Prologue

Sable Creek, Wyoming

May 20, 1885

Lilian Whitmore gave a supportive smile to the young mother lying in bed before her, her warm hazel eyes calm and full of confidence as she stood up straight and rolled up the sleeves of her plain white blouse. She’d already tied her long auburn hair into a tight braid away from her oval face so no loose strands could break free and bother her while she performed her midwife duties.

Before her, on the straw-filled mattress, lay Evelyn Roseby, twenty-four, just a year older than Lilian, who was about to give birth to her first baby.

Evelyn’s loose white nightgown was stained at the collar with sweat, her equally damp gold hair pulled up and out of the way. Her brown eyes glittered with a mixture of excitement and pain as another contraction hit her and flushed her cheeks an even deeper red.

“Alright, Miss Evelyn, everything is looking great. You’re fully dilated, and your baby is in the perfect position,” Lilian explained cheerfully.

“Great?!” Evelyn gasped from the bed, then groaned as another wave of pain hit her. “It doesn’t feel great!”

Evelyn’s mother, Pearl, and Lilian both let out a soft laugh.

“I know it doesn’t, sweetheart,” Pearl said.

Pearl reached over to the nightstand and wrung out a clean rag from the water bowl, then dabbed it against her daughter’s flushed, sweat-soaked forehead.

“Labor pains are never friendly,” Lilian agreed as she pulled on her apron, “But that’s natural. The flowers you’ve painted on the walls sure are pretty. Why don’t you focus on those for me?”

It was a pretty touch, Lilian thought. The large, colorful blooms painted on the plain pale planks of the walls. It brought light to the otherwise sparse, clean room of the country home.

Evelyn let out another painful groan. “Forget the flowers. Just get this baby out of me!” she yelled.

Lilian couldn’t help but smile as she sat back down. These types of testy retorts were common in her line of work. While some women simply cried and screamed, many more grew angry with their pain. She knew it was brief, though, and the anger was never truly aimed at her.

She couldn’t blame Evelyn. Like many women having their first child, the poor thing had been in active labor for over five hours. They had finally arrived at the grand moment, though, and Lilian had a feeling it was going to be a successful birth.

“You’re ready, your baby is ready, and we’ve only got a little bit more to go. Now, when you feel the next wave of pain, I want you to pull in a deep breath and push as hard as you can,” Lilian urged, readying the clean blanket.

As if in response, Evelyn let out a long, low wail, flinging the back of her head against Pearl’s shoulder, and dug her hands into the blankets.

“Good girl!” Lilian praised above the holler of agony as the baby started to make its way out. “We’re almost there. We’re almost—”

A shrill, healthy cry rang through the air as the newborn made its way into the world. Lilian moved with expert precision, catching the tiny pink child in the blanket, just as she had with her thirty successful births prior.

“It’s a girl!” Lilian exclaimed as she quickly cleaned and examined the baby. “Ten fingers, ten toes, and a full head of hair.”

Evelyn’s tired eyes flickered with new life, and she pushed herself up into a sitting position, trembling arms reaching toward the babe.

“Give her to me,” Evelyn cried.

“Of course, Mama,” Lilian agreed, smiling as she wrapped the child and laid her gently in her mother’s arms.

Evelyn and Pearl both burst into tears of happiness as they looked down at the newborn. Pearl peppered kisses into her daughter’s sweat-soaked hair as Evelyn did the same with her own.

“You did so good, Evelyn,” Lilian praised. She pushed her usual bout of fear far away and examined her quickly. As she’d hoped, the new mother appeared perfectly fine. No hemorrhaging, no complications. Another healthy delivery.

She wished all births came this easily and with such happy endings.

As Lilian cleaned up the afterbirth, the warm spring rays of the setting sun shone brightly through the windows of the cabin’s bedroom, casting a golden light on the beautiful sight on the bed. Three generations of women all holding one another, all loving one another.

Lilian’s throat grew tight as she thought of how that could never be her story, and she took a moment to grapple with her emotions.

I did good today. Mama would be proud.

Lilian pushed the thought away. She would savor it later during the ride home.

“Let me finish getting her cleaned up and we can let Isaiah and Paul in to see everybody.”

Lilian continued tidying up the birthing area and gave a quick explanation of how to use the herbal bath mix she always offered to both mother and babe to help with recovery. When she finished, she opened the door to the cabin where Evelyn’s anxious father and husband were waiting.

