Epilogue
One Year Later…
“I can’t do this,” Elizabeth said.
Cole watched her battle for every breath, each inhale a struggle, each exhale a prayer, as the life within her fought to come into the world with what seemed like deliberate, punishing slowness.
She was soaked with sweat despite the December cold that tried to seep through every crack in their bedroom walls, her nightgown plastered to her body, her dark hair stuck to her forehead and neck in wet strands.
Exhaustion showed in the darkness beneath her eyes—bruise-dark circles that spoke of hours of relentless pain—and in the way her body seemed to have given up on trying to find a comfortable position. There was no comfort to be found.
The pain had started yesterday afternoon, just small twinges that she’d waved off as false labor—she’d had them before over the past few weeks.
But by dinnertime, the twinges had become contractions that took her breath away, and by midnight she’d been gripping the bedpost and breathing through each wave like her life depended on it.
And now it was nearly midnight again, a full day of labor that seemed to have no end in sight.
And he could see the worry on Doctor Jones’s face, could read it in the tight line of the man’s mouth and the way he kept checking his pocket watch and shaking his head.
The doctor was younger than Cole had hoped when he’d hired him to replace old Doc Morrison who’d retired—barely thirty, fresh from medical school back east, full of book learning but light on practical experience.
Especially with difficult births. And this was clearly a difficult birth.
Cole laced his fingers through Elizabeth’s and grimaced as she squeezed hard enough for the bones to crack, hard enough that he could feel his wedding ring cutting into his flesh, as another contraction wracked her body.
Her back arched off the bed and a low moan escaped through gritted teeth—she’d stopped screaming hours ago, too exhausted even for that, and somehow the quiet moans were worse than the screams had been.
The fire burned hot in the hearth—too hot, making the room stifling—and the doctor tried to keep thick blankets over her, muttering something about maintaining body heat and preventing shock.
But she kept kicking them off with what little strength she had left, sending the heavy quilts sliding to the floor where they lay in defeated heaps.
He’d never felt so helpless in his life, not in battle, not facing down Riley, not in any of the dangerous situations his work had put him in.
He’d already bucked the doctor’s orders by staying in the room with his wife—apparently it wasn’t done, husbands witnessing birth, but Elizabeth had threatened to shoot anyone who tried to remove him.
But after the first several hours, after watching her suffer with nothing he could do to help, he’d begun to question his sanity.
The need to go out and get drunk with Lester and the rest of the hands—to pace the yard and smoke cigars and pretend this wasn’t happening until someone came out to tell him it was over—was starting to sound like a very good idea indeed.
“Elizabeth, really,” Doctor Jones said. “You must keep covered. You don’t want the baby to catch a chill when he’s born.”
“Get out,” she said, pushing the covers off again. She tried to sit up, but her weight was too bulky and she was too uncoordinated, so Cole put an arm behind her back and helped her sit up some.
“Get out!” she said again when Doctor Jones just stood staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. Then she turned to Cole. “Please.”
“Give us a few minutes,” Cole told him.
“That’s unwise, Sheriff. Things can sometimes happen rather quickly. This is typical of a woman giving birth. I’ve plenty of experience with this. They don’t know what they want when the pain overtakes them. They don’t have the same constitution that we men have.”
At that moment, he questioned the sanity of Laurel Valley’s new doctor. He’d never seen a warrior, not in battle or anywhere else, who was fighting like his wife was.
“It’ll be fine,” Cole said as diplomatically as he could. “I’ll call you back when we need you. Bessy has some fresh coffee. Help yourself.”
Cole made the command clear this time. If Elizabeth wanted the doctor out for a little while, then she could have it.
She’d earned it. And there was a part of him that was afraid he might never get time alone with his wife again.
Even he knew that this wasn’t normal. That she couldn’t keep going like she was.
The door closed behind Doctor Jones, but his gaze stayed on his wife.
“I hate these covers and I hate that fire. It’s too hot. I can’t even breathe.”
“The doctor said…”
“I don’t care!” she yelled. “Surely you can see by now that he’s a fool.”
