The Midwife's Secret. Kate Bridges

rear end felt cold and wet, sitting in the muck, but he grappled to rise and to help her. “Are you all right?”

      She got up first, hoisting her sopping skirts, disentangling them from the bicycle chain.

      “Just fine.” Her boot had slipped off and she held her stockinged foot in the air. He hastily glanced away, aware of the impropriety. When she replaced her boot, she gave him a scowl that sent a shudder through his limbs.

      Luckily, the deed was safe between his fingers. However, the note from his denim pocket had dropped into the mud beside her foot, face up, fully displayed for her to read. He leaped for it, but not before she gave it an innocent glance.

      Embarrassed that she might read the two sentences, he snatched it from her view. It had nothing to do with Finnigan or the sawmill. It was private business between himself and Clarissa Ashford. One he hadn’t even had a chance to fully digest himself. He groaned.

      Amanda glanced from his face to the pocket where he tucked the note. Her cheeks heightened with color. “When you’re done with my deed, you know where to find me.”

      She braced the handle of her bicycle, replaced her fallen packages—including a big turnip—and with barely a glance to him, tore off down the main street of town, through the people and horses on Banff Avenue.

      Well, he hadn’t made a friend out of her. But that wasn’t the point, was it?

      Two women, bundled in spring cloaks, gaped in amazement as Amanda passed. Children pointed to her bicycle. Keeping her head held high with dignity, she rode across the steel bridge. She turned up Hillside Road where the forest was so thick that trees didn’t have room to grow wide, so they grew tall instead to reach the sun.

      When he glanced down at the deed again, he braced himself. It was like a bad dream. Was he this close to losing everything he owned? And Clarissa, too?

      And now, not only was he missing fourteen thousand dollars, but he had a sopping backside, as well. If Amanda hadn’t fallen over… He glanced down at the mud. What was that peeking out of the wet earth? He picked up a piece of crudely cut leather. The shape of five toes were firmly grooved. A makeshift insole.

      He gazed toward the massive mountains, searching for her, but found an empty trail. The rain had washed the snow from the lower slopes and the southern ones were covered with yellow sun lilies. When he thought again of her glancing at Clarissa’s blasted note, heat pounded through his muscles. How much had Mrs. Ryan read?

      And why would he care what a stranger thought?

      Chapter Two

      What was she supposed to do about Tom Murdock?

      Amanda’s breathing grew labored as she pedaled uphill. The sound of wheels swooshing through grass echoed off the mountains. Imagine! He’d ripped her deed right out of her hands. Landsake’s, it wouldn’t help him. Yesterday on her arrival, she’d visited the land registry and her name was written in the ledger.

      She thought of his note and bristled. Normally she’d never read another person’s mail, but it’d fallen right beneath her nose. She didn’t recall it word for word, but it went something like: “Dear Tom, I’ve decided to spend the summer with my family in Calgary. I’m taking this evening’s train. Yours, Clarissa.”

      It was written on pretty stationery with fancy handwriting, and he’d turned tomato red when he’d looked at it. Nothing would cause a man to turn that red unless Clarissa was a woman he was involved with. Well, they didn’t seem particularly close, as it was only signed Yours, not Affectionately Yours or With Love.

      Hard to imagine that coldhearted man passionately involved with any woman. William had been in the beginning, but it hadn’t lasted. They were in love, she’d thought. Happily married homesteaders on their ranch just west of Calgary, trying hard to make ends meet and planning for a large family. Maybe if he’d paced his feelings, his love for her would’ve endured. The way a man’s love was supposed to endure when he said his vows. In sickness and in health.

      She’d heard William had remarried quickly; that his new wife was already in her eighth month. Amanda had silently forgiven him two months ago, when she’d decided to move from her family’s home in Calgary to Banff and not let her anger eat her alive. There were more important things she could do, helping other women through the same horrible loss. If she could ease their burden, then she figured what had happened to her would somehow all make sense.

      Dismounting her bicycle, she peered through the faraway pines and glimpsed her dilapidated shack, its chimney smoke rising above it, a welcome sight after her rough morning.

      “Howdy, Missus Amanda!”

      Laughter from the six smallest O’Hara children next door reached her. They froze beside their log cabin as soon as they caught sight of her. You’d think she were from another star, how awed they were by her bicycle. Pigs grunted in their fieldstone pen and chickens clucked in scattered directions. The children’s dirty, smudged noses and exuberant waving brought a gush of warm, wonderful feelings. She waved back.

      She was almost healed, she recognized with pleasure. That sudden stab of pain when she glanced at boisterous children was almost gone. And yet…other times, in her deepest thoughts, mostly during nighttime when she yearned for sleep but it wouldn’t come, those same questions assailed her.

      Did it make her less of a woman because she could no longer bear any more children herself? Did it make her less of a woman because the one sweet baby she’d had, had come into the world stillborn?

      Of course it didn’t, she knew in her logical mind. But sometimes, in her illogical heart, she floundered. What kind of woman did it make her, when her husband had left her, divorced her, because of her inabilities?

      Exhaling softly, she turned onto the dirt path, leaned the bicycle against the big spruce, then removed her store-bought items. She hadn’t held her baby and that was her greatest loss.

      Eighteen months ago, the people helping in the delivery, including her loving grandpa, thought it would be kindest to protect Amanda from that anguish. Placenta previa, they’d declared. Her placenta had partially covered her cervix. During delivery, Amanda had lost her baby as well as her uterus. Later, she’d learned that the little infant girl had taken two small gasps, then was gone. Amanda hadn’t even seen her face.

      What had she looked like? What would seven and a half pounds feel like to cradle in one’s arms? Amanda had never paid deliberate attention before, holding other people’s babies, but it wasn’t anything she’d take lightly anymore. She hiked the muddy turnip into her arms. Would seven and a half pounds feel like this?

      The rhythm of her breathing faltered. Too light.

      She hoisted the sack of flour into her arms. Like this? Her throat ached. A touch too heavy. And Ten Pounds was clearly stamped on the burlap.

      “Amanda, is that you?”

      Amanda cleared her throat. “Yes, Grandma.” Composing herself, she stepped into the clearing and bid good morning.

      Dressed in dark clothing, in mourning for her husband for another two months, Grandma flung a gray braid over her dumpling figure and smiled. She’d taken a chair into the sunshine and was working on her rag rug, an idea she had to earn them extra money. A fire blazed beside her—and the shotgun that protected them from marauding wolves and black bears.

      Amanda couldn’t bear to mention bad news. She would use her last three hundred dollars to build the cabin, despite Tom Murdock. William had left her with nothing. He’d taken the ranch, the cattle, the quarter section land, even her two dogs. And because he was an old friend of both law practices in Calgary, legally she hadn’t stood a chance.

      She also had her grandmother to support, despite the small inheritance Grandma, and the rest of the family, had received after Grandpa’s fatal stroke. For the past five years while Grandpa had trained Amanda in his home, she and her grandma had spent most of their days in the pleasure of each other’s