Wanted: A Family (15 page)

“What are you saying?”

“Gossip has it that you and Jacob Smith are…” Dorothy sighed “…intimate.”

“That’s a lie!”

“Or course it is. Commodore doesn’t believe a word of the gossip about you and Mr. Smith, either. Though, he is suspicious of the man.”

Who wasn’t?

Callie had met with disapproval. She’d endure removal. But slander? Where would this ugliness end?

How much would the unwed mothers’ home cost her?

That evening at supper, Jake pulled out a chair for Elise, then another for Callie, who thanked him but didn’t meet his eyes. Why? Grace had deigned to come to the table, undoubtedly reluctantly if her demeanor meant anything, scooting into her chair before Jake could assist her.

After blessing the food, Callie passed the serving bowls. Elise chatted away about her knitting, her baby, while Grace picked at her food, ignoring attempts to include her in the conversation. Elise shot furtive glances at the newcomer, obviously uncomfortable with Grace’s stony silence.

Jake glanced at Callie. “The food is delicious.”

Callie nodded her thanks, her gaze distant. Something had happened to upset her. Had her visit with Dorothy that afternoon gone badly? Or was she still angry with him for suggesting she divide the work? Hoping to dispel the gloomy atmosphere, Jake said, “How are you feeling, Elise?”

She sighed, resting her forearms on her belly. “Ready to have this baby.”

“Won’t be long now.” Callie gave Elise a sweet smile, a smile Jake would’ve given anything to have directed at him.

“Have you made…uh, plans for your child?” he asked.

“If you’re asking if I’m keeping my baby, the answer is yes. I thought you knew that’s the reason I’m here.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d changed your mind. Raising a child alone is a huge responsibility.”

“My baby won’t end up in an orphanage. After what you told me, I’d never allow that to happen.”

Grace’s head shot up. Her eyes darted to Jake then to Elise. “Easy for you to say.” She snorted. “You two have all the answers. Passing judgment, condemning women. You don’t know anything.” She plopped the glass she held on the kitchen table, sloshing water and glaring at him. “You bellyache about that orphanage, Jake. Why? You had food in your stomach and a roof over your head.”

Had Grace lived on the streets? What had happened to put that sneer on her face?

Callie reached a hand to Grace. “You make a good point. Many children aren’t given up by choice. Parents die.” Jake heard the tremble in Callie’s voice. Knew she still suffered from the loss of her family. “Or they can’t provide.” She sighed. “It’s far easier to name the problem than to solve it.”

Had an inability to provide motivated his parents to give Jake up? Maybe they didn’t have two pennies to rub together. An orphanage would be better than living on the streets.

“I know of at least one couple in this town who’d love to raise a child,” Callie said. “No baby born at Redeeming Love need end up without a family. God will provide.”

“Another pat answer! I’ve lost my appetite.” Grace shoved back her chair, tipping it over. As it crashed to the floor, Jake jumped to his feet. Grace stomped from the room.

“What’s wrong with her?” Elise burst into tears.

As Callie pulled Elise into her arms, she met Jake’s gaze, her eyes wide with alarm. “Grace is having a rough time adjusting. We’ll need to be patient with her.”

Jake righted the chair then stood by helplessly with no idea what to do or what to say that would restore harmony.

“I’m not hungry,” Elise said, though she hadn’t finished her meal. “I’m going to see my mother while Papa’s at the shop.”

The front door banged closed, the sound echoing in the silence. Grace might be troubled, but she’d brought strife into the house. Not good for anyone. Especially for Callie, who gave and gave, trying to make life better for those in her care. No doubt she’d see Grace’s reaction as some failure on her part, rather than laying the blame at Grace’s feet, where it belonged.

With the force of a tidal wave, awareness slammed into Jake. Grace reminded him of someone. Someone he knew all too well. Someone who’d railed at life. Someone embittered and spewing blame. Himself.

Swallowing hard at the similarities between him and this troubled young woman, his gaze surveyed the kitchen. The stormy scene they’d witnessed was at odds with the beam of sunlight streaming in through the window, lighting the vase of peonies on the table, their scent mixing with the aroma of beans and ham.

This cozy nest Callie had created, along with that warm way of hers, had softened his edges. Perhaps in time, she’d do the same for Grace. But at what cost? Plenty, if the look of dismay on Callie’s face meant anything.