“Go on in,” she invited warmly, hauling her medicine bag onto her shoulder.

Both men rushed to the bed; elated sobs leaving their throats as the entire family came together to celebrate the birth of the new baby.

“Oh, my beautiful grandbaby,” Paul choked out, leaning his sun-weathered face down to the newborn.

“She’s perfect, sweetheart,” Isaiah said, stroking a hand over Evelyn’s sweat-streaked hair as his eyes swam with tears. “You did so good.”

“You really think so?” Evelyn asked, her voice breathy. She looked up at her husband hopefully. He was only able to nod as he held her cheeks and kissed her forehead.

Lilian took one more look at them as she stood at the doorway. Though she wasn’t sure where she stood with God, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks for another healthy birth.

Knowing Evelyn was in good hands, Lilian closed the cabin door and walked toward the post where her horse, Clementine, and her small buggy were waiting for her. Vivid purple hyacinths and bright yellow daffodils sprouted around the cabin’s porch, a sure sign that the long Wyoming winter was finally starting to fade away and warmth and new growth were well on their way.

She stopped a moment, taking in the view from the Roseby property. Juniper, fir, and pine trees sprawled across the mountainside, save for one large expanse where the Blackwood Estate sat. The ebony mansion looked intimidating even from a distance, as if Victor Blackwood wanted a constant reminder to the townsfolk of who was truly in charge.

Lilian forced her eyes away from the house and walked toward Clementine. The three-year-old dun mare muzzled the side of Lilian’s head. Lilian giggled as she pressed her head against the horse’s and scratched under her chin.

She wiped her hands on her long, faded, maroon skirt and began to undo the horse’s leads from the pole, readying to head home. She was about to about to climb up into her small buggy when the door to the cabin opened and Pearl called her name.

Lilian turned, fear shooting through her veins. Both mother and baby had looked good during their examinations, but it was always possible for complications to arise even if things appeared perfect.

“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.

Pearl’s eyes shone with sympathy as she smiled and shook her head.

“Not a thing, honey, Mama and baby are doing well. She named her Vera, after my mother.”

Lilian forced the tension from her shoulders and let out a low breath.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she replied. “She would have loved that.”

Pearl nodded and took a few more steps toward Lilian.

“I know Isaiah already paid you, but I wanted to give you this.” She held out a basket. “Since it’ll be near dark before you get home, it’d be shame if you had to worry about fixing supper for you and your Pa. Some biscuits, a crock of beef, beans and gravy, and an apple pie.”

“Thank you, Pearl. That’s too kind,” Lilian replied, accepting the gift.

Pearl’s light brown eyes sparkled as she smiled at Lilian, the faint lines around her mouth and eyes crinkling.

“Your mama would be so proud of you today,” she said softly.

Lilian’s throat grew tight again as tears stung at her eyes.

“I know,” she choked out. “I just wish I’d been older when… You know. Maybe I could have saved her and my baby sister.”

Pearl reached out and wrapped an arm around Lilian’s thin shoulders, giving her a motherly squeeze.

“You were too young, sweetheart, and it wasn’t your fault or responsibility. Don’t think on the maybes,” she offered sagely. “That’s not what God wants for us.”

Lilian said nothing but nodded as her eyes settled once more on the Blackwood Estate. She wasn’t sure at all what God wanted. She wasn’t sure how he determined when births went well or when they ended in heartache. It was the reason she only prayed in thanks. Why she never called on him for support or comfort. She’d done that once, and he’d answered her with a life forever changed by heartache.

Pearl looked at where Lilian’s gaze had landed and then back at her with worry.

“You gettin’ along up there, honey?” she asked. “You and your papa?”

Lilian nodded, chasing the questions of her faith away.

“Oh yes, just fine,” she replied. “The ranch is finally bringing in money again, and I’m helping out with the bills with the money I make from delivering babies. I think we’ve got a real shot at getting our loan paid off with Mr. Blackwood.”

Pearl shook her head and frowned.

“That Mr. Blackwood and his ‘loans,’” she said. “Says he’s saving the town, but I don’t know too many folks that can get out from under them. Isaiah and Paul have been working hard as they can, and it still seems impossible. I’m glad to hear your papa and you have managed though.”

