A Mother's Gift (Love Inspired)

by James, Arlene

  But what did it mean?

  The man in my dream had no doubt. He actually asked me to marry him on our first date. I actually agreed! Thirty-three years ago.

  God is so good!

  God bless,

  THE MOMMY WISH

  Kathryn Springer

  To every woman who was once a little girl who loved horses (you know who you are!)

  Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

  —Psalms 37: 3, 4

  Chapter One

  “What do you mean there’s a glitch? What kind of glitch? I’m supposed to sign the paperwork on Monday!”

  Julia Windham rose to her feet so abruptly that the chair she’d been sitting on started to tip over. Her fingers curled around the wooden spindles—an attempt to steady not only the chair but the sudden, uneven skip of her heart.

  “Please sit down, Julia. I’ll try to explain what happened.” The thread of tension in Lucy Robertson’s cheerful, customer-friendly voice hinted that she wasn’t looking forward to the task.

  Julia’s gaze shifted from the Realtor to the bay window over her kitchen sink instead. On the opposite side of the pasture, the moss-covered roof of a house peeked through the trees. And a ribbon of gray smoke unfurled from the top of the stone chimney.

  She turned accusing eyes on the woman seated at the kitchen table. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that the…the glitch…is there?”

  In my house, she wanted to add.

  The only thing that prevented her from saying the words out loud was the knowledge that the house didn’t belong to her yet. But it would. By ten o’clock on Monday morning.

  Glitch or no glitch.

  When Lucy had called earlier that morning and asked if she could stop by for a few minutes, Julia had assumed it was to talk about the closing. She hadn’t even thought it strange that the Realtor had chosen a Saturday morning to go over the final details. The town of Clear Springs, Wisconsin, was so small and full of down-home charm that it wasn’t unusual for people to discuss business over a cup of coffee at the diner rather than in an office building.

  That cozy, everyone-knows-your-name way of life was one of the reasons Julia chose to live outside the city limits.

  She took a restless lap around the room while she waited for Lucy to deny it.

  Except that Lucy didn’t deny it.

  “I know this is going to come as bit of a shock, Julia.” The Realtor sighed. “When you and I spoke on the phone after the attorney called and said that I should list the Kramer property, I had to go out of town for a few days. I left my…ah, mother…in charge of things. I did mention that I’d hired her part-time, didn’t I?”

  Julia vaguely remembered that she had. But if she weren’t mistaken, Lucy had also mentioned that although Irma Robertson had recently obtained her real-estate license, her duties would be limited to answering the phone and scheduling showings.

  “I think so. But you told Irma that I had already made a verbal commitment to buy the property, didn’t you?”

  The twin spots of color that tinted Lucy’s cheeks answered the question. “I was only going to be gone a few days. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell her that you’ve always had a standing interest in the Kramer place.”

  “And now someone else is interested.”

  Unfortunately, Lucy didn’t deny that, either.

  “The day after I left, someone called and said he was looking for a house in the country. I hadn’t even bothered to log the property into the computer, but when Mom was still on the phone with him, she spotted the notes I’d jotted down. She saw a new listing and a potential buyer and decided it was…”

  “A chance to prove herself.” Julia finished the sentence when Lucy’s voice trailed off.

  “No.” The Realtor shifted uncomfortably. “Divine intervention.”

  “Divine intervention.” Julia repeated the words in disbelief.

  “You know Mom.” Lucy’s shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “She doesn’t believe in coincidences.”

  Julia wanted to argue that from where she stood, the situation seemed more like a cosmic joke than divine intervention. Especially given the fact that she and God hadn’t been on speaking terms for a long time.

  She couldn’t believe this was happening. When Lucy had called with the news that Zach Kramer’s only surviving relative had finally decided to sell the house next door, she’d been thrilled.

  And now some…outsider…wanted to buy it.

  What Julia couldn’t figure out was why.

  The acreage itself wasn’t anything to get excited about—a small notch of land near the creek that bordered Julia’s property. Tangled skeins of wild grapevine wove through the branches of the oak trees that circled the unkempt yard. The changing seasons had gradually taken their toll on the clapboard farmhouse, whittling away at it until only a glimpse of its original charm remained.

