Heart of Texas Vol. 3

by Debbie Macomber

  Jane took another drink and flipped through her Rolodex for the phone number.

  Just as she’d punched in the number, Jenny entered the office.

  “Jane’s phoning about Amy,” Ellie whispered.

  “Oh, good, I was about to ask.”

  “Dr. Jane Patterson,” Jane announced. “I’m calling to check on one of my patients.” She asked to speak to the nurse on the maternity floor, then placed her hand over the receiver. “They’re transferring me.”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion Amy’s having a boy,” Jenny said.

  “It’s a girl,” Jane said confidently.

  “Boy,” Jenny whispered back.

  Jane rolled her eyes and pointed to her small refrigerator. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks,” Jenny mouthed.

  “This is Dr. Jane Patterson from Promise,” she said again, launching into her explanation about Amy.

  “We’re admitting someone now, but I don’t have the paperwork yet,” the on-duty nurse said. “If you wait, I’ll get that information for you.”

  Once more Jane put her hand over the mouthpiece. “She’s arrived safe and sound.”

  “What took her so long?” Jenny asked, checking her watch.

  “Frank probably took extra time not to upset her,” Ellie suggested.

  Jane frowned. According to her brief chat with Dovie before the cell phone went out, Amy’s water had broken and she was experiencing some hard labor pains. She’d expected them to have arrived at the hospital much sooner than this.

  “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?” Jenny asked, her gaze holding Jane’s. “They got there okay?”

  “With Frank driving, did you have a doubt?” Ellie asked and drank the rest of her water.

  In other circumstances Jane would have traveled with Amy, but that was impossible today. Amy was with Frank, Dovie and Wade McMillen. Unless the mother chose a home delivery as Savannah had, most of the babies in the county were born at the hospital in Brewster.

  The floor nurse came back on the line. “What did you say your patient’s name was again?”

  “Amy Thornton.”

  “She hasn’t been admitted yet,” the nurse said matter-of-factly.

  “Pardon me?” Jane asked. Although she felt an immediate sense of panic, she remained outwardly calm. “I’m sure there’s some mistake. Could you check again?”

  “Please hold the line.”

  Ellie stood. “There’s an easy way to settle this. Frank drove in his patrol car, didn’t he?”

  Jane nodded.

  “All we need to do is phone the sheriff’s office and ask them to radio Frank.”

  “Good idea.” Jane relaxed while Ellie and Jenny disappeared into the outer room to use the second phone.

  The nurse from Brewster Memorial returned to the phone. “I’m sorry, no one in Admitting has talked to or seen anyone named Amy Thornton.”

  Jane replaced the receiver as Ellie and Jenny appeared in the doorway.

  Ellie’s face revealed her anxiety. “Something’s wrong.”

  “The hospital has no record of Amy,” Jane said.

  Jenny chewed on her lip. “I phoned the sheriff’s office,” she explained, “and they radioed Frank.”

  “And?” Jane asked.

  “There’s no response. Apparently he isn’t in the patrol car.”

  “Then where is he?” she demanded.

  “That’s the problem—no one seems to know,” Ellie said. “They’ve been trying to reach him for the last thirty minutes.”

  “HOW’S SHE DOING?” Wade asked, unable to hide his anxiety. He no longer cared if Frank or Dovie knew how concerned he was. A rain squall had hit them soon after they’d decided not to carry Amy to the patrol car. They couldn’t stay outside with Amy about to give birth; they had to find someplace safe and dry.

  Bitter End was the last place he felt was safe for Amy. He blamed himself for this situation; she’d asked him about the town and he’d put her off. He didn’t like the idea of her in this dead town, and the thought of her giving birth here sent chills down his spine.

  With Amy moaning in pain and Dovie calculating the time between contractions, he felt panic rising inside him. All four of them were already soaked to the skin. The only structure in the town where Amy wouldn’t have to lie on the floor was the church with its hard wooden pews, and with the two men supporting her, she managed to make her way inside. There were still some provisions from Richard’s stay in the town, including towels, blankets and pillows.