Lilian tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She’d been trying to be optimistic about her papa’s loan, but the truth was they weren’t that close either.

“But I wasn’t asking about the ranch, Lilian,” Pearl went on. “I was asking about your hearts. Have you got anyone to talk to besides each other? A fella for you? Or a nice young lady for him, perhaps?”

Lilian laughed.

“We’re just fine, I promise!” she replied, avoiding the subject of beaus or courtship. “But I should head home. He’ll be expecting me, and I don’t want him to worry.”

Pearl looked at her as if she wanted to say something more, but she nodded.

“Alright, then. You get on home now,” Pearl urged. “You have a safe ride back and tell your Papa I said hello.”

***

During the ride back home, Lilian let her thoughts wander back to her mother and baby sister. She’d only been seven years old when her mama and her baby sister had been lost to a rough childbirth. Lilian knew that Pearl was right, that she’d been too young to try to help, but the possibility still nagged at her. What if her mama had waited? What if Lilian had been old enough to help her?

Memories of the wretched day came clashing down on her. Back then, there had only been one midwife, Widow Edith Brennan. She’d been on the far opposite side of town helping another woman give birth, so Lilian’s mama had tried to give birth on her own. She remembered the screams, the fear, the stench of blood as she worked her best to bring her mother towels while her father prayed for a miracle, neither of them knowing that she needed much more than that.

She did now though. She’d worked hard and finished her schooling early and had become Widow Edith Brennan’s apprentice. Everyone would have thought it was to help the present and future mothers, but the truth was, Lilian had learned the trade as an attempt to go back in time to the night Rosemary Whitmore and her unborn child had died and save them both.

Even now that Lilian understood that time couldn’t march backward that way, she still hoped somehow for the opportunity.

Lilian bore Widow Brennan no ill will. Especially now that she was a midwife herself. Far too often she found herself being pulled in too many directions at once. Sometimes, it worked out, and she could help them all. Other times, it couldn’t be done. But she always tried.

As Lilian drove her buggy up to her father’s house, taking in the peaceful afternoon songs of the newborn insects and peeper frogs that came with every spring, she saw her father, Thomas, standing on the porch with two other men. The air was starting to chill as the sun sank over the mountains, and with it came a shiver down her spine.

Thomas Whitmore was once as big and brawny as an ox, but time and heartache had slowly chiseled him into a sinewy, thin man with a slight arch forward to his spine and a bowlegged walk. His thin, tanned, wrinkle-etched face was still handsome though, and those hazel eyes he’d gifted to Lilian still sparkled most days. His black hair and trimmed beard had turned white shortly after his wife and his baby daughter had passed.

Around the cabin porch where Thomas and the two strangers now stood, Lilian and her mother had long ago planted bright red, yellow-fringed blanket flowers around the stairs and front, and now they grew up on their own every spring. Atop the floorboards of the porch sat three rocking chairs her father had made himself. Two large, one small. The fourth he’d been building for Lilian’s baby sister still sat unfinished in her father’s workshop, never touched after that horrible day.

Lilian focused on the strangers as she grew closer to the cabin. Since her mother had passed, Lilian had developed a strange sense for danger. Some part of her body or another always seemed to be on guard and scanning for whatever trouble may be lurking close by. As she had grown from a little girl to a young woman, that sense had only heightened.

Thomas and the two men left the porch the moment they saw her, all three hustling toward her. She noted the frowns on all their faces, their stiff movements. She braced herself.

“Hello, Papa,” Lilian called as she got out of her buggy. “Everything okay?”

“I’m afraid not, Lilypad,” he replied with a worried look. “These two men came looking for you over an hour ago from Mr. Blackwood’s estate. Say his wife’s in labor and in real bad shape.”

Lilian furrowed her brows. Victor Blackwood was well-known in Sable Creek for being the wealthiest man in town—and one of the most notorious. Like most in Sable Creek, he was rumored to have grown up poor. Then, sometime in his teens, he’d disappeared. Some said he’d joined a group of bandits that robbed trains from Cheyenne to San Francisco. Others said he’d been sent away to New York to a rich relative, then inherited the fortune once they’d passed.

