No Other Will Do (Ladies of Harper's Station #1)(15)
“Say you’re sorry,” Mal demanded as he raised his fist, threatening another blow.
Oliver whimpered. Then his gaze darted to somewhere behind Mal. “Please, don’t hurt me. Please. I didn’t mean to . . .”
Didn’t mean to? He’d held her down and attacked her!
Mal swung, but arms grabbed him from behind before the blow landed. Mal fought their hold. They were stronger than before. A man’s arms.
“That’s enough!” Abby’s father pulled him off of Oliver and flung him aside.
Mal immediately sought out Emma. Tears streaked her face. Tangled hair stood out from her head, bits of bark clinging to her curls. But her bright green eyes locked on him, full of gratitude and of worry—for him.
She hurried to his side and immediately started fussing over his cuts and scrapes, as if they mattered.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, peering down into her face through a rapidly swelling eye. “I should have watched you more closely. I should’ve—”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself, Malachi Shaw.” She scowled up at him even as she brushed the dust off his sleeve. “Oliver is the one in the wrong, not you.” Then she smiled one of her magic smiles at him, the one that turned his insides to mush. “You protected me against three boys older and larger than you. In my book, that makes you hero material.”
Hero material? Bah. A bunch of girlish fancy. But the words wormed their way into his bones, spreading their roots and vines until he couldn’t escape them. A hero. Emma’s hero. Him. Malachi Shaw. The idea was ludicrous . . . yet he longed so much for it to be true, that it infected him at the deepest level.
Unfortunately, Emma and the aunts were the only ones who considered his actions heroic. Harland Evans, Oliver’s father, demanded that Malachi be charged with assault. The aunts insisted that Oliver be charged with the same crime against their niece. Abby’s father could only testify to Malachi’s attack on Oliver, not Oliver’s attack on Emma, so since Emma was basically unhurt and Oliver sported a busted nose, bloody lip, and a nice assortment of bruises, the sheriff sided with the Evans family. Not convinced a boyish scuffle really warranted jail time, yet needing to placate Harland Evans, who insisted Malachi was a miscreant who never should have been allowed into their community in the first place, the sheriff gave Malachi a choice. Leave Gainesville or go to jail.
The aunts vowed to hire a lawyer and fight the injustice of the sheriff’s ruling, but Malachi knew what a trial would mean. Emma would have to testify to what Oliver had done, relive the humiliation and fear. Her assault would be a matter of public record.
She wouldn’t care one whit, of course. At least not on the surface. She’d march into that courtroom and defend him with all the fervor of a revival preacher fighting to save souls from hell. That’s just who she was. But he wasn’t about to let her recount Oliver’s atrocities in front of a full gallery of witnesses—witnesses who would gawk and gossip and question her morals even though she was the innocent party in the whole ordeal.
So he’d left. Quietly. In the night. But not before Emma cornered him and made him promise to write to her. Often. She’d insisted that she’d worry herself sick if she didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. She even thrust her writing box at him, stocked with paper, pen, ink, and postage stamps. And a coin pouch filled with her meager savings, he’d later discovered.
And since he’d never break a promise to her, and because he secretly longed to preserve his connection to her, even if he never laid eyes on her again, he’d written. And extracted a promise of his own. If she ever needed his help, she was to send for him.
Now she had.
Malachi refocused his gaze on the landscape outside his window, silently urging the train to greater speed. Hang in there, Emma. I’m coming.
5
Emma sat in her office at the bank, her head bent over her writing desk as she added the latest names to her ledger. Irene Booker and her son, Charlie, had left that morning, bringing the count up to thirty. Thirty women and children lost to Harper’s Station. She’d expected such an exodus, but every departure still hit her like a blow to her midsection.
She replaced her pen in the black lacquered stand and lifted her gaze to the ceiling. It’s hard to believe you are in control, Lord, when a man with a gun steals our freedom and scatters our members far and wide. I thought this colony was your plan. Why are you allowing this attack?
The ceiling offered no answer. Emma sighed and turned back to her ledger, or would have if Aunt Bertie’s needlework sampler hadn’t caught her attention. Hanging in a frame on the wall beside her desk, the colorful stitching radiated love and encouragement, just as Bertie herself always did. Yet today it also offered a pointed reminder.
“But the God of all grace,” the brightly colored thread announced, “who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
Emma bit her bottom lip, then bowed her head. “Forgive me, Father. I have no right to demand exemption from suffering when not even your Son was spared. No lives have yet been lost, and I thank you for that mercy most deeply. Please establish and strengthen us, and when the time is right, may those who have left us return to settle here once again, if it be your will.”