Chapter 37

Happiness…joy…contentment. These words kept resonating in Elizabeth's head as she looked around the room knowing that not everyone here was as fortunate as her right now.

It was clear that the situation for Lucas was reaching a decisive moment and she prayed that he too would soon be sharing these same emotions for now she finally understood just what had made him the person he was. This man she scornfully dismissed as too superficial to know love. When you are hurt as badly as he had been then it is easier to stay in the shallows of life, never diving down into the depths where the riches of the ocean lay in case you were hurt again. She knew because that was exactly how she had been until the thought of losing Nathan had made her realise that the pain would be so much worse if she never gave herself a chance to love him.

She could hear Nathan's voice in the kitchen. It was clear that he had remained there to be respectful to Lucas and what was still so precariously balanced, the possibility that the outcome may not be what he wanted. He would have decided that it was better to hold back whatever it was he had planned for them. She was constantly amazed by his ability to look at what everyone else needed before thinking about himself, yet another of the many things she loved about him. Why she did not see that earlier she had no idea for it was so much a part of who he was.

She let out a long sigh with that thought and Abigail picked up on it. "Is everything okay, Elizabeth?"

When she turned to her friend the smile on her face partly answered the question but Abigail could see that there was still something troubling her.

"Don't you think that life can be cruel at times, Abigail? Here I am so happy, feeling loved and able to finally give my heart freely to Nathan, as are you with Bill. Yet around us are people for whom life seems to be just one heartbreak after another."

Her eyes drifted across to where the Scott children were sitting together, Chloe speaking in a hushed voice to her brothers and sisters. She had lifted Bessie from her cot and was cuddling the little one as though trying to let her know that she was not alone, providing her with the comfort that she had seen her mother give in the past. So much pain visited on one so young, she thought. Nothing would ever replace their parents but she was confident that with the love and care she was certain to receive from Abigail and Bill she would have the next best thing.

Then as she looked around the room she reminded herself of the loss of all the others. With a gasp of realisation she turned to Abigail, "Do you realise there isn't a child in this room who hasn't lost at least one parent, most of them two. And yet the love surrounding them is so tangible, so vivid, you can feel it all around you. You can see on their faces that they are happy. Lillian and Grace have created such a wonderful place here and I just know that you will do the same for the children you take back with you to Hope Valley."

Abigail didn't like to see Elizabeth sounding so melancholy, not now when her new life was just about to begin. She gave her a look that said, now listen to me! "Elizabeth Thornton, you have had your own share of difficulty getting to where you are sitting right now, don't you forget that. I know it is harder to watch children suffer, none of them ever deserve that, but we will give them all the best life we can."

She laughed at that moment, hoping to break the mood, "After all, look what I did for you."

Elizabeth reached across to hug her friend, careful not to squeeze a still sleeping Little Jack in the process. "I love you Abigail Stanton, you have been one of the greatest gifts in my life and I am just so happy that I will have you in Hope Valley again. When I think back I don't know what I would have done without you so many times. You always believed in me, even when I was at my lowest after Jack died you were the one who gave me hope by seeming to know the very thing I needed to hear or finding the right way to push me forward."

"And look how far we have both come, Elizabeth. I hope you knew that I was always with you even when I was thousands of miles away, you were always in my thoughts, my prayers and my heart."

"I did know Abigail, having you as my friend even if we only managed letters and the occasional telephone call meant that a lot of things weren't quite so scary for me. I just wish I had been more truthful with you about how I was feeling, been more honest with myself. I could have saved a lot of people a great deal of pain if I had been".

Allie had been quietly listening, surprised to hear the vulnerability in the conversation of adults and trying to see if there were any words spoken between the two women that she could use to comfort her new friend Chloe. Her dad had been right. She could see in the way Chloe looked at her brothers and sisters that she was struggling and yet she was still trying to be strong for them. She liked what Mrs Thornton had said about things not being so scary when you had a friend there with you, because even if they were a long way away it was the knowing that they cared that made all the difference.

When she looked across Chloe was giving Susan a big hug, the smaller girl trying hard not to let her tears fall. She glanced up over her sister's head and caught Allie watching and in that moment a small smile, so imperceptible that it could easily be missed, crossed her face and she gave her a little nod. Allie nodded back and whispered, "I'm here if you need me."

She turned her attention back to Mrs Thornton and Mrs Stanton, their conversation having stopped for the moment as both were looking down at her. "She knows, Allie. That you're here, that you care. Just like I have always known Abigail was thinking of me. And that your dad loved me, no matter how badly I treated the both of you. People like that are treasures that we must cherish because it takes a special person to care, to love unconditionally, to forgive. I think Chloe knows she has found that in you."

