Love Along the Widow’s Trail – Extended Epilogue

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Midsummer
Three years later

Beth stood in the front yard, waiting for her family to return from town. They had left earlier in the afternoon to take care of some chores and errands. She had decided to stay behind, not only because she still had so much to do before the upcoming church social in two days. In addition to the several berry pies she had yet to bake, she had also promised the women’s league at church half a dozen loaves of bread.

Yet it was more than that that had prompted her to stay behind. She yearned for a little time by herself, to enjoy the quiet, listening to nothing more than the gentle wind sloughing through the cottonwoods and pines towering on the nearby hillsides. Soon, the aspen leaves with start turning a pale yellow and then gold, shivering with the slightest hint of a breeze. 

She smiled as she walked into the yard and listen to the birds singing in the trees. Overhead in the distance, she heard the scree of a hawk and, deeper into the wooded hillsides, woodpeckers burrowing holes in the trees in preparation of colder weather to come.

No, she didn’t mind the quiet. The house was often loud and rambunctious. Tommy had turned eight years old just a couple of months ago, and her three-year-old identical twin daughters, Mary Grace and Rebecca Hope, were more than a handful. She loved them all equally and powerfully. 

While she saw a faint glimmers of Marcus in Tommy’s dark hair and the way his mouth curved just before he started to laugh, her daughters, she had no doubt, would grow up gifted with her father’s dark hair and grayish-blue eyes. She smiled. Jake would have his hands full when they became young women, holding off the number of men that would come seeking to court.

She laughed softly, the sound echoing over the front yard. She and Jake are happy. The children weren’t the only ones thriving. So too was their ranch. Their herd of Angus beef cattle were also thriving. She and Jake had enjoyed much happiness, as well as many challenges and obstacles over the past few years. 

Last winter, a blizzard had raced down along the Front Range and torn half their barn roof off. Six feet of snow had fallen after that, making travel to Colorado Springs impossible. Thankfully, Jake had spent much of the fall months chopping wood so their home was warm and cozy. The larders were full, and they had plenty to eat. 

Beth actually liked winter most of all because she and Jake and her family were able to spend more time together. At night, she or Jake took turns reading stories from the Bible, playing games with the children, or Jake quietly reading the paper by the fireplace while she sewed and stitched and mended clothes for them all.

There had been other dangers: windstorms rushing from the north, but they had been lucky late last spring when a twister had come through. Thankfully, the house, sheltered and protected by a few pines and a grove of cottonwood trees, hadn’t suffered any damage. They’d lost a handful of cattle, but they were still better off than some of their outlying neighbors.

She had experienced quite a scare last year when Tommy had fallen out of a tree and broken his arm in two places, but Doc Hanley had arrived within two hours and set it. It had healed quickly with no lasting damage or weakness. 

In just a few days, she would see Mary O’Sullivan, and she looked forward to catching up with her old friend. She lived a bit farther north up in Boulder, so Beth didn’t see her too often. But when she did, the two of them would spend several days catching up.

To say that Beth kept busy was an understatement. In addition to taking care of home and family, she also taught part-time at the local school. Jake was well known not only at church but in the community, serving as a part-time deputy when needed.

Over the past few years they had made many dear friends, and she treasured her life, every moment of it—the ups and the downs, the happy times and the challenging times. God had blessed her more than she could’ve imagined that day those reprobates Murdoch and Hutchins had appeared on her doorstep. It was hard to imagine back then that she would ever find happiness again, but when she’d joined that cattle drive, her life had changed forever.

Her thoughts went back to the early years of her marriage to Jake. Six months after she and Jake had gotten married, they had learned that Murdoch would spend at least ten years in prison, and so too would the former colonel Ashford. In fact, they both were jailed in the territorial prison down in Cañon City. 

The last she’d heard, Ashford wasn’t doing well. He’d lost everything: his reputation, his ranch, and his money, most of which had been spent to pay for his defense, but there really wasn’t one after the truth come out.

In the intervening years, Rusty had gotten married to a woman he’d met up in Cheyenne. At first, Beth had been a little disappointed, thinking that perhaps he and Mary would end up tying the knot, but after so many years with her former husband, Mary had confided that she didn’t have it in her to love another man with the same fervor. Rusty had been disappointed, at first, but now was happy with Veronica, a lovely woman who, as it turned out, was the new schoolteacher with whom Beth now occasionally substituted for.

Rusty and his bride of one year lived in a house on a few acres away from the main ranch house, and Rusty oversaw everything on the ranch with Jake, just as they always had. Doc Hanley had decided to put down roots in Colorado Springs as well and had married a lovely young woman who had been a nurse during the war. From the moment Doc and Margaret had met in church, they’d quickly made a match. She now helped Doc Hanley run his practice in town.

Reverend Wright had stayed in Colorado Springs as well, returning with several others from his former church after the cattle had been delivered to Cheyenne. He had establish his own church in the northern part of town where the Thornton family now worshiped every Sunday.

Some of the cowhands had stayed on as well, including Silas and Travis Rawlings, who worked the ranch with Jake. Miguel had returned to Texas but kept in touch. His daughter had recovered from her mysterious illness, and he had promised that he would bring his family up the following spring for a visit.

Humming softly, Beth walked toward the corral, where several horses stood sleepily in the late afternoon sunshine. She turned and leaned her back against the fence posts, looking toward her home and around her yard, admiring every board, every structure. 

Her summer garden flourished. Twelve hens and two roosters as well as a dozen fluffy yellow chicks were in the chicken yard that Jake had built, along with a large hutch that Jake had made to look much like a barn, much to Tommy’s delight.