Whatever had happened, Blackwood came back to town in his early thirties with enough money to buy half of the businesses on Main Street and the largest expanse of land in the entire county. He also had a penchant for buying up the ranches in danger of being foreclosed on and then charging the original owners outrageous rents for them to stay on their land. Her father was one of them.

To help with buying the ranch back, Lilian gave most of her earnings to Thomas. Yet even with that, it never seemed to be enough to sate Blackwood’s greed.

He had a mean streak a mile wide and seemed to take a twisted glee in looking down on everyone around him. Other than that, the man had kept his life incredibly private. She hadn’t known he’d taken a wife and wondered what tricks he pulled or how much money he spent to get any woman to fall for him. Whoever she was, Lilian pitied her.

“Mr. Blackwood is going to be none too pleased that it took us this long to collect you,” one of the men said, stepping up to her. “But he’ll pay you handsomely if you come now. He wants his son, Miss Whitmore, and word has it that you can deliver him. We need to be on our way. Now.”

Lilian looked at the two men. Both stood at six feet tall and had wide, muscular figures. She could hardly make out their faces, which were obscured by scraggly beards and cowboy hats pulled low. What she could see, however, were the pistols holstered on their hips. They smiled at her, gold teeth glittering in the setting sunlight.

She wrinkled her nose at the thought of going with them. They probably smelled as bad as they looked, and their smiles did nothing to put her at ease.

“Why did you wait for me?” Lilian asked. “My mentor, Widow Brennan, lives just down the road.”

“She’s gone to help with a birth two towns over,” Thomas answered, giving his daughter a pleading look, beseeching her to be more polite. “She won’t be back until later tonight.”

For a moment, Lilian almost refused. She didn’t take to being given orders well, especially from the likes of Victor Blackwood. But the thought passed quickly, knowing that a woman and child needed her help.

“Alright then, let me get a fresh horse. Mine is tired from the day. Then we can go,” she replied.

The other man stepped forward, grabbing hold of her arm.

“No time for that. You’ll come with us in our buggy,” he demanded.

“Don’t worry,” the gold-toothed man spoke up. “We’ll get you home after it’s done.”

Lilian glared at him as she wrenched her arm free. Emergency or not, she wouldn’t be handled so roughly.

“Put Clem away for me, Papa?” she asked, turning to Thomas. “And there’s a basket of food in the buggy from Pearl. It should take care of your supper.”

Her father nodded, and she picked up her medical bag from the buggy’s seat.

“Let me help you up,” the man that grabbed her offered as they approached the buggy, a condescending grin stretched across his face.

“No, thank you,” she quipped back, hauling herself up into the seat. “I can do it myself.”

Chapter One

“When did Mrs. Blackwood start bleeding?” Lilian asked, attempting to break the silence.

The tension in the air was thick as night encroached along the worn dirt road. Another shiver trembled down Lilian’s spine as they drew closer to the Blackwood Estate. Neither man had spoken a word to her on the journey, even as she tried to ask about the mother’s condition.

With the sun gone, the air had quickly grown cold, and she hadn’t had time to grab her shawl from her buggy before being carted away.

“Need some warming up?” the man on her left finally said.

Through the dark, she saw him give her a leering sneer, and she shrank away from him.

“No, thank you,” she answered tersely. “Just go a little faster, would you? If Mrs. Blackwood is in trouble, I need to get there quickly. And tell me what you know about Mrs. Blackwood’s condition.”

“Don’t ruffle your feathers, little lady,” the driver snickered, turning onto a drive. “We’re almost there. Besides, it’s not the missus you need to worry about.”

“Besides, we don’t know,” the other retorted. “Can’t tell the difference between these screams and the others.”

Lilian felt a jolt of wariness as she scowled at them both and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

Neither man answered, but a pain-filled scream erupted in the distance. The sound made her stomach clench and her grip on the medical bag in her lap tightened. That scream wasn’t just from labor pain. Something was terribly wrong.

Lilian looked toward the direction of the scream and saw the glow of many house lamps come into view. The giant house, nearly a mansion, was even more imposing up close. Its black steepled rooftops seemed to reach the clouds, and the wide candle-lit windows framed by red curtains appeared like many eyes on a great and fearful beast.

“Don’t sound too good,” the man to her left muttered.

“Mr. Blackwood’s gonna have our hides for bein’ so late,” the other grumbled.

The buggy had barely stopped before the man on her left hopped out and grabbed at Lilian’s arm.