In the kitchen the men sat waiting and watching. The longer Mary stayed in the office the less optimistic they were and the faster it seemed Lucas's pacing became along the porch outside. Once more Nathan wondered if he should go out to the man but something told him that he needed to be left alone, keep his own counsel in these minutes so that he was prepared for the outcome.

He knew he should go through to explain to Elizabeth and Allie that his plan had been postponed but he suspected his arrival in the sitting room would set his daughter's excitement off again and he didn't want to do that. Elizabeth would know why and he hoped explain the situation to Allie.

They had made small talk at the table, three Mounties together with the younger two listening as Bill revisited old stories that had changed over the years to a point where those involved would barely recognise them anymore. Nathan knew what young Joe had said to Bill and had a feeling that this had brought up these feelings of nostalgia in his friend. Perhaps it was because they spent so much time playing down the dangers of a mission to ease the worry of their friends and family that they tended to make them sound more like a boys adventure than anything else. It was easy to forget the danger.

Yet he could still picture clearly every occasion when he had faced the barrel of a gun and how his thoughts had gone to those he loved as he used every bit of his training to calm the person on the other end. That he was here showed he had a good track record but he knew just how easily so many of those situations could have ended badly for him.

When he and Elizabeth married they would be a family and he had been thinking about that a lot as he lay upstairs in bed. Did he have the right to expect his wife and children to live with the dangers that his job brought? He had heard it all from Allie before, how it was part of who he was and she couldn't imagine him doing anything else. But it was different now. He had a feeling that this last incident may have opened her eyes to the very real possibility of losing him. And what about Elizabeth? Could he put her through all that fear of the same happening to him as had to Jack? And what if she fell apart again, what would happen to Allie?

He suddenly realised that this big step they were taking was not as straightforward as it may appear. He had dreamt of the good things without giving consideration to the reality of what it would mean. There was a lot of talk that needed to happen. Honest conversations about anything and everything. Then decisions to be made because he was not willing to be the one who caused heartache to these people he loved so much.

As he paced up and down the porch Lucas was battling to keep his mind focused on the floor in front of him instead of in that small office where his future happiness was being decided. Occasionally he would look up and see the three men sitting in the kitchen, these people he called his friends, and yet in this moment he felt so very distant from all of them. They were all noble men who were now within reach of the happiness they deserved, whilst he was a coward, someone who had been too scared to search for the woman he loved because he felt shame. He was worried what they would think of him. And yet not doing anything when he discovered the truth had made him even worse of a man than that. He should have been able to rise above his pride for love, but he didn't.

When Mary had come out earlier after speaking with Rachael his hopes were lifted. Rachael had listened to what she had to say, to the explanation he had given about how he had been lied to, betrayed by his own father. She had said that her sister was happy to know that he was well now but then she became hesitant. She related these parts of the conversation, wanting Lucas to understand just how big a decision this was for Rachael.

"I'm scared Mary. Scared to go back to that time, to allow the pain into my heart again. I am happy in my life now. I may not have the great passion that I could have had with Lucas but at least I don't wake each day with a fear of it falling apart."

This was what Lucas had dreaded, that his betrayal of her had been so great that she daren't chance love again. That she would feel that if the worst were to happen then she would never be able to recover.

"You know how much she always loved to read, Lucas. All those picnics we would have where Rachael would be quoting scenes from her favourite books. She is still the same and reminded me just now of Anne Elliot's discussion with Captain Harville in Persuasion, "Women live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey on us, which makes it almost impossible for them to fall out of love. But men have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, which allows them to easily forget a relationship as soon as it ends.

He remembered that, for it had been one of her favourite passages. For years he had been unable to open any of the books that they had spent hours reading together, each word or line bringing back memories of a time when life was good and his future lay there before him. Instead he had searched for books about anything but love.

It was only recently, to please Elizabeth, that he had begun to delve back into the works that he had forced himself to forget, but those lines were so deeply embedded in his mind and heart that they came floating to the surface without too much effort.

He could hear Rachael's voice as the words of Wentworth's letter echoed in his head and he began to recite them back, "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me that I am not too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you with a heart even more your own than when you broke…..

He faltered as he reached for the next few words for it was not Rachael who had broken his heart but he hers. And now she had asked one simple question of him, one thing she said she needed to know before she could give her answer.

"She wants you to answer just one question", Mary said softly. "Has your heart stayed as true to her as hers has to you?"

Lucas turned away, looking out into the distance wondering how so much could have happened in only a few days that he found himself here. Suddenly stumbling in the snow with Nathan on his back seemed much easier than what he was facing now. How could he explain Elizabeth? Should he explain Elizabeth? But he knew the truth always had a way of coming out, no matter how hard you tried to conceal it.

"Tell her the truth, Mary. I tried to love Elizabeth, convinced myself that I did, but all the time I was just searching for her."

And now he waited again.