Tori, dear that she was, made no effort to interrupt Emma’s impassioned ranting. She simply held her friend’s gaze and waited patiently for the kettle to stop hissing. Which it did. Eventually. Emma might refuse to sacrifice her principles, but she’d never sacrifice the safety of her ladies. Not for any reason. Not even for the ideal that brought them all together in the first place.
She paced back to where Tori waited at the church steps, releasing her indignation a little bit at a time until her mind cleared of the haze. “I’ll encourage all the mothers with children to follow the sheriff’s advice and move—temporarily—to one of the neighboring towns.” Emma’s shoulders sagged as she met Tori’s gaze. “Including you.” How she hated to send her closest friend, her partner in starting the colony, away. But Tori had a four-year-old son, and if anything happened to Lewis . . . Well, such a thought didn’t bear thinking.
Tori’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going anywhere.” The steel in her tone brooked no argument. “I’m not leaving you to fight this battle on your own. Besides, where would we go? All my funds are tied up in the store. I can’t exactly take the merchandise with me. And if I lose that, I lose everything.”
“I’ll keep an eye on things for you,” Emma offered, but her friend cut her off with a firm shake of her head.
“You have the bank to run. You don’t need the additional worry of tending my shop. I’ll keep a tight leash on Lewis. We’ll be fine.” Tori fisted her hands at her sides, and Emma knew at once that she wouldn’t be swayed.
Victoria never showed emotion beyond the affection of friendship and love toward her son. Nothing else. No fear, anger, surprise—nothing that could possibly give someone an advantage over her. If she was worked up enough to clench her fingers into a fist, her feelings on the matter must be strong, indeed.
“I want to show my son that when you believe in something, you fight for it, even when danger threatens. You don’t hide.”
A world of pain lingered behind that statement, a pain Emma could only imagine. Tori had been fighting since the day she discovered herself pregnant after being attacked by a man esteemed by her entire hometown. Fighting for a place to belong after her father sent her away. Fighting for a way to provide for herself and her child. Fighting the fear that she’d misjudge a man’s character again someday and experience the nightmare all over again.
Emma stepped close to Victoria and took her arm. Only then did Tori unclench her fists and lay one of her hands atop Emma’s.
“We stand together,” Emma vowed.
Tori nodded. “Together.”
Two hours later, just after noon, Emma stood at the front of the church, her back propped against the left side wall, watching her ladies file in. Her heart grew heavy as her gaze skimmed each familiar face. Which ones would leave? Which would stay?
Betty Cooper tromped down the center aisle, her stocky build and no-nonsense stride blazing a trail for the four younger women who followed in her wake. The middle-aged matron oversaw the laying hens that provided a large share of the income that the women of Harper’s Station brought in. She’d been with Emma since the early days. Widowed, no children, but she had one of the biggest hearts Emma had ever encountered. She hid it well behind a gruff manner and an insistence on hard work, but she clucked over the ladies she supervised as if they were her own chicks.
The ladies of the sewing circle, several of whom had children in tow, chatted amongst themselves as they took their usual seats in the middle rows on the right side. They crafted exquisite quilts that fetched top price in Fort Worth. If half of them left, how would the remaining ladies meet their quota? The broker expected fifteen quilts every month, an easy enough order to fill with ten ladies plying their needles every day, but if their number fell to five . . . ?
Grace Mallory came through the door next, her head bent down as usual, her gaze fixed on her feet as she slid onto one of the back pews. The quiet woman had only been in town six months and liked to keep to herself, but thanks to her skill as a Western Union telegrapher, Harper’s Station now had a working telegraph system. The county hadn’t yet granted them a post office, so mail still had to be forwarded from Seymour, but any lady in town could send a telegram for less than a nickel a word. Losing Grace would be a blow, if she chose to leave.
Emma’s attention flitted to the others already gathered. Those who worked the community garden and put up preserves and canned vegetables to sell. The ladies who ran the café. The boardinghouse proprietress. The midwife who served as the town doctor.
And, of course, the aunts.