Cole winced because it was for sure the doctor now knew Elizabeth thought him a fool.
She started kicking the covers off, and Cole decided that he’d do anything she asked of him, no matter how unreasonable.
If by chance these were her last hours on earth, then he’d do whatever it took to make her happy.
“Can you open the window?” she asked. “Just a little.”
He had to admit that the room was stifling.
He was stripped down to his undershirt and still soaked to the skin.
He couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling doing all the work.
A cold swirl of air entered the room as soon as he opened the window, and he saw her visibly relax for the first time in hours.
He moved back to the side of the bed and sat with the weariness of a long day, waiting for whatever was next. Words of encouragement stuck in his throat. He didn’t know what else to say.
“I think I’m going to die,” she finally said, and there was a calmness and finality to her voice that terrified him beyond belief.
It wasn’t hysteria or drama. It was the simple, matter-of-fact statement of someone who had looked at the situation clearly and come to a logical conclusion.
She’d been laboring for twenty-four hours with no progress, no relief, nothing but endless waves of pain that were slowly draining the life from her.
“I’ve been thinking about my mother,” she continued, her voice barely above a whisper.
“How she died when I was so young. My father never would talk about it, but I heard the women whispering at church. She died in childbirth. Trying to give him a son.” Her hand moved to her swollen belly, protective even now.
“Maybe it runs in families. Maybe Ross women aren’t meant to—”
“No,” he said, the word coming out harsh, almost angry. He couldn’t let her think that way, couldn’t let her give up. “I won’t let you.”
She laughed, and it was such an unexpected sound—bitter and exhausted but still somehow her laugh—that it made his chest ache. Sweat beaded on her forehead despite the goose bumps forming on her body from the cold air pouring through the window.
“Sometimes even your stubbornness can be defeated, Cole O’Hara.
” Her eyes met his, and he could see the fear there beneath the forced calm.
She was terrified, his brave, fearless wife who’d faced down bank robbers and burned her own barn without flinching.
But this—this was a battle she couldn’t fight with guns or grit.
“Not in my experience,” he said, trying to sound confident, trying to give her something to hold on to.
“Now stop talking about it. The baby can hear you.” It was a ridiculous thing to say, probably not even true, but he needed her to stop, needed her to not give voice to the thing he’d been fearing all day.
“You sound as looney as Doctor Jones.”
He watched in fascination as another contraction gripped her and her stomach moved, tightening to impossible levels. He placed a hand on her belly and let her squeeze his hand. And when it was over she dropped back against the pillow and panted for breath.
He leaned over and placed a kiss on her belly, and then while he was there he closed his eyes and said a prayer. This was his life. His world. And he begged God not to take it away from him.
He kissed her belly again and felt the movement of life beneath his lips. He hardly noticed that his cheeks were wet with tears.
“What are we going to name him?” he asked.
“Riley,” she said, without hesitation, her voice clear and certain despite her exhaustion.
He jerked back in surprise, nearly losing his grip on her hand. For a moment he couldn’t speak, couldn’t process what she’d just said. The name hung in the air between them like smoke, heavy with memory and blood and loss.
“What? That’s not funny, Elizabeth.” His voice came out sharper than he intended, roughened by the fear and exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours.
“I’m not joking.” She reached up and touched his face, her palm warm against his cheek.
Her eyes were serious, filled with a conviction he recognized—the same look she got when she’d made up her mind about something and no amount of arguing would change it.
“Listen to me, Cole. This baby is the start of a new generation of O’Haras.
He’s our future. The start of our legacy. ”
“But that name—” He couldn’t finish. Riley. His brother. The man he’d killed with his own hand, whose blood had stained the snow outside their barn. How could she want to give their son that name?
“And this Riley will be the kind of man who knows how important family is,” she continued, her voice gaining strength.
“He’ll have honor and integrity. He’ll know right from wrong, and he’ll choose right every time.
He’ll pass on to his children and grandchildren that nothing is more important than family.
Don’t you see? Your brother made that name mean something terrible.
Our son will make it mean something good again. ”