By the time they stopped for the noon meal, he was really concerned.
“I’ll be all right,” she insisted. “Just give me a little time alone. I’ll walk a bit.”
He nodded and watched her walk around the barn out of sight. Missy started to follow her, but Nate called her back. “She needs her privacy.”
“You’re sure she’s okay?”
“I hope so.” They had a long way to go yet and being sick and uncomfortable would make the journey intolerable.
Chapter Twelve
Louise hurried out of sight around the barn, then bent over her knees and moaned. This could not be labor. Not now. Not here. She wanted the baby born on Christmas Day when it was due, and born at Eden Valley Ranch where they’d be safe and welcome. Not where his or her birth would cause a delay.
Besides, it seemed significant that the baby be born where she meant to start anew.
She would walk it out. It was the only thing she could think to do and she trod back and forth on the snowy trail. When no more cramps came, she let out a huge sigh. Maybe the pain was from the food, after all, and because she’d barely touched what Dusty served, she had not been as affected as the others.
She stopped walking and waited. Nothing. She smiled skyward. “Thank You, God.”
Feeling as if she could face whatever the rest of the day handed her, she went to the stopping house. Missy and Nate waited at the door.
“Are you okay?” they asked in unison.
“I’m quite fine.”
They joined the others around the table where biscuits and syrup waited for them. She glanced around for their host, not sure she could eat if he was anything like Dusty, but he was a tall, thin man, neatly groomed.
Dutch introduced him as John. “John used to be a lawyer.”
“Indeed. Until I got weary of looking at criminals all day long. Out here I can enjoy my own company and a good book.”
Louise decided the food was safe and took a biscuit. But she could barely get a mouthful down and, not wanting to start the cramps again, she wrapped the biscuit in her hankie and put it in her pocket to eat later.
Dutch was in a hurry to be on the road again. “We’ve a long afternoon before us,” he said as he urged them to finish up and return to the stagecoach.
Louise was as anxious as Dutch to get going. Two more days to get to Fort Macleod, then the trip to the ranch—two more days, as far as she could tell. Nate had been a little vague on the details. Four days and she’d be able to relax.
When they had only gone a few miles, swaying back and forth in the stagecoach, the pains returned. But they were not regular, not close together. They couldn’t be labor pains. It was only something she’d eaten. Except she felt no nausea. Only a deep, intense pain accompanied by an inner twisting. As if the baby wanted out.
Well, she thought with some annoyance. She wanted him or her out, too. Just not here and now. You’ll just have to wait, young one.
The pain disappeared and she leaned her head back and eased air into her lungs in slow, steady breaths as she tried to remember everything she’d been told about birthing—which was surprisingly little. At Rocky Creek, she would have called the midwife. After she left home, she’d been counting on Mrs. Gardiner’s help at the ranch.
She drifted into a troubled sleep filled with floating images of rolling wagon wheels, a barking dog named Weasel and Nate drifting in the distance, his hand stretched out to her, calling her name though the sound of it never quite reached her.
She jerked from her sleep with a pain that brought a cry from her lips. She arched her back against the pain, then, realizing everyone watched her, she sucked in air and forced herself to sink back into the seat. She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. “Guess the food is still bothering me.”
Mr. Adams gave her a steady look. “Ma’am, I don’t believe it’s from something you ate.”
She looked hard at him, silently begging him to keep his opinion to himself.
Nate shot forward and peered into her face. “You’re going to have a baby?”
She patted her bulging stomach. “What does this look like?” Ugh. Her belly tightened with another pain. She would not give in to it. She would not let the others see.