The Maverick's Bride (24 page)

“Sleep, my poor love,” she whispered as Emma closed her eyes. “You shall have a hot bath at Government House and you’ll feel much better. We shall find your Adam and bring him to you. I promise.”

T
he heat and humidity of the ancient port bore down on her, and Emma still felt dazed as the trolley rolled toward Government House. Lord and Lady Delamere hurried down the steps to meet their guests. The couple were eager to hear the news and more than eager to ensure that Godfrey Pickering’s heirs left the protectorate with much goodwill to take back to England and her prospective colonists.

Lord Delamere exclaimed in dismay over the tragedy in the Aberdares. He vowed to find Nicholas Bond. Justice would be served. Adam King would be given a gentleman’s burial. The entire protectorate would mourn.

Lady Delamere’s sadness was overtaken by the joy of Cissy’s engagement and plans to settle in the highlands. There must be a reception this very night, she insisted. The wedding would take place on the Delamere farm at Njoro. Her husband declared Dirk’s desire for sanctuary a “bit of a sticky wicket,” but he assured the couple that all would fall into place.

Amid the excitement, Emma started toward the house. She was crossing the lawn when she heard Lord Delamere addressing Soapy.

“I’m told Adam had one of my crates,” the Englishman said. “Do you know if he took it to Njoro?”

“Sorry to say it’s still in the barn on King Farm,” the cowboy told him.

“Well, we’ll just pop ’round for it. I shall need that plow on my return to the farm.”

A plow.
Emma reflected on the crate and all its mystery as she stepped inside the house. How could she have doubted Adam? But she had. Nicholas Bond had been the serpent in the Garden of Eden, whispering poison into her ear. All along, he had been the evil one.

In the room where she and Cissy had stayed before, Emma bathed and dressed in a soft gown. Then she took a chair near the balcony door Adam had once entered. He had wanted to take her away then, but she would not go. And now he was gone.

It seemed she was always losing those she loved most. The terrible truth of her losses was more than Emma felt she could bear. As she thought of Adam, his body lying in that cold damp gorge, tears streamed down her cheeks.

Where was God in such a time as this? She had heard Him so clearly as she listened to Miss Nightingale. His call on Emma’s heart could not be mistaken. Her path to Africa had been made straight, and her future unfurled before her like a soft carpet.

Until she met Adam King. Confused, tempted and deeply in love, she had struggled to pray. God’s voice became so hard to hear. What was He telling her? What was she to do? She had tried to listen. She had done her best to obey.

But now she had lost the love she had never wanted. She had been torn from a man she could never have. A future she suddenly desired more than anything else was ripped away by a single bullet.

She watched as the sun sank. The stars were just coming out when the door burst open. Breathless, Cissy flew into the room, begged Emma not to cry and announced happy plans for an impromptu reception that night in honor of her engagement. Lady Delamere had offered to lend her a gown! Slippers must be found, to say nothing of a hat! Blue eyes sparkling, Cissy whirled away in a flutter of excitement.

Under a moonlit sky, trolleys and carriages began to arrive. Emma observed elegant men and women promenading into the hall below. Laughter, music and the tinkle of crystal floated up to her in the darkened room.

Emma knew she had no choice but to carry on without Adam. Her heart would hold him always, but she must move forward with her plans. A hospital would be found where she could serve. Linde would be at her side. Cissy and Dirk would marry and have children. Emma would visit often. She would go to England and tell Miss Nightingale about her work. Perhaps they would drink tea together.

“Emma, where have you got to?” Cissy rushed into the room again. At the sight of her sister still seated beside the window, she exclaimed in exasperation. “Oh, Emma, you’re here all alone. I’ve been cruel to stay away. How heartless of me.”

Cissy turned up the flame in a lamp on the table. Emma watched her butterfly sister for a moment. The joy of seeing such a loved one alive was enough to warm a shattered heart.

“I’ve needed to be alone, Cissy.” Emma turned from the light to gaze out the window. “I loved him, you know. It was very wrong, but I couldn’t help it.”

Cissy wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I know you loved him…and he loved you, Emma. I knew it the moment I saw you together. He was wonderful, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, but I shall go on. I had made up my mind not to be
like Mama, not to follow my heart. But I found out that’s quite impossible for me. I believe I shall always go where my passions lead me. But I won’t be ruled by them. Unlike Mama, I shall not pine away from my loss. I shall not die of this.”

