JAMES
Bachelors and Babies Series
Book 13
Copyright © 2020 Teresa Garrett writing as Tracy Garrett
Cover © Charlene Raddon, https://silversagebookcovers.com
Edited by: Jo Davis Editing
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, digitized, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This ebook may not be resold or uploaded for distribution to others.
JAMES is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
JAMES/Tracy Garrett – Version 2020.01
36,260 words
Dedication
For Vanessa—Sister, friend and duet partner. Love you lots!
Acknowledgements
Thank you never seems adequate, but it is all I can offer: To Addison, Allie, Jo & Lorraine –Good friends can get you through anything and you guys are the best! To Pam Crooks for answering a multitude of questions. And to Charlene Raddon, for inviting me to write for the series and to join this amazing group of writers.
And to the love of my life—it’s always for you.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Bachelors & Babies Series Book List
About Tracy
CHAPTER ONE
Nebraska, 1877
“Reverend! Reverend Hathaway!”
James heard Tad shouting long before he reached the cabin at the north end of King’s Ford, the town he’d called home for nearly five years now. The seven-year-old ran errands for many folks in town, though most often it was for the doctor. If Doctor Finney was sending for a preacher this early in the morning, it couldn’t be good news. James buttoned his vest and pulled on his frock coat then glanced in the small mirror hung beside the front door to be sure his collar was tucked in properly, then studied his face.
He looked tired. A wagon had creaked and rumbled past his home well before dawn and the noise had dragged him from a sound sleep. He’d been sitting at the table since then, trying to write his Sunday sermon, but inspiration hadn’t gotten out of bed with him. Ah, well. It was only Tuesday.
James glanced around his small home. The parsonage, if you could call the drafty, poorly lit cabin by so lofty a title, sat at the far north end of town. The church sat to the south of the parsonage, which meant the larger building did nothing to block the winter winds that howled down from the Dakota hills thirty or so miles away.
Deciding he wouldn’t scandalize any parishioner he passed, he lifted his hat from the small table under the mirror and opened the door. He was so focused on Tad that he nearly tripped over a basket left on his stoop.
“What on earth?”
“A basket.”
“Yes, Tad, I see that. Who left it here?” He immediately thought of the wagon that had awoken him. “Why didn’t they knock? I’ve been home since nightfall.”
Tad crept closer, lifted a corner of the cloth covering the contents, and jumped back like there was a snake inside. “Baby!” Tad yelled.
“Don’t play games, Tad. Tell me what’s…” James didn’t jump away, though he wanted to. “Merciful heavens, there’s a baby in here.”
“’S what I said, didn’t I?”
James hunkered down beside the unadorned market basket. It had certainly seen plenty of use. The handle was worn and coming apart in places. The cloth covering the infant was a tattered blanket, faded from washing and carefully darned in several places. Embroidered flowers on one corner were much newer than the blanket, showing the parents had love but little money to spend on a baby.
He folded the blanket back. The sun hadn’t been up long, but in late August it would make itself felt soon enough. No need to overheat the little thing. Searching further, James found nothing beyond a few diapers and the clothes the infant wore. The lack of a note didn’t surprise him, really. So many folks moving west these days were illiterate. Hard-working people set on a tough path.
Moving carefully, he put the baby back down. When it stirred and kicked at the blanket, he began rocking the basket gently, like he’d seen his oldest sister do with her first child.
Tad’s bony knees thumped on the rough wooden stoop beside James. “I wonder who left it here?”
James frowned at the bundle. It wasn’t unheard of for a foundling to be left with a preacher, but it had never happened here in King’s Ford. “I don’t know, Tad but we can’t leave the poor mite here. We’ll take it to the doctor.”
Tad’s brown eyes widened. “Doc! I plumb forgot. Doc says to come quick. There’s a lady who fell off her horse and had a baby and ain’t doing too good.”
“Which isn’t doing well?”
“Neither one, I reckon. The horse didn’t look great either. That’s why Doc said to hurry.”
Caught between a mystery and his calling, James slapped on his hat, scooped up the basket and followed Tad into the sunshine.
The walk to Doctor Henry Finney’s office took them the entire length of town, past businesses, the boardinghouse and the jail. Everyone who was outside stopped to stare. Every citizen of King’s Ford would know by dinnertime that Reverend Hathaway was seen carrying a baby in a basket down Main Street.
Doc had been smart to situate his home and practice on the southern end of town, where other buildings blocked the wind in winter and a clump of venerable boxelder trees offered shade through the heat of the summer.
By the time they reached the office, the baby was announcing its presence to anyone in the vicinity. Whimpers turned quickly to cries, then howls of outrage. Even with his limited experience with infants, James knew the baby was hungry. Probably wet, too.