“Come on. You need to hurry up,” he said gruffly, dragging her to the ground.

Lilian bit back her retort as she and her bag came tumbling out of the seat, knowing that to chastise him would only delay her from getting to the woman in need. He pulled her to the massive front door and banged on it three times.

Almost immediately, it swung inward to reveal Victor Blackwood. The forty-something man was tall and wide, more muscular than most businessmen in the area. His dark hair was slicked back out of his equally dark eyes, and a wolfish sneer ate up most of what would have otherwise been a fairly handsome face. Unlike his goons, he kept his face shaved, showing off sharp cheekbones.

“Where have you been?” he snarled. “I sent my men for you ages ago!”

Though fear trembled down her spine, Lilian squared her shoulders as she tilted her chin up and met his dark eyes with a calculated gaze.

“I had another patient,” she replied, her tone cool and even. From behind her, another wailing scream of pain erupted from the house, sending a sense of urgency through her.

“But I’m here now. Take me to your wife.”

Blackwood clenched his teeth as he stared down at her with impatience.

“If time was not of the essence, I would give you a lesson in manners, young lady.”

Lilian fought the urge to back away from him. She’d only heard of Blackwood before, not seen or spoken with him, and she suddenly counted herself lucky that she had made it this long without such an experience.

“Yet time is of the essence, Mr. Blackwood, and your wife sounds to be in a good deal of pain,” Lilian retorted, refusing to let him see her intimidated. “So, save your lesson and take me to your wife so I may help her and your child.”

His hand was quick, snatching her shoulder and pulling her into the massive house. She stepped into a stone-floored foyer that gave a view to a dining room to her left, a sitting room on her right, and a grand staircase that sat square in the center. Lilian felt her stomach turn.

Red.

Everything, save for the wooden and brass furniture and fixtures, was a deep, blood red. The Persian carpet, the French papered walls, the no doubt expensive cushions on the furniture, even the dining room tablecloth.

A sense of foreboding beat down on her as she took it all in, and she wondered how anyone could live happily surrounded by such an oppressive color.

Lilian was led up the polished dark wood grand staircase with thick red carpeting, down a long hallway, and toward a room at the very end where the screams erupted again.

“Your task is to save my son,” Blackwood snapped as he brought her to the door. “My wife has been bleeding for a while. I suspect it’s too late for her anyway. You just get me my boy. Do you understand?”

Lilian reached up and peeled his hand away from her, disgusted by his words.

“I will do what I always do, Mr. Blackwood, and try to save both,” she replied, opening the door and stepping inside. “Now give us some privacy. I need to get to work.”

Before the snarl could finish forming on his lips, Lilian closed the door in his face and turned around. Compared to the size of the rooms downstairs, she was shocked at how small this one was.

The walls had been papered with a shade of deep maroon covered in little white flowers and small brass oil lamps hung on sconces. To the left was an ornate, hand-carved bureau and to the right was a matching washing stand. In the center of the room, atop another deep red Persian carpet, sat a large bronze-framed bed.

Lying in the center of it was a pale, black-haired woman, crimson stains already soaking the lower half of the sheet that covered her.

Lilian inhaled a sharp breath as she realized who it was, and with it came the awful stench of death and a sense of dread.

“Lily?” the woman panted, her brown, tear-filled eyes blinking slowly as they settled on her.

“Ellie,” Lilian breathed.

Eleanor.

She rushed to her old friend’s side. It had been a good seven years or so since they’d seen one another, but Lilian recognized the woman’s sweet face immediately, despite the pain that contorted her features and the sweat that drenched her forehead.

“I’m here,” Lilian soothed, reaching up to take her temperature. “Don’t worry.”

Even as she said the words, Lilian flinched at the heat radiating from her friend’s head. Her fever was high—far too high.

“What can we do?” one of the maids standing by Eleanor’s bed asked.

“What are your names?” Lilian asked.

“Clara.”

“Whitney.”

“Clara, Whitney, I need boiling water and clean sheets immediately,” Lilian demanded.

As she pulled down the stained sheet from Eleanor’s waist, she blanched at what she found. Not only was the baby in trouble, but there were clear signs that one, maybe two of Eleanor’s ribs were broken.

“Hurry!” Lilian exclaimed to the maids.