“Of course not. You are far too strong.” Cissy smiled. “We are women of fortitude, you and I. Lady Delamere is thrilled about the wedding, as you know. She wanted to host the event at their farm at Njoro, but instead we’ve set it right here tomorrow afternoon.”

“So soon, Cissy?”

“Why wait? Everyone we know is in Mombasa already. Lord Delamere says that after Dirk and I are married, he’ll have no trouble getting a residency permit from the British government. So it is good to be hasty in such a situation.”

“I’m happy for you, then.” Emma took her sister’s hand. “Truly I am.”

“Will you come down? It would mean so much to me. I won’t make you dance.”

“Certainly I shall. An occasion such as this is not to be missed.”

Emma had to laugh as Cissy twirled about the bedroom in Lady Delamere’s pink gown with long feathers sweeping from the velvet sash. A soft blue-green silk gown was chosen for Emma herself. She pinned her sun-streaked hair into coils atop her head and slipped on a pair of gloves.

The two young women swept down the stairs to a chorus of ahs and the gentle applause of the assembly. Emma learned she and Cissy were viewed as heroines of a sort, having endured hardships in the wild and come through impossible adventures unscathed.

Cissy vanished into the sea of celebrants. Emma greeted several guests before stepping into the ballroom. Leaning
against the cool plaster of a back wall, she sipped at a glass of punch and watched the dancers whirl around the room to a lively waltz. Cissy and Dirk, enraptured in one another’s arms, did not even see her as they swept past.

“Well, howdy, ma’am.” Soapy’s voice broke into Emma’s reverie, and she turned in surprise to find the little cowboy standing close beside her. His yellow hair, parted in the middle, had been slicked back on either side. Even more astonishing, he had washed his face, and for the first time Emma realized that he had freckles. His broad grin belied the despondency Emma was sure he must be feeling.

“Mr. Potts, how lovely to see you,” she said. “You’re looking well.”

“They got a purty good doc over at the government clinic. He says I’ll be back in the saddle good as new afore long.” Leaning on a cane, Soapy pulled at one of his black suspenders and snapped it against his chest. “You might like to hear I was right there when the doc took a look at yore handiwork on Tolito. I never heerd such fine talkin’. He said you done good…real good. He was purt’ near happy as a flea in a doghouse. Says he wants to meet you—” Soapy stopped speaking and scratched his head. “What’s goin’ on over there?”

Emma looked up to find that the music had faltered and the instruments were falling silent. The dancers had stopped, every eye turned toward the door. Voices, arguing, growing louder, filled the ballroom. Three African doorkeepers surrounded a figure who rose head and shoulders above them.

Standing on tiptoe, Emma felt the blood rush from her head as Adam King took off his black cowboy hat and started across the room toward her. No. It was impossible.

She caught her breath at the man she hardly recognized in such a clean white shirt, black coat and gray trousers. His sun-
bronzed face wore a smile and his eyes shone like blue diamonds. Even his hair, shiny black in the lamplight, bounced with life as he strode through the frozen dancers.

“My lord,” one of the servants protested, “this man insists on entering the consulate without invitation.”

“Mr. King!” Lord Delamere called out.

“Lord Delamere.” Adam never took his eyes from Emma’s. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all. Welcome!” Delamere turned to the military band. “Carry on, gentlemen.”

As the music started again, the dancers swung back into the waltz. But no one could refrain from watching as Adam swept Emma up in his arms.

“You’re alive!” She threw her arms around his neck, unable to believe that he was really here—holding her tight and spinning her around and around.

“You didn’t really think Bond could get the best of me, did you?”

“That ol’ tenderfoot weren’t no match for a cowboy!” Soapy exclaimed. “Coulda told you that, ma’am.”

Adam set Emma down and stepped back to look at her. “The dress makes your eyes look almost blue,” he declared. “Or have you been crying?”

When she couldn’t answer, he led her out onto the verandah where once they had strolled together.

“Bond is laid up at the ranch right now,” he told her. “He’s got a couple of slugs in him, if you’d like to practice on someone new.”

“You shot him?”

“I couldn’t help but wing him. He was pretty determined, if you’ll recall. I returned your gold to the bank a little while ago. Richards was glad to see it.”

Emma shook her head. She still couldn’t believe he was here…and yet she could feel his arm around her shoulders, rest her head against his chest, hear his heart beating loud and strong.