The doctor’s wife came hurrying down the hall through a door that led into their living quarters. “What on earth? Where did you get that baby?” Her red-rimmed eyes told him there was probably only one miracle of birth to celebrate. The very idea that an innocent had died and he hadn’t been there pierced his heart, filling him with a feeling a failure. When Ina reached out, he happily relinquished the baby into her arms. “This little one appeared on my doorstep early this—”
“Never mind. Poor thing is wet through.” As she scooped the child out of the basket, she gathered up a fresh diaper.
“Just let me get the little mite changed.” The baby hiccupped through a cry. “And fed, from the sound of it. Poor dear,” she crooned. As she quickly cleaned the baby and put on a dry diaper, the doctor joined them.
“Best let me have a look.” Ina stepped back to let the doctor examine the baby, who was now sucking on his fist.
“You’ve got a healthy boy here, Reverend. About a month old, I’d say. Maybe a bit more. He’s underweight, but that’s fixable. How’d you come to have him?” Doc listened as James quickly recounted how he came to have the infant. “Well, at least we have food for the little guy, if she’ll agree to nurse him. Oh, my, you’re going to be a big one, aren’t you?”
Chuckling at the baby’s renewed cries, Doc retreated to his examination room while Ina waited with him. James could hear the doctor speaking to someone, but the reply was drowned out by the cries. Obviously, he’d found a way to fe
ed the baby, though, as the noise suddenly ceased.
“Thank God,” Ina whispered. “She was willing to feed him.”
Doc returned moments later. “That’s a healthy little boy you’ve got, Reverend. Nothing wrong that some mother’s milk won’t fix.”
“Mother?” Then he recalled he’d been sent for because a woman had given birth, but wasn’t doing well. “Am I needed?”
“I’m afraid so, but let’s give her a few minutes, shall we? Tad?” The doctor dug in his pocket for a dime. “Thank you for bringing the Reverend.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Tad tightened his fist around the precious coin and bolted from the room.
“Come on in, Reverend. Ina has some coffee on. I’m willing to bet you’d appreciate a cup or two at this point.”
“You cut him a nice slice of that apple cake, too,” Ina chimed in. “I’ll go keep the new mother company.”
James settled into a chair at the small kitchen table while Doc poured him coffee. Of all the homes he’d been in as preacher, he felt the most comfortable here. No dainty china cups that made him feel far larger than his six-feet-two inches. The mug Doc Finney pushed into his hands was thick ceramic, made to hold the heat and perfectly sized for his hands. The apple cake was still warm from the oven. James spooned on a bit of fresh cream, said a quick prayer of thanks, and bit into the sweet spiciness. “This is wonderful, Doc.”
“Nobody makes better.” Doc joined him at the table. “So, you found the little boy on your stoop, you say? No idea who the parents could be?”
“I heard a wagon go past the house sometime before dawn but didn’t think to look out the window. To be honest, I was too groggy with sleep to think much at all. And I didn’t hear them come to the door. The poor thing must have been out there for several hours. Based on the condition of the basket and blanket, it’s possible his folks couldn’t afford to keep him.”
“And if the mother’s milk dried up, which it can if they aren’t eating enough, or for half a dozen other reasons, they wouldn’t be able to buy formula, either.”
James fought back the urge to squirm in his seat. This kind of frank talk of female matters always made him a little uncomfortable. His sisters teased him unmercifully about it. “The woman… The mother of the other baby? Tad said she fell from a horse. What was a woman in her condition doing on horseback?”
“Searching for help, I’d say.”
“And the baby?”
Doc’s eyes grew sad. “Didn’t make it.” He paused to stare out the window at the kitchen garden. “You know, I’ve lost lots of babies in my years, but it never gets easier.” They sat in the shared silence of grief and loss. “Though she hasn’t told me much, she’s widowed and was making her way out of the mining camps up north. I assume that’s where she lost her husband.”
“She rode more than thirty miles when she was about to give birth?”
“Mary rode three times that far carrying Jesus in her belly,” he shot back.
James had to concede. “That is true. And God must have travelled with this young woman, too, for her to make it here and not give birth on the trail.”
“From the condition of her horse, I’d say she very nearly did. Darn near killed the thing getting here. I sent it to Hank Givens at the livery. That animal is going to need lots of care, just like the little mother. As tired as she is, I imagine she rode through most of the last couple of nights. And in labor.”
“As coddled as my sister was in the weeks leading up to her confinement, I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”
“Yet, here she is. Her little girl was just too small, and I’d say the mother hasn’t had adequate food for some time. It’s a miracle her milk came in.”
“I’m surprised she was willing to take on another child at all.”
“She didn’t want to, but the poor thing’s crying just got to her, I guess. There aren’t many mothers alive, at least those who really want children, who can resist helping a hungry baby.”
“Will she continue to feed the boy?”
Doc pushed to his feet. “You should ask her. That’s your end of things. Ina should be done fussing by now. Come on and I’ll introduce you to your baby’s wet nurse.”