She heaved a quiet, pleased sigh, marveling at how much her life had changed. She smiled, resting her hand on her flat stomach, which wouldn’t be flat much longer. She was anxious to find just the right time to tell Jake that come spring they would also have a new addition to the family.

It was only moments after that that she heard the sound of horses and the wheels of the buckboard approaching around the bend in the road. She turned and smiled at the side of her husband and children returning from town. 

Even though she did enjoy her moments of quiet, she liked even better to have her family around her, to listen to them laugh and talk all at the same time. She loved the sound of her husband’s laugh. He sat on the wagon bench seat with one of the twins on each of his legs, his arms wrapped around them while Tommy proudly guided the wagon into the yard.

“Look, Mama!” Tommy yelled gleefully. “Papa let me drive the wagon all the way home!”

Beth turned to her husband with a lifted eyebrow.

“It wasn’t all the way home,” he said. “Just the last mile.”

She laughed. As Tommy pulled the horses to a halt, she approached the wagon, her arms rising up as Jake passed her daughters down, one at a time,. Tommy jumped down the other side. The girls grabbed her legs, both of them talking at once.

“Papa buyed us each a peppermint stick!” Mary Grace exclaimed.

“You said it wrong,” Rebecca Hope scolded her sister.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“All right, you two, why don’t you go in the house with Tommy and wash up for supper,” Beth said, a hand on each of their shoulders. Never in her life would she have imagined that she’d bring twins into the world, and she couldn’t have been happier. Exhausted, but happy.

Jake climbed down from the wagon with a groan. “I don’t know who’s more tuckered out, the girls or me.” He bent down and gave her a kiss and then turned toward the children running into the house, all three of them talking and hollering at once. 

He shook his head. “My mind is spinning. Trying to answer questions all at the same time, settling arguments, all of it.” He groaned again, resting his head on top of hers. “Will it ever stop?”

She laughed. “I hope not.”

He chuckled, too. “And Tommy, he’s got so much energy. That boy never tuckers out, you know that.”

She laughed as she watched the door slam shut behind the children. Even so, she heard the cacophony from inside and winced, then turned once more toward Jake, reaching for his hand. “Did you get everything you needed in town?”

“I got that and then some,” he said.

She lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

He moved to the back of the buckboard where bags of grain, some lumber, another small cake of nails, and a small box of horseshoes had been stacked. “On my way out of town, I stopped by the mercantile.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And bought the children candy right before supper?”

He held up his hands in innocence. “I needed a few moments of peace and quiet, didn’t I? Don’t you think I earned even that?”

She grinned. “I know you did.”

He grinned back. “I got something for you.”

She looked up at him with a grimace. “Jake, you shouldn’t spend so much money on us.”

He snorted. “What, a peppermint stick for the kids? A little something for you?” He laughed softly. “If I could I would buy you a mansion, and one of those fancy new six-burner cast-iron stoves, maybe some store-bought furniture shipped all the way from St. Louis, and anything else that would bring a smile to your face.”

She shook her head. “I like my house just fine, and my four-burner cast-iron stove works well, and the furniture we bought from that old couple who moved down to Flagstaff is perfect.”

“Well, someday I’d like to buy you something that you don’t need, something brand new. That’s not so bad, is it?”

“No, but I don’t know what I would ask for.” She placed a hand on his arm. “I’ve got everything I ever wanted and then some.”

That’s why bought you a little something. Because you never ask for anything.”

“Oh?” She smiled. “And what did you get for yourself, then?”

He grinned down at her. “Like you, I don’t need anything more. I already have everything I need.” He moved to the back of the wagon and handed her a lightweight bundle wrapped in brown paper.

“What is it?”

“Look inside and see.”

She did, carefully balancing the bundle in one hand while she untied the string with the other. She unfolded the brown paper and supplied several squares of fabric in just the colors that she had hoped. She looked up at him, amazed. 

“The fabric for the quilt I want to make! How do you always know exactly the colors what I want?”

“Because I can read your mind. Didn’t you know that?”

“Oh, really?” She grinned up at him. “Can you read what’s on my mind right now?”

He pretended to study her expression, tilting his head from one direction to the other. “You love me.”

“Of course I do. What else?”

He grew more serious as he studied her, his eyes searching hers. “Wait a minute,” he murmured. “I know that look.”

She said nothing but her smile broadened. “You do, do you?”

“I do,” he said, reaching for her, pulling her close. He looked into her eyes while a grin curved his lips. “We’re going to have another baby, aren’t we?”

“Jake! You can’t read my mind! It’s impossible!”

He whooped loudly, tossing his hat into the air.

“Nothing is impossible with you in my life, Beth,” he said gently. “I’m right, aren’t I?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “When?”

“Around Easter, I guess.” She smiled. “I think this one’s going to be a boy, Jake, and I have a name already picked out.” 

He lifted an eyebrow. 

“Daniel Jacob.”

He stared at her a moment, and then a slow smile curved his lips. He blinked hard, and then held her close. “That’s a wonderful name, Beth,” he murmured, his voice choked. 

He held her gently away from him a moment, his eyes shining as he gazed down at her. She would never get tired of that look, nor of the smile, nor the feel of him in her arms as they held one another, her head resting against his chest, her ear pressed to that spot just over his heart.

“I love you, Beth. So much that I can’t even express it all.”

“I love you too, Jake. More than I could ever say.”

She lifted her head, her eyes locked on his as he lowered his head to hers. Their lips touched and the love between them bloomed even stronger. She had never been happier, and once again, she thanked God for the blessings that He had bestowed upon both of them—now, tomorrow, and into forever.

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OFFER: A BRAND NEW SERIES AND 2 FREEBIES FOR YOU!

Grab my new series, "Hearts of the Untamed West", and get 2 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!

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