The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich by Marcia Lynn McClure Page A

toward him as his mouth met hers in a fierce kiss of mingled anger and desperation.
    “All right, everyone out!” Doctor Swayze ordered suddenly. “I want no one else in this room while this baby is delivered.” He looked to Calvin, adding, “No one but you, Calvin, and of course Mrs. Swayze.”
    Evangeline watched as Hutch stood and then leaned down, kissing his sister on the forehead.
    “You take care of her, Hutch,” Jennie panted.
    “I will, Jen,” Hutch promised. “But you take care of that baby. You get that baby out, and you live through it! Do you hear me?”
    Jennie nodded as tears of fear and pain streamed down her face.
    “Come on, Reverend,” Hutch said, taking hold of Reverend Lloyd’s arm in one hand and Evangeline’s in the other and pulling them out of the room.
    The door closed just as Jennie wailed in agony.
    “Do not push, Mrs. McKee!” Evangeline heard Doctor Swayze command. “Not until I tell you.”
    “I-I should probably stay…in case I’m needed for…well, anything else,” Reverend Lloyd ventured.
    “She’ll be fine,” Hutch mumbled. He leaned back against one wall a moment before sliding down into a sitting position. Jones was quick to go to his master, licking his face with an affectionate kiss of encouragement.
    Evangeline was stunned—so stunned that she could think of nothing else but her proper manners. Jennie had a guest, after all—Reverend Lloyd—and the man looked as completely out of his element as a man could possibly look.
    “M-might I offer you a piece of cake, Reverend Lloyd?” Evangeline asked, brushing tears from her cheeks. “I made one just this morning, and a little sweet thing goes a long way to settling one’s nerves, I find.”
    Reverend Lloyd seemed to sense Evangeline’s need for distraction. Therefore, as Jennie cried out in agony from behind the bedroom door, Reverend Lloyd said, “That would be good, I think, Miss…rather, Mrs. LaMontagne.”
     
    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