James tried to object, to insist it wasn’t his baby, but he was pulled along in the doctor’s wake and soon found himself in the examining room, studying an obviously exhausted woman.
She dozed in a bed that was more for function than comfort. A big rocker that was usually in the Finneys’ living room sat in the corner with the baby basket nearby. Her sable-brown hair, with hints of red in the morning sunlight, had been tied back into a long braid, but wisps were pulling free of their confines and curled around her cheeks. Dark smudges underlaid both eyes that were puffy and red from crying. If not for the shapeliness of her slight form under a light blanket, James might have believed she was a young man, not a new mother.
Moving quietly, he crossed to check on the infant. Hunkering down and balancing on the balls of his feet, James studied him. The boy he’d been given was easily eight pounds or more, and his hands seemed almost too big for his body. Doc was right, he was going to be a big man. “Don’t you worry, little one,” he whispered. “God put you on my doorstep for a reason. We’ll figure this out.”
“Do you really believe that?”
James spun in place and was lost in the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
CHAPTER TWO
“Well? Do you?” she demanded.
The man rose slowly to tower over her. “Yes, I believe it. How else--why else would a newborn boy end up on the front step of a bachelor preacher?”
“Oh, you’re the preacher,” she looked away. “You have to believe it.”
He studied her for a moment. “And you don’t.”
The rage welled up from her soul. “I believe God is good and only a cruel God would put me through what I’ve had to survive the last two years, then put me on a horse, make me ride nearly forty miles alone, without stopping, to kill my baby in a town I’ve never heard of with no one here that I know, so, no, I don’t believe God did this on purpose!”
By the time she finished, she was shouting, waking the baby. Heaving a deep, weary sigh, she closed her eyes and held out her arms. “Give him here.”
She heard the rusting of blankets and after a few moments she felt the warm weight of the baby, smelled his sweet scent. Once she had him nestled in the crook of her elbow, he turned his head back and forth, snuggling closer, and went back to sleep. This should be my little girl, not some other woman’s child.
“I’m so sorry about your daughter. Had you chosen a name?”
She couldn’t hold back the tears. “No,” she whispered, letting them come, watching them splash on the baby’s blanket. “I was afraid to.” Some deep-seated fear told her that if she wanted her baby too much, she would lose it, so she didn’t choose a name. And she’d lost her daughter anyway.
“It’s all right. You have time.”
Did he have to be so nice? The need to scream and break things nearly overwhelmed her again.
“Will you tell me your name? I’m Reverend James Hathaway, preacher here in King’s Ford.”
“Esther,” she finally offered. “Esther Travers.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Travers.”
“Not anymore.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I’m not Mrs. anyone anymore. He’s dead, the damn fool.”
The preacher didn’t even flinch at her language. “May I call you Esther?”
“I don’t care. Call me what you wish. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Esther is a lovely name. Thank you for feeding the infant.”
“I didn’t really have a choice, did I? The poor little thing was hungry and crying, and my baby doesn’t need my milk.”
This time he blushed at her forthright speech. “Nonetheless, what you’re doing is a great kindness to an innocent and I appreciate it.”
“Please go away.” She closed her eyes and turned her face away from the baby and from him. “I’d rather be alone.”
“All right. I’ll come back in a while.”
“Why? I don’t need anything from you.”
“Because I want to.” His quiet words surprised her into looking at him again. Leaving her alone in her grief, he slipped from the room.
Esther couldn’t help herself. She watched him walk out. His wide shoulders nearly filled the doorframe and he had to duck to keep from banging his head. His blond hair was neatly combed and he had eyes the pale blue of a winter sky. Handsome was the only word she could form.
“Handsome,” she hissed. “Claude was handsome, the black-hearted drunk!”
She didn’t need another handsome man in her life. Men were good for only one thing and that lead to grief and loss. Kissing the top of the baby’s head, she hummed a lullaby she thought she would be singing to her daughter. Letting the tears come, she rocked back and forth slightly. “Sleep, little one, and I’ll be here when you need me. At least I’m still good for something.”
“She’s resting,” James told the hovering Ina. Promising to return, he retrieved his hat and strode from the office into the punishing morning sun. The brightness surprised him. After the darkness of grief that clung to Esther Travers, he expected it to be gloomy out. He paused on the front step and raised his face to the brilliant light, saying a prayer of thanks for the sunshine that grew their crops. And for the peace of acceptance for Esther. He didn’t ask for her pain to end. That would be like asking her to forget she’d borne a child and that would never be possible.
He was stopped twice on his way across the street to the mercantile and each time they wanted him to recount how the baby came to be with him. By the time the bell over the mercantile door announced him with the expected jingle, he was ashamed at the relief he felt. Patting the perspiration from his face with a crisply starched handkerchief, he approached George Meier, the proprietor.
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