  Dovie cleaned a pew while Frank searched for anything else that might be of use. She and Wade helped Amy onto the pew, and then Dovie went off to give Frank a hand. Wade refused to leave Amy’s side. He hadn’t attended a single one of the birthing classes, and he didn’t know if he was helping or hindering, but she seemed to want him there, and God knew he had no intention of leaving her. Not then. Not ever.

  Again and again he counted the seconds as her body was gripped by contractions. Each one seemed to grow in length and intensity. He felt as if his heart would break at the agony she was suffering.

  Then Dovie returned with Frank, each of them carrying a tarpaulin and some other supplies. Rain pounded against the roof and leaked into the center of the church where lightning had once struck. It astonished him that the building had survived the wear and tear of the elements all these years.

  “Relax,” Frank advised, squeezing his shoulder. “Everything’s going to be fine.” He’d found a lantern—obviously left there by Richard—and lit it. The immediate warm glow filled the dim interior.

  “I’ll relax once I know everything’s all right with Amy,” Wade told the other man, too tense to do anything but worry.

  After maybe ten minutes, the rain stopped as suddenly as it’d come. Wade couldn’t remember seeing a cloud in the sky, and then all at once they’d been trapped in the middle of a torrent.

  Now that they’d made the decision to stay in Bitter End, it seemed fitting that Amy’s child be born in a church, even one as dilapidated as this. Someone had been inside recently, and he doubted it was Richard Weston. Probably Travis Grant. He and Nell were back from their honeymoon and apparently he’d made a number of research trips to the old town.

  “Is everything all right here?” Frank asked nervously. He pulled Wade aside, and Dovie took his place. Amy lay on a pew, a pillow beneath her head and as comfortable as they could make her.

  “As far as I know,” Wade assured him.

  Frank nodded abruptly. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “Where are you going now?” Dovie asked.

  “To the patrol car. I want to radio the office. Tell ’em what happened and where we are.”

  “I wish I’d thought to charge the batteries in my phone,” Dovie said with an apologetic expression.

  “So do I,” Frank muttered as he headed out of the church. “I’ll get Amy’s suitcase while I’m at it. We picked it up before we came out here.”

  Amy moaned, and Wade knelt down on the floor next to her.

  “Oh, Wade, it hurts so much,” she whimpered.

  “Do you want me to rub your back?” Dovie asked.

  “No…no.” Amy stretched out her hand to Wade.

  He clasped it in his own. Wanting to help as much as he could, he reached for the cool washcloth Dovie had brought in and wiped her brow.

  The pain seemed to ease and so did her fierce grip on his hand.

  “Have you ever delivered a baby?” Dovie asked him, looking paler by the minute.

  “No,” he said.

  “Me, neither.”

  “I’m not exactly a pro at this myself,” Amy said weakly in what he sensed was an effort to insert a bit of humor. A pain must have overtaken her again because she closed her eyes and started to moan.

  “Do something,” Wade pleaded with Dovie, who took her position by Amy’s feet.

  “The baby’s fully crowned,” Dovie whispered, glancing up at Wade.

&n
bsp; Amy’s answering smile was weak. “She’s coming, Dovie, she’s coming.” With that she began to bear down.

  “Pant!” Dovie instructed. “Pant.”

  Amy did, and Wade encouraged her with a stream of praise and reassurance.

  “The suitcase,” Dovie said. “We’ll need the suitcase.”

  “It’s in the car,” Wade remembered. “Why the hell isn’t Frank back? I’ll go get it.” He loosened his grip on Amy’s hand but she refused to release his.

  “No! Wade, Wade, please don’t leave me.”

  Wade met Dovie’s look.

  “I’ll go,” she said and hurried from the church.

  Wade held Amy’s hand against his heart. “I love you.”

  “I know. I love you, too. So much.” Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and rolled toward her ears. She sniffled once and started to moan again.

  “Wade!” she cried. “The baby’s coming!”