“I wanted to bring you this.” He stopped walking and turned Emma to face him. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he took out the brass ring. It rested on the tip of his right index finger, and he looked down at it as he spoke. “When I first met you, Emma, I knew right away there was something different…special…about you. You proposed that crazy business arrangement, and I went along with it because I needed a nurse for Tolito.”

“And the money,” she reminded him.

“I inherited a little shipping business when my pa died. I’ll make things right with him when we meet up again. And now I know we will.”

Emma smiled. “We can both look forward to reconciliation. God has given us that gift.”

“Your father was wounded and in pain, but he loved you. And he was right when he recognized my name. Pa wouldn’t leave me the ranch in Texas. I was too unreliable. But he gave the ships to his son who had wandered away and never come home.”

“Ships,” she repeated. “Then you didn’t need my money at all.”

“I thought the ranch and Seastar would fill up what I was missing in my life—that empty feeling I tried to ignore. But it didn’t go away…until you came along. Then I had to face the truth, Emma. I don’t want to live without you in my life. Will you come back to the ranch with me? Will you be my wife?”

Emma looked up into the clear blue eyes. “But what about Clarissa? Your heart belongs to her.”

She stepped away from him before continuing. “The day
we met on the pier, I saw you tear a letter. It blew across my path, part of it, anyway, and I could not resist reading it. She signed it,
your wife.
”

Adam shook his head, a slow grin forming at the corners of his mouth. “You read half the letter, Emma. Half. The whole message read,
Your wife-to-be.
I was engaged to Clarissa for a long time. My parents thought it was a good match. But I’ve never been one to do the thing I was supposed to do. I tore up the letter, remember? And I wrote to her the day you found the locket. It’s over, Emma. It had been for a long time.”

“I’ve never done what I was supposed to do either,” Emma whispered. “But I know one thing I must do—and that is to spend my life with you.”

Adam took her into his arms and kissed her lips. It was a lingering kiss, one that erased the bewildered ache in her heart and sealed the vow in his. Then he took her left hand in his and slipped the brass ring onto her finger.

“Care to dance, Mrs. King?” he asked in a low voice. “I’m not much of a high-toned dancer, to tell you the truth—especially when the prettiest nurse in Africa has got me all knock-kneed.”

She laughed. “You must pay a visit to my clinic on King Farm about those knees, sir. You’ll find I have a wonderful cure for that sort of thing.”

“I’ll bet you do.” With a smile, he drew her even closer. “It sounds like our song in there.”

Emma barely heard the strains of the “Blue Danube Waltz” as Adam led her back into the ballroom and whirled her around the room. The other couples drifted into corners to watch. Emma threw back her head in joy as she swayed close against Adam. Her curls tumbled to her waist, and her skirts
billowed around her ankles. But all she knew was Adam’s shoulder against her cheek, his hand at her waist, and both of them moving as one.

Dear Reader,

Maybe you’ve never been a nurse in Africa, as Emma was, but all of us have experienced a strong desire to do something meaningful with our lives. Are you doing the important work God prepared just for you? Are you even sure you know what it is?

Emma felt God “calling” her to become a nurse in Africa. I used to wonder about that concept. As the daughter of missionaries, I’d heard it all my life. People reported that “God called me to do this.” Or “I experienced God’s calling on my life.” Or “I’m definitely not called for that purpose.”

What is a call from God? What does it look, feel or sound like?

I’ve been writing novels for twenty-three years, and I knew I was being obedient to the Holy Spirit’s quiet guidance. God prepared me for this “call” in many ways. He gave me a love of reading, an unusual childhood in Africa and Bangladesh, an ear for language, a vivid awareness of sensory details and, of course, the ability to tell a story.

Two years ago, I experienced a “call” that wasn’t quiet or even rational. While visiting a refugee resettlement area in Atlanta, I felt an overpowering certainty that I was supposed to move to Atlanta and minister to refugees.
What?
I was living in Missouri…in a house by a lake…in a cozy little town…with family and friends close by. My husband reminded me of all this when I told him about my new “call.”

I could have chosen to put in spiritual earplugs and continue my former life. But God soon called my husband, too, and here we are in Atlanta! I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Each day is a joyful miracle.

God may not be calling you to move to Africa, or to help refugees in a city far from home, but He definitely is calling you to do something for Him. Are you listening? I hope so! If you hear His voice and obey, you’ll be blessed a thousand times over. I sure am.

Love,