The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich by McClure Marcia Lynn

Author:McClure, Marcia Lynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Distractions Ink
Published: 2015-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

Reverend Lloyd cleared his throat, and Hutch looked up at the awkward-seeming man. Oh, he hadn’t missed the reverend’s obvious reminder that Hutch had just taken Evangeline to wife—even if it had been under curious and very traumatic circumstances. How could he forget such a thing! In what were perhaps her dying moments, his sister had given him what he had wanted most: Evangeline.

The truth was, Hutch was awed that Evangeline had agreed to marry him. Yet he knew how much Evangeline loved Jennie—loved her enough to grant her last request to marry him.

He nodded to Reverend Lloyd, an unspoken acknowledgement that Hutch was in his right mind and knew the magnitude of what had just transpired. But when Reverend Lloyd turned and followed Evangeline into the kitchen, Hutch wasn’t so certain that she understood the enormity of it. After all, she’d married him as seemingly willingly as he married her, but he suspected it was different for Evangeline. For only that morning, Hutch had confided to his sister his growing feelings for her friend. Yet he doubted that Evangeline felt the same for him. Otherwise she would’ve confided in Jennie as well, and Jennie would have told him.

And so he wondered, as he sat with his dog’s head in his lap, stroking the canine’s soft head—as he watched Evangeline serve Reverend Lloyd a piece of cake. He wondered if Evangeline had truly meant to marry him or if she thought it was all just a farce for Jennie’s comfort’s sake. And what would happen when Jennie’s baby was born and all was well? Would Hutch simply scoop Evangeline up and carry her back to his house, over the threshold, and to their wedding bed? Surely not! Evangeline Ipswich would never have thought of that—and least not yet—not with Jennie crying out with pain in the other room.

And what if the unimaginably worst happened? What if Jennie were lost in childbirth? Would Evangeline stay with Hutch then? Remain his wife? Live with him in Red Peak simply because she’d promised her dead friend that she would? Hutch certainly did not want Evangeline’s companionship for the sake of pity and obligation.

“Another push, Mrs. McKee,” Hutch heard Doctor Swayze instruct. “When you feel the pain begin, push as hard as you can…with all your might and strength.”

Hutch closed his eyes and listened—listened to his sister growl with agony and the exertion of attempting to push another human being from her body, with the attempt to bring new life into the world—and he prayed for hers to be spared.

“Hutch?” Evangeline asked in her beautiful, lilting voice.

Hutch opened his eyes to see Evangeline hunkered down in front of him, offering a glass of water to him.

“And this is for you, Jones,” she said, placing a bowl of water near Jones.

Hutch took the glass from her and mumbled, “Thank you.”

Jennie cried out, and Evangeline clenched her eyes tightly shut. “She’ll be all right. She has to be all right,” she whispered.

Hutch knew his time for weakness was over.

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