  A calmness came over him, and he moved to the end of the pew, taking Dovie’s role. The first thing he saw was a full head of wet dark hair. Amy panted, and the baby’s head slipped free. Wade supported the tiny head, which fit perfectly in his large hands. The baby’s small eyes were squeezed shut and she didn’t look the least bit pleased with this turn of events.

  It seemed that no time had passed before Dovie and Frank burst into the back of the church. Frank carried the suitcase.

  “We need a baby blanket,” Wade called.

  Frank knelt down and opened the suitcase, and Dovie rushed forward just as Amy gave a shout and half rose. As she did, the baby slid into Wade’s waiting arms. He gazed down at this perfectly formed miniature human being and experienced such a rush of love and joy it was all he could do not to break into sobs himself.

  “Is it a girl?” Amy asked, crying openly.

  “No, a boy,” Wade said as the infant wailed loudly. The cry pierced through the church and Wade swore it was the most beautiful sound he’d heard in his entire life.

  “An aid car’s on the way,” Frank told them. “I’m going to meet them by the highway.”

  “Go,” Dovie said, waving him off. She took the baby from Wade and wrapped him in a blanket, then handed the bundle to Wade, while she tended to Amy, who had delivered the after-birth.

  “A boy,” Amy said, half sitting to look at her son. Tears streaked her beautiful face.

  Tears of his own blurred his eyes as he stared down at the incredibly tiny being. The immediate sense of love he felt for this child was beyond comprehension. It took a real effort of will to hand him to his mother, but at last he laid the baby on her abdomen.

  Amy gazed upon her son and lovingly kissed his brow. “Welcome, little Joseph Gair.”

  The baby screamed as if he was protesting the rough treatment he’d already received from life.

  “Gair—that’s my middle name,” Wade choked out. It had been his grandfather’s first name.

  “Your mother told me.”

  Wade reached out his finger and Joseph immediately clenched it with his hand. The connection was one that would last all his life. Wade was sure of it.

  While Dovie finished with Amy, Wade sat at the far end of the pew holding Joseph. The child’s eyes opened briefly and he looked up at Wade in the soft light and stopped crying. Within a minute he was sound asleep.

  A boy. Not Sarah, but Joseph. “Sleep, darling boy, sleep,” Wade whispered and kissed his brow.

  “Is everything all right?” Amy asked, turning to see Wade and her son.

  “Perfect,” he whispered. “Perfect.”

  Tears glistened in Amy’s eyes, and he didn’t know how she knew what he was thinking, but she did. He saw it in her look, in everything about her.

  “Marry me,” he said softly.

  “Honestly, Amy, put that boy out of his misery and marry him,” Dovie pleaded.

  Wade could have kissed Dovie. He’d never been more convinced of anything than the rightness of marrying Amy and making Joseph his son. The moment the infant had entered life, he’d come into Wade’s hands—to guide, to love, to support. This was his son, born of his heart. This was the woman he would love and cherish all his life.

  “I love you so much,” Amy whispered.

  “Does that mean yes?”

  “Yes.” Her whispered response was half laugh and half sob.

  This was the way it was meant to be. Amy and Joseph and him, and whatever other children might be born in the years to come.

  “The aid car’s here,” Frank announced from the back of the church.

  “Already?” Dovie sounded as though she didn’t believe him.

  “It was dispatched earlier,” Frank said, walking toward them. “Apparently when we didn’t show up at the hospital, Jane called the office and they radioed ahead for an aid car.”

  “It might have helped if they’d arrived ten minutes earlier,” Dovie muttered.

  Wade knew better. The aid car had arrived right on schedule.

  AMY HAD NEVER SLEPT LIKE THIS. The hospital room was dark, and she sighed and smiled as she reviewed the events of the day before. It didn’t seem possible that she’d actually given birth in Bitter End. Things had gone crazy all at once, but she’d always be grateful for the way they’d happened. Otherwise Wade wouldn’t have been there, and she couldn’t imagine what Joseph’s birth would have been like without him at her side.

