the pastures.
She let him hang his head over the lowest rung of the corral's wooden fence to peer at the beautiful roan mare inside, her hand keeping a firm hold on the back of his little grey overalls and her eyes keeping a clear watch on the stunning equine. The horse soon ambled over and lowering her head to Jack's level, she gently nosed his cheek, to his delighted chortle.
The mare raised her head after a minute and dropping her neck over the top rung, looking at Elizabeth with huge, soulful eyes of liquid black.
"Hello, girl," Elizabeth whispered, using her free hand to rub a warm path up and down the center of her muzzle.
The feeling of soft little hands on hers had her looking down. Her son had detached her hand from his overalls and was clasping it in both of his, looking up at her with eyes that were crystal clear with the full-hearted innocence rarely found outside childhood.
He didn't seem to want anything, just seemed content to look at, and be looked upon in return, with love. His little heart was in his eyes and Elizabeth knew hers could hardly be contained from spilling forth. She bent down and caressed his round cheek, feeling the soft tenderness of his baby skin under her hand, planting kisses across his nose and melting at the sound of his giggle.
"How about we go see what animals might be in the barn? Maybe the doggie is in there." She dropped one last kiss on his silky hair and pointed at the barn. "Would you like that?"
He nodded enthusiastically, proclaiming his interest with a string of words which the average listener would probably only understand one or two. Elizabeth understood a few more than that, but even to her, many of his words were still a mystery. It was his meaning she understood more than his exact words.
The inside of the barn was cool and dim, the air smelling vaguely of hay and warm animals and that earthy undertone present in most structures that housed animals. Flies buzzed about here and there in the air that flowed gently from one open end of the barn to the other. Jack swatted at one that landed on his sleeve with a firm order of No! that was abundantly clear.
There was a wide, open area down the middle of the barn, with a loft overhead that extended halfway across it. Huge round bales of fragrant hay filled the loft, balancing one atop the other, lined in neat rows all the way to the very edge. Down on the ground level, stalls flanked the main space on either side. Elizabeth was disappointed they all seemed to be empty, but she assumed the animals were outside enjoying the sunshine and grass.
She and Jack stood there side by side, their enjoined hands attaching them together as they looked around and then up at the hayloft directly above them. She loved seeing the bright interest in his eyes as he took in this new atmosphere. He seemed to get a fidget suddenly and glanced over his shoulder as if he sensed something; focused intently, then froze in place, his little body turned sideways as he stared intently behind them.
"'Tie," he whispered, pronouncing it tee, as he flung his hand out, gesturing behind her, small index finger pointing insistently. "'Tie!"
'Tie? Wait, wasn't that what he had called —
Her thought was never completed.
Overhead, there was a slight groan, as if old wood were gasping and she snapped her head to look up, but something burst upon her, coming out of nowhere in a blur of intense motion, spinning her about in a vortex of wind as she gasped, feeling her son's hand pulled from her grasp as she slammed backwards into something hard.
—ooO0Ooo—
Elizabeth felt the sensation of air swirling around her as she was spun, rough and fast, against a stall door. Her back jolted it, rattling the metal latch as her back thudded into the wooden door. She had a jumbled, kaleidoscope impression of hard hands, a blurred flash of vibrant color, and her tiny son being hoisted up by the same whirlwind of action and speed that had grabbed and tossed her out of the way, as something fell through the air and hit the ground in a tremendous thud exactly where they had just been standing.
There was an explosion of hay. Tiny pieces fluttered and floated in the air all around them, raining down on hair and shoulders.
The whirlwind's face swam into focus and she breathed a name with what little air was left in her lungs; not a question or an exclamation, but rather a yielding, breathless affirming that would have brought a weaker man to his knees.
"NATHAN."
Her eyes sank into his. She drowned inside the blue.
And flush between them, her son's warm little body was very, very still as he stared up at the tall Mountie in scarlet who held him so tightly to his heaving chest.
—ooO0Ooo—
11/24/21 update: I just finished updating my WHC story so now I can turn my attention to updating this one again. For Nathan fans, he arrived in my WHC story toward the tail-end of Ch 8 "Catch Me, Love, Before I Fall" and plays a bigger role in Ch 9 "The Eyes Of A Mountie".
Original Author's Note: Another cliffhanger, I know, I sowwy! ;) This chapter's officially replaced Chapter 7 as the l-o-n-g-e-s-t N&E chapter I've ever written! I almost named this chapter "Save It, Lucas". ;p (Speaking of Mr. Bouchard . . . a word of big, big thanks to both Mamabethany & Eilie Hunter for their extraordinary help on some Lucas related things — you're the best, ladies! And Elizabethb88, whose memory I not infrequently turn to — to her unfailingly gracious response. Hugs to you all! I'm indebted.)