Jake wanted to make amends for Grace’s behavior. To protect Callie from this strife. Protect her from any ugliness.

He reached a hand. “Grace is upsetting you. Having her here isn’t good for you or your baby.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.” Eyes snapping, Callie slapped her napkin on the table. “You’re leaving. So keep your advice to yourself.”

A
s he hauled manure to Callie’s garden, Jake bent into a gust of wind. Except for an occasional fast-moving cloud obstructing the warmth of the sun, the breezy day was pleasant, invigorating. Spring carried the promise of new beginnings. New beginnings he wanted but couldn’t see, not with the shadow of prison eclipsing his every tomorrow.

He glanced toward the stoop where Callie washed clothes. Even from here, he could feel the tension between them, as thick and high as fortifications at the penitentiary. Her anger last night made it perfectly clear. Callie didn’t want advice from him. She didn’t want anything from him.

She heaved a heaping laundry basket to her middle, wrestling with it. He dropped the handles of the wheelbarrow and loped toward her. At his approach, she tilted her chin in that stubborn way of hers, as if she’d refuse his help.

Maybe if he started small, helping with the laundry, he could restore the harmony between them. “Let me carry that basket.”

“If you insist.” Callie looked away, as if she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

“I do.” He took the basket from her arms.

Callie pivoted and headed for the clothesline stretching between two poles, leaving him to follow along behind.

With hammer and nails, he’d taken care of the hazards threatening the women in the house. He could fix any object with the right tools, but he didn’t know what it would take to fix things with Callie.

Jake watched the sway of her hips, wanting nothing more than to pull her into his arms. But after the way they’d parted last night, she wouldn’t welcome his embrace. Callie understood the futility of building a relationship with a man like him.

At the clothesline, he lowered the basket to the ground. She reached for a lump of white just as he did. Their hands collided, zipping a flash of attraction from the tips of his fingers to the base of his spine.

“I’ll do that,” he said. Before she could protest, he pulled a sheet from the pile and unfurled it. The wind caught the cotton, whipping it in the air between them.

Callie grabbed clothespins from her apron pocket and pegged the first corner to the line, then the middle. When she jabbed the last pin in place, the sheet hung between them, a wall of sorts. They were in close proximity, but miles apart.

Sometimes Callie’s determination to handle things alone had Jake clamping his jaw in exasperation. Perhaps, married to Martin, she’d had to do everything on her own and knew no other way. Was he any different? Empathy for this woman, a survivor like him, made him long to pull Callie into his arms.

Jake stomped past the sheet, determined to do that very thing, determined to tell her how much he cared. One glance at her belly stopped him. Her child would need a father. Jake had no idea how to handle that role. Getting out
of her life was the kindest thing he could do. The fact that he cared about her kept his arms at his sides. His mouth closed.

He yanked a towel from the stack and draped it over the line. She pegged. He draped. Neither spoke, yet the air fairly crackled with friction as every touch and glance burned into Jake’s awareness like a hot branding iron.

When he could stand the tension no longer, he threw up his hands. “Callie, why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind?”

She whirled toward him. “What’s the point? You’ll do what you please, no matter what I say.”

A cloud covered the sun, throwing them in shadow. He took a step closer. “You’re putting barriers between us and not just with this laundry. You know I’d stay if I could.”

“I know no such thing. You have no job to go to. No family waiting for your return. For once, drop the pretense and be honest. With me. With yourself.”

Her words slashed at him. He hadn’t been honest with her. He hid his past and his purpose the same way that cloud overhead hid the sun. Perhaps he could tell her why he’d come to town. Why he kept his past a secret. And she’d react differently than others had.

She turned back, as if she meant to talk to him, then her gaze fastened on something in the yard.

A few feet away, he spotted a baby robin hunched in the grass, its little beak opening and closing with soft chirps. The mother hovered nearby, fluttering her wings, panicked or maybe merely showing her offspring what to do. From the looks of it, the baby didn’t get the message.

“Jake. Look.” Callie pointed across the lawn.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Stripes slink forward, eyes locked on its prey. The mother robin flapped
her wings, hopped closer, alarmed by the stalking feline, but the baby bird remained huddled on the ground.