  If she’d ever doubted his love, he’d proved it ten times over in those few hours. She closed her eyes and recalled the incredible sense of rightness that she’d felt when she agreed to marry him. All her doubts and fears had melted away. Instinctively she knew it was what she had to do.

  All her reasons for declining earlier remained, but after Joseph’s birth, those reasons didn’t seem nearly as important. Her greatest fear was that she’d be a detriment to Wade and his commitment to his church. Wade deserved someone better. It was what she’d sincerely felt, but all that had changed when she realized how much Wade loved her and her child. How much she loved him.

  Content, she smiled, and for the first time noticed a shadow in the corner. Sitting upright, she saw Wade sprawled asleep in a chair. He’d stretched out his feet and slouched down, his arms flung over the sides.

  “Wade,” she whispered in astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

  He awoke immediately, saw her and smiled softly. Sitting up, he glanced around the room. “What time is it?”

  She looked for a clock but didn’t see one. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s 4:00 a.m.”

  “Have you been here all night?” she asked.

  “Guess so—it sure feels that way.” He rubbed the back of his neck and rotated the stiffness from his shoulders.

  “You must have been so uncomfortable.” Amy couldn’t believe that he’d been with her all this time.

  “I’ll live,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Starved,” she admitted.

  He stood and shook out his legs. “I’ll see what I can do about scrounging up something to eat.”

  “Don’t go,” she begged him and held out her hand.

  He walked over to her side and she lifted her arms to him. They kissed, and it was beautiful, sensual, intense. It felt good to be in his arms again, to recognize that sense of belonging.

  “How did you happen to spend the night?” she asked.

  She felt Wade’s smile against her face. “They let me into the nursery to help with Joseph. I was there, Amy, when they weighed and measured him and washed him for the first time. He doesn’t take to baths well.” He paused to smile and their eyes held a long moment.

  “Oh, Wade, I’m so happy.”

  “He’s a beautiful baby boy,” he told her.

  “I’m having a little trouble adjusting to the fact that Sarah’s a boy!”

  “He’s got a fine pair of lungs on him, too.”

  “I heard, remember?”

  “Dr. Jane was by, and Ellie and Gl
en stopped in, too, and there are quite a few floral arrangements. The nurses kept them by their station because they didn’t want to disturb your sleep.”

  “Everyone’s been so good to me.”

  “It’s because you’re loved.”

  Amy felt that love. It overwhelmed her that the people of Promise would be this kind. That they would accept a stranger the way they had.

  “Everyone was full of questions, too.”

  Amy could well imagine that.

  “I must have been asked a dozen times how you ended up giving birth in the ghost town.”

  “I guess people think it was foolish of me to go there so close to my due date.”

  “I don’t,” Wade countered. “I’m convinced it was exactly where we were supposed to be.”

  She smiled and understood what he was saying. There was a rightness to her being in Bitter End, as if all this had been ordained long before.

  Wade yawned loudly and covered his mouth.

  “You must be exhausted,” she said.

  “I am,” he told her. “It isn’t every day a man delivers a son and convinces a gal to marry him.”

  “I should hope not,” Amy said and kissed the back of his hand.

  CHAPTER 11

  “DOVIE,” FRANK CALLED, hurrying from room to room to search for his wife. He could hardly wait to tell her the latest about little Joe.

  “I’m in the garden.” Dovie’s melodic voice drifted into the house from the backyard.

  Frank walked onto the back patio to discover his wife picking ripe red tomatoes from her ever-abundant garden. She wore a large straw hat and, in his view, had never looked lovelier.

  “I saw Amy and Joseph this afternoon,” he said, then laughed at the immediate flash of envy he read in her eyes.

  “Frank Hennessey, why didn’t you come and get me?”

  “I would have, but it was a chance meeting. I’ll have you know that little tyke smiled at me.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Dovie, I swear it’s the truth. He looked up at me with his big, beautiful, brown eyes and grinned from ear to ear.”

  Dovie added a plump tomato to her basket. “He was probably pooping. He’s only two months old. That’s far too young to be grinning.”