The Homecoming Bride

Chapter Ten: Take It All

CHAPTER SONG: "Take It All" by Ruelle

Emmy hugged Molly close as the older woman began to tremble in her arms, Charlotte bravely standing up and going to turn out the lamps and extinguish the fire so there wouldn't be any light to expose where they were in the house.

"He finally found us... I knew we couldn't hide forever." Molly mumbled more to herself than anyone else in the room. "He's got the girls... I know he does."

The petrified mother shakily stood onto her feet, pulling Emmy up to stand with her. Both women turned to see Joe closing the curtains of the front parlor windows and locking the door leading to the front porch.

Charlotte gathered up the various tools by the hearth, an iron fire poker and shovel respectively. She handed the poker to Molly and the shovel to Emmy before turning to Joseph. "Do you still have your gun, Joe?"

The raven haired soldier looked back at the three women standing in the darkness, a cloud of grey smoke swirling around them. His hand went to the weapon strapped to his waistband, having kept it within reach every day since the reemergence of James back in Surrey.

He hadn't dared touch his pistol on any other occasion since that night in the church, when Emmy had awoken and revealed herself to be alive... to give him the reason to not blow his brains out as he had planned to do that night if she had died underneath the winter-frosted cherry trees of his orchard.

Joe gulped at the sudden jolt of a painful memory assaulting his mind, looking behind him to meet Charlotte's eyes and nodding briefly to Emmy. He pulled out the pistol and opened the chamber, revealing that damning final bullet that remained inside for all that time since New Year's morning.

"One of you, call the police now. We'll need all the help we can get for those girls." Joe listened close as he heard rapid footsteps approaching the house.

His stance tensed in front of the door as he reloaded the pistol with the one bullet he had left. Myrtle whined and softly growled toward the sound, the loyal Labrador guarding her master's side.

Charlotte spoke into the telephone, her thick Yorkshire accented voice flowing to the receiver with no-nonsense clarity as she kept her eyes on the front door, mentally bracing herself for another bullet to shatter the parlor window. "I need all the bobbies you have at the home of Lt. Joseph Blake. We've an intruder threatening us, shooting through the windows with a shotgun. We have women and children in danger as well... please get here now!"

As the war widow continued explaining the situation on the phone, Molly and Emmy clutched onto their weapons, the two women looking silently to each other and the distraught English mother mouthing to the green-eyed brunette at her side. "I'm sorry, dear sister."

"It's alright. You're scared and so am I." Emmy whispered, blinking back tears of fright as she reached out to hold Molly's hand while they grasped their improvised weapons, listening to the footsteps having ceased.

Myrtle no longer growled, sniffing the air around with her ears perked up in acknowledgment and a high pitched whine erupting from her throat as she looked up at Joe to let him know someone else she recognized had arrived.

"Joe... Emmy... Molly!" The frantic voice of Will calling out for them on the front porch met everyone's ears as Myrtle barked, her tail wagging as she heard the familiar voice of her owner's friend. "Is anyone hurt?"

"Will? We're all okay... but Cici and Elle are missing! That bastard took them!" Joe responded, an enraged growl rumbling in his chest at the thought of the children being harmed. "Is he still out there?"