Whew! Not gonna lie, you guys; those conversations E had with Lucas and RM were challenging to put on paper. They took me awhile to write and even then, I rewrote them several times, trying to make sure my words were conveying the scenes as I had them in my head. I know this was a bit of a "heavy" chapter, so I decided to end it on a lighter note, and to give us a dose of "rescuer Nathan" as Elizabeth and LJ meander through a sliver of ranch life. ;) We all love a good rescue, yeah? ;p And I won't leave you hanging; we'll revisit and finish this ending scene in the next chapter, from Nathan's POV. (I've loved the idea of barn scenes with N&E ever since we got that S7 scene between them in the livery stable, when she came back from taking Sergeant on his morning run.)
Elizabeth is making strides in the right direction; her baby steps are getting bigger! She's finally seeing things — most notably about how she's treated Rosemary and especially Nathan! She's not yet where we need her to be in order to again be worthy of our Nathan but she'll get there. I've never been one for quick resolutions (wham, bam, all fixed-type of thing) and this is no exception. If you read my other currently active fic (for "When Hope Calls"), you know I looooooove my slow-burn love stories and building lots and lots of (clean!) romantic tension. Once we get to the happy times with N&E, it is my hope that it will be clear why this story took the path and pacing it did. N&E are not a bland, vanilla pairing, and I refuse to write them that way for the sake of quick payoff. What S8 did to them I can't repair by slapping on a fast bandaid just to hustle onto the happy stuff. S8 of That Show was really, REALLY messed up and there's DAMAGE to repair. Chapter by chapter, we're getting there! :)
I started writing the Rosemary scene the night I was irked with the "Chesapeake Shores" finale, so that may have helped flavor it. ;p LOL! (Just kidding; that scene was always planned as it is.) But I may need to start a "Chesapeake Shores" fanfic to give my preferred pairings/characters the story (I think) they deserve . . . Joking. Sort of. But I need another story to write like I need a hole in my head! ;p
You see, I've already got planned/ideas teeming in my head for:
1) A time-travel Nathan & Elizabeth story. (He's the upright, old-timey man of ye olden days and she's the modern day woman who time travels back, ending up smack-dab in his small town, having no idea how she got there.)
2) A modern day Nathan & Elizabeth story set in a snowy, tucked-away inlet on the remote Alaskan mountain coast. (She may or may not be a widow, and may or may not be pregnant - if she is, she's def widowed - who doesn't have a clue what to do when bears wander around her property, has never chopped wood to get through a winter before, etc., and he's the tough local, maybe law enforcement, maybe a pilot, maybe search-and-rescue, maybe a homesteader...)
3) Two sequels to my "When Hope Calls" story.
4) A modern day Sam & Lillian (WHC) story.
5) An alt!pairing short story for Maggie from WHC. (Maggie/male OC, because much as I liked Joe, I've been caught by the notion of Maggie's smart, cultured British sass paired with the frontier grit and very male appeal of a cowboy/rancher with an edge of unconsciously rugged swag to him.)
6) I want to finish my Lucas & Fiona fic.
7) I'm toying with the idea of a short story for WHC's Gabe and the love interest I'll be introducing for him soon in both my currently active stories. I worked hard on this love interest and I hope she'll resonate with readers.
8) A SEQUEL FOR THIS STORY! ("From Flame & Ash")
9-12) Stories for the '98-'99 PAX TV series "Little Men" (Josephine "Jo" Bhaer/Nick; an all-around handyman, this lean-faced, blue eyed, dark haired ex-seaman stole Jo's widowed heart . . . eventually); Hallmark movies "Hidden Places" (Eliza/Gabe; rugged, watchful, a writer, strong-but-tender/gentle, a "drifter" who was so much more) and "The Magic of Ordinary Days" (WWII, pregnant out of wedlock preacher's daughter, city girl Livvy/Ray; the steadfast, quiet Colorado farmer who agrees to marry her); and the '94-'95 CBS TV series "Christy" (Christy/Neil McNeill; the rugged, reserved mountain doctor who irked and challenged her like no other — but the OG Neil where he's genuinely widowed with no back-from-the-dead wife popping up out of nowhere.)
I have many other ideas, too, some involving male Special Forces operators and their female love interests, but I won't bore you with those here. ;)
. . . sooo, as you can see, another fic on this list is needed like a hole in my head, haha! ;) (I already have whole scenes written up for some of the above story ideas, lol.)
Anyway! ;) I hope you guys enjoyed the progress made and the subjects touched on in this chapter. I felt they were necessary and that certain things need to start (or continue) being addressed. Welcome to all my new readers and a big Thank You to anybody who has favorited or followed any of my stories!
Thank you, everyone, for reading! Hope to see you again in the next chapter! XOXO
~Paths Through Lavender Fields