Page 64 of Midnight Rider

“I promise,” she repeated, looking up at him. “Eduardo, our lives have been hard until now. Do you really think that God would be so good to us, only to snatch our happiness away just as it begins?”

“You make my fears sound like a sacrilege,” he murmured.

“Faith moves mountains,” she replied simply. She smiled. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

“All right. I’ll try not to worry.”

* * *

BUTHEDID,ESPECIALLYWHENshe fell to the floor early one morning in a pool of water and, gasping, called for him to fetch the doctor.

He wouldn’t leave her. He sent one of thevaquerosto town, and then to Colston Barron’s.

The doctor took forever to come. Meanwhile, Bernadette was racked with pain and weeping helplessly. Eduardo had no idea what to do. In fact, Claudia quickly shooed him out of the room. When Colston Barron and the doctor arrived, Eduardo was halfway through a bottle of imported Scotch whiskey.

“Fetch me a glass, girl, and make it a large one,” Colston told one of the servants. “This is a time for serious drinking.”

Eduardo looked at him through bloodshot eyes. “It has been two hours,” he said in a choked voice. “I tried to look in the door, and the doctor had one of my own men push me in here.” He shrugged. “She screamed,” he said through his teeth. “I should have broken down the door to get to her, but she called to me that she would be all right. They are in league against me, she and the doctor.” His face darkened as he lifted the glass to his lips again. He looked toward his father-in-law with utter fury. “If she dies, I’ll shoot him, right through the eye!”

“She won’t die,” Colston said with more conviction than he felt.

“I’m going to load my gun.”

“Drink your whiskey. You can load your gun later.”

Eduardo turned back to the bottle. He studied the glass and then the gun rack. He sat back. “Perhaps it would be wiser to wait. Just briefly.”

They drank and talked and worried for another hour. When the doctor came into the room, wiping his hands on a towel, they were laid across chairs in pitiful heaps, both half-coherent and barely able to sit up when he called to them.

The doctor grinned. “Bernadette is fine. It’s a boy,” he said.

“A boy. A son. Praise God!” Eduardo murmured in a slurred tone.

“Congratulations, my boy, con—”

“—And a girl,” the doctor continued.

Eduardo blinked. He wasn’t at all sure that he was hearing correctly. “You said a boy,” he replied.

“Yes, I did.”

“Now you’ve changed your mind and it’s a girl?”

The doctor chuckled. “You’re going to have a head the size of San Antonio in the morning. It’s a boyanda girl,” he said. “Twins.”

Eduardo’s intake of breath filled the room. He grasped the arms of his chair for balance. “Twins!”

“Twins!” Colston poured himself another drink. “God be praised, twins!”

“Bernadette would like to see you both,” he continued. He shook his head as he turned. “God knows why,” he added under his breath as they struggled to their feet.

They were far too drunk to have understood him, even if he’d spoken very loudly. With arms around each other for support, they weaved down the dark hall behind the doctor and into the bedroom from which the wails of tiny babies could be clearly heard.

“Good, strong lungs,” the doctor murmured as Claudia came forward with both infants in her arms. “And I can include your wife in that. Her asthma didn’t surface once during the whole long labor.” He ginned. “I think I may write a paper on her.”

“Que guapos son,”she expressed with a radiant smile as she showed her small charges to Eduardo. “They are so beautiful,señor.”

“Beautiful,” he pronounced, touching each tiny face reverently. “Like my Bernadette.”

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