He heard her footsteps, but when her visage appeared in the mirror, he dropped his razor in the bowl and spun around.
“Ellen! What’s wrong? You look—”
She raised a trembling hand to her temple. “N-nothing at all is wrong.” Then she buckled at the knees and toppled into his arms. “I’m just…dizzy. I just talked to Uncle James. Too much excitement, I guess.”
Jess laid her on the double bed in the master bedroom, and she obediently drank the cup of cool water he pressed to her lips.
“I’m the one who’s excited,” he whispered, smoothing her forehead. “Never been married before. It will be a first for me.”
Tears swam in her blue eyes. She reached up to touch the back of her knuckles to his still-foamy cheek. “It will be a first for me as well, my darling. I have never had a baby before.”
The wedding at noon that day was a dignified yet quietly festive affair. Townspeople from both Willow Flat and Partridge crowded around the freshly painted gazebo, so delicate and airy it looked like a cake decoration made of white frosting.
Millie Shonski exclaimed over the climbing pink rose Jess had woven through the white lath structure. He’d spent an entire morning digging it up from beside Ellen’s barn and replanting it in the front yard of the house on Markley Lane. Ellen had wept at his gesture, and Jess had spent the afternoon comforting her under their favorite cherry tree.
Caroline Svensen, along with Emma Knowles and Alta Vining, oohed and aahed over Ellen’s pale blue wedding dress. The shirred bodice and long sleeves were accented with darker blue braid that matched her eyes, and the overskirt was caught up with a strategically positioned ivory brooch.
“Oh, Ellen,” Caroline breathed. “You look so…so beautiful. So happy. So…”
“In love,” Millie finished for her.
Oh, yes, Ellen acknowledged with a smile. In love and blissfully happy. Happier than she could ever remember.
A clean-shaven Jess looked distinguished in dark trousers and jacket and a pin-striped blue shirt. After a few moments the justice of the peace stepped out of the crowd and took his place before the couple in the gazebo.
Ellen’s eyes fed on Jess. Tall and lean beside her, he emanated the strength and confidence of a man in control of his destiny.
“You are my destiny,” he had said just last evening. But she knew there would be more—his medical practice. The book he was writing about the War between the States. His cherry orchard, that wonderful shaded private hideaway where she had lately learned so much about love.
“Urges,” Iona would call them.
She felt Jess’s breath on her cheek. “Pay attention, honey. We’re getting married now.”
The justice of the peace, in a formal pin-striped suit, gently turned them to face their guests, and joined their two hands together.
“Do you, Jason Alexander Flint, take Ellen to be your wedded wife?”
The rest of the words faded, but Ellen felt Jess gently squeeze her hand when he answered. The wave of sweet, sharp joy that washed through her made her light-headed.
“Do you, Ellen Jean Taylor O’Brian, take…”
She went boneless from the ankles up, and sank into Jess’s arms.
“Yes,” she pronounced woozily against his neck. “Yes, I most certainly do!”
Amusement rippled through the gathered wedding guests, just loud enough to cover the satisfied laughter of Dr. Flint as he ministered to his dearly beloved.
“Wake up and finish marrying me, honey,” he said in a voice so low only she could hear. “It takes two to raise a baby.”
Then the new doctor in town kissed his wife, grinned down at her in pure delight and kissed her once more.
Dr. James Callahan wiped perspiration off the back of his neck, then surreptitiously mopped at the tears in his eyes. After a slight hesitation, he stuffed the handkerchief back into his vest pocket and took three purposeful steps forward. “Iona,” he murmured to the petite woman standing there.
Iona looked at him with tear-flooded gray eyes. “James?”
He said nothing else, just wrapped his arms around her and kissed her soundly on the mouth.
Epilogue
“Push, Ellen!”
“I am pushing!” she said through gritted teeth.
“Keep pushing!”
Ellen lifted her head from the sweat-soaked pillow. “If you say that word again, Jess, I’ll scream.”
“I—”
Ellen’s guttural shout cut him off. When the contraction eased, he bent to wipe her forehead, then ran the cool cloth over his own sweaty face and neck.
“You know,” she panted, “I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you.”
“The same goes for me,” Jess murmured.
Another contraction hit, and she snapped her jaw shut.
“One more, honey. I can see the baby’s head.”
“What—what color is the hair?” She yelled then, and kept yelling until Jess thought he’d go crazy. Then the baby slipped unexpectedly into his trembling hands. “Oh, look at him!”
“Him?” Ellen tried to sit up so she could see, but sank back on the pillows with an exhausted but satisfied sigh.
“Her,” he corrected.
“Quick, tell me, Jess—is she all right? What does she look like?”
Jess lowered the infant into the waiting basin of warm water and began to carefully sponge the soft pink skin. “She’s got red hair,” he said in an awed voice. “She…she looks like my mother!”
“Let me see her. My mother had red hair as well.”
Jess laid the warm bundle in Ellen’s arms. “Oh,” she breathed. “I don’t care who she looks like, she’s beautiful!” Ellen looked up. “Perhaps we could name her Jenny Rose. My mother’s name.”
“Grace,” Jess countered. “Grace Noelle Flint.”
“Maybe Jenny Grace?”
“How about Noelle Rose?”
“Jenny Noelle Grace Rose,” Ellen said softly. “I think she will like that. She’s going to be a wonderful child with four names and that red hair.”
Author’s Note
The adventures of Jenny Rose Flint would fill another book.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-2980-8
LONER’S LADY
Copyright © 2006 by The Woolston Family Trust
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