  Did the person interested in buying it want to turn the house into a weekend retreat? Or fix it up and resell it for a profit?

  Neither possibility set well with Julia.

  “The client drove up and took a look at it….” Lucy paused and a shiver of unease skated down Julia’s spine.

  Every time Lucy paused, the situation got more complicated. And Julia didn’t need complicated.

  “So Irma gave him permission to spend the night there?” she guessed. “Is that something you let prospective buyers do now? Try out the property before they buy it?”

  “Prospective buyers, no.” Lucy studied the lace tablecloth as if she’d never seen one before. “Buyers…yes. The paperwork was signed an hour before I got back into town late yesterday afternoon. The property officially belongs to a man named Nick Delaney now.”

  “Wind River Farm. Does our farm have a name, Dad? Can we give it one?”

  Nick Delaney suppressed a smile as he turned down the paved driveway just beyond the weathered sign Beth had spotted. If he could only figure out a way to bottle and distribute his ten-year-old daughter’s enthusiasm, he’d be a multimillionaire.

  “I don’t see why we can’t. Although it’s not really a farm.”

  “Not yet.” Beth bounced on the seat, her lively gaze taking in the scenery around them. “But it will be.”

  “How about you and I move in first? Before we start collecting animals like Noah?”

  “Or we could all move in at the same time.”

  “Come to think of it, the house does have a unique, country odor.” Nick couldn’t resist teasing her a little. “The animals should feel right at home in our living room.”

  “The house smells great.” Beth smiled blissfully, as if she’d spent the night in a four-star hotel rather than a drafty farmhouse. “Everything is great. I can’t wait for Granna Claire to see it. She’s been praying that we would find just the right house. And we did.”

  Nick hoped his mother would feel the same way when she got her first glimpse of the place that Irma Robertson, the woman who had given them an official tour of the place, had cheerfully referred to as “a handyman’s dream.”

  To most people, it probably looked more like a nightmare.

  “Do you think Ms. Windham will like the brownies I made for her?”

  Another bounce. Another question. He’d been peppered with them from the moment Beth poked her head out of the sleeping bag that morning. Only this time, Nick wasn’t sure how to answer.

  The garrulous Irma Robertson, who’d provided him with brief but thorough background information on most of the residents of Clear Springs, had become strangely evasive when Nick had inquired about their closest neighbor. The only thing she’d said was that Julia Windham lived alone and “kept to herself.”

  Nick filled in the blanks, understanding it to mean that the elderly woman preferred to be left alone. Unfortunately, it hadn’t translated the same way to his outgoing daughter.

  While
Nick had spent the majority of the morning taking an inventory of the repairs the house would need, Beth had been busy, too.

  She’d added a box of brownie mix to the cart when they’d made a quick trip to Clear Springs to pick up a few groceries the night before. And his daughter had quickly set him straight about who was going to reap the fruit of her labor. When he reached for the pan cooling on the scarred Formica counter, she had informed him the brownies were for Ms. Windham.

  A “welcome to the neighborhood” gift.

  Nick didn’t want to point out that since they were the ones who were new to the neighborhood, it made more sense that they be on the receiving end of dessert.

  But he’d given in, because generosity—like flossing—was another important quality that Claire Delaney had encouraged in her granddaughter. It was up to him to keep the torch lit.

  As a single dad, Nick had come to rely on his mother’s wisdom and experience. She’d braved the shopping malls for school clothes in the fall and organized Beth’s annual birthday parties. Her sense of humor and deep faith had helped smooth out the rough spots after Liz died.

  Nick had finally given up trying to repay his mother because he didn’t think he could. The opportunity, however, had unexpectedly presented itself on Christmas Eve. A widower named Robert Owens had been visiting their church and happened to sit next to them during the fellowship time after services.

  Nick figured it was the first time in Claire Delaney’s life that she had deliberately ignored someone. Which told him more than anything how impressive the man had been to his mother.

  It also gave him an opportunity to do what any good son would for the mother who had put her life on hold for eight years in order to make his a little easier.

  He and Beth had invited Robert over for dinner.

  Robert had accepted the invitation. And the next. In fact, the retired surgeon wisely had accepted every dinner invitation that followed until he’d