Callie crouched down, trying to shoo the cat away. Stripes kept coming.

Slowly, Jake moved toward the birds, then squatted in the grass. The baby bird looked weak, defenseless, its feathers stirring in the breeze. The mother robin flitted about, her dark, beady eyes on Jake. Wary. Scared.

“Do you think he’s hurt?” Callie lowered herself in the space beside Jake.

“I don’t think so.” He kept his voice soft and low, but still the mother robin’s gaze held trepidation. The baby let out a squawk. “Falling is part of learning to fly.”

“What if he’s not ready yet? Maybe he needs to go back to the nest.”

“Maybe.”

Jake studied the baby bird. Under its thin skin and feathers, he could see the delicate bones that would one day carry this small bird through the sky. At times like this, Jake marveled at the order and beauty of nature. Could a Master Planner have designed this world?

Callie laid a hand on his arm. Her gentle touch slid through him. “You need to put him back. I’d do it, but…” She waved at her belly. “Will you, Jake?”

That Callie needed him for more than repairs to her house filled some ache inside him. Still, moving the bird might not be the right solution. “We need to give him a chance to fly. We’ll chase off the cat—”

“Stripes will come back.” Worry flooded her eyes. “I can’t bear to think of him down here, helpless, with the cat out there, watching. Waiting.”

“If I touch it, the mother may not accept the fledgling.”

“The mother can’t get it back in the nest. Someone has
to.” She turned pleading eyes on him. “Isn’t it better to try than to let the cat get it?”

He glanced at the baby she carried inside her. He couldn’t do anything for that baby, but he could do something for this baby bird.

He edged forward, one small step at a time. The mother bird flapped her wings, squawked a protest, but Jake kept closing in. The mother froze. Watched. Her heart beat so fast that Jake could see it through her breast. Stripes stepped closer and closer. With one last glance at her baby, the robin took flight and perched on a branch above his head.

Yanking his gloves from his back pocket, Jake shoved his hands inside, reached down, scooped up the trembling baby bird, and cradled it in his hand. It weighed almost nothing.

The warm smile Callie sent Jake slid through him, easing the impasse between them. “Any idea where the nest is?”

She pointed behind him. “Up in that tree.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, the robin flew to a branch far above him. Jake grabbed a low limb and clamored up the trunk, heaving himself along with one hand and holding the bird in the other until he reached the spot where the robin waited. There he found her nest balanced between two branches, a miracle of twigs, dried grasses and loose threads. Occupied with two chirping siblings, beaks open wide, ready for a meal.

As he gently deposited the outcast alongside his family, Jake grasped in that moment that one of nature’s creatures had placed its trust in him.

Him. Of all people.

He retraced his path, much easier with both hands free, then jumped to the ground. A foot away, Stripes sat on
her haunches, eyeing Jake with reproach. “You’re a mom. Shame on you.”

Relief plain on her face, Callie chuckled. “Stripes is not happy.”

Jake removed his gloves and stuffed them back into his hip pocket. “The wanderer is back in the nest.”

“Thank you,” Callie said then threw her arms around Jake, burrowing into him with a sob.

What was wrong? The bird was safe. Who would’ve thought a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest would bring this self-sufficient woman to tears? Yet that Callie needed him, even for a moment, slid through Jake. Filled with a sense of the rightness of having Callie in his arms, he rubbed her back, murmuring an endearment near her ear.

She jerked away, wiped her tears with both hands and shot up her chin. Back to her strong independent self. Unwilling to rely on him for anything. Anything except repairs.

“The baby bird would most likely have survived,” he said. “Mother birds push fledglings out of the nest because they know the time has come to try their wings. It’s what’s best for them.”

Callie’s eyes locked with his, in their depths Jake saw tenderness. For him? “Do you think it’s possible, Jake, that sometimes… Sometimes human mothers do the same thing?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’m saying a mother may do what she sees as best for her baby, but the child may not see her actions that way.”

Callie’s words held a significance she wanted him to grasp. Why wouldn’t a child understand his mother’s actions? Unless…

As understanding dawned, he wrestled with the insight.

“You think my mother believed that giving me up was the best choice for me?”

“It might have been. You don’t know what she faced. What your life would have been like if she hadn’t given you up.”

The ground shifted under his feet, as if the earth had moved on its axis. Jake saw the truth with sudden clarity. “All these years, I’ve resented her decision. Until I know her circumstances, I can’t say her decision was right or wrong.”

Callie touched his face with a gentle palm, offering approval or maybe solace.

“That insight came through a baby bird. And you, Callie, the most merciful person I’ve ever met. You’ve taught me by your example how to live.” He laid his hand over hers. “I need to give my mother the same clemency.”

A smile bloomed on Callie’s face. The beauty of it socked Jake in the gut. He wanted nothing to stand between him and this special woman. A woman he trusted enough to divulge his stint in prison, his search for his mother.

Grace called to Callie from the house.

Callie gave her a wave, then pivoted to Jake. “You’re a good man, Jacob Smith. God is working on you.” She gave him a smile, then walked to the stoop, tucked an arm around Grace’s waist and walked her inside the house.

As Jake tramped toward the barn, filled with gratitude that the incident with the birds had led not only to an understanding about his mother, but to an easing of the rift between him and Callie.

One thing stood between them, a Grand Canyon of an impasse. He didn’t believe in God. If only he had Callie’s faith.

Perhaps the amazing order of nature wasn’t an accident. Perhaps everything in this world had been designed by a
Higher Power. If so, that lesson would outweigh all the others.

Jake had doubts. Still, he would examine them. Open that Bible of his. And see where it led.

Callie stared out the back kitchen window facing the tree Jacob had climbed that morning to return a lost baby robin to the nest. Sometimes she felt just as lost, unsure which way to turn. Had she been foolish to test her wings with this unwed mothers’ home when her own baby’s arrival was imminent?

The incident with the baby bird had made Callie realize that she wasn’t taking care of her own baby as well as she’d thought. She’d put other things first, before her own child. That sense of failure had driven her sobbing into Jacob’s arms. Her mind was a jumble of confusion. Her emotions were in shambles.

In such a state, how had she thought she could help Elise and Grace? Or any other unwed mother who appeared at her door?

Laying her hands on either side of her abdomen, Callie bowed her head.
Lord, give me wisdom. Help me put my baby’s welfare first. Enable me to make plans that ensure his well-being, not put him at risk.

Her baby had lost his father. Her breath caught. Had God brought Jacob into her life for that very reason? Not that she’d fall in love with an unbeliever, but she felt Jacob’s softening toward God. Saw it in his attentive posture during Pastor Steele’s sermons. Saw it in his growing forgiveness toward his birth mother. Saw it in his kindness toward Elise and, of late, Grace.

Callie glanced at the plate of food warming on the stove. Grace had skipped the noon meal, not something an expectant mother should do. If nothing else, perhaps God
gave Callie this mission to ensure that Grace got proper nourishment.

Holding the plate, Callie walked upstairs and rapped on Grace’s door. “It’s Callie. May I come in?”

The door opened a crack. “What do you want?”

“I brought your food up. You need to eat.”

The door widened. “I’m not hungry.”

“Please, eat anyway, for my sake. If you don’t, I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight.”

The door swung open. Callie breathed a sigh of relief. Grace looked pale, defenseless as if she didn’t have the strength to keep on her feet. “No one has ever cared about me enough to lose sleep.”

Callie set the plate of food on Grace’s nightstand then put an arm around her. “I’m sorry you’ve never had someone in your life who cared.”

Stepping away from Callie’s arms, Grace turned to the bed, smoothed a wrinkle from the quilt with her palms. “Not many folks worry about a servant.”

Underneath those quiet words, Callie heard Grace’s resignation to her status in life, as if her job determined her worth. She had to make Grace understand that God loved her. And that made her a person of significance. But food for the body came first. “Eat while it’s still warm.”

Amazingly, Grace sat on the edge of the bed and took a bite of the chicken and noodles. “You’re a good cook.”

“I don’t feel like much of a cook when you can’t keep your feet under my table.”

Suspicion rode in her eyes. “So why are you doing this? What’s in this unwed mothers’ home for you?”

Perhaps Grace had seen through her and suspected that her motives weren’t entirely selfless. “I thought I wanted this home because of what happened to a friend of mine.
But it’s possible I want it so I can surround myself with people and forget the losses I’ve had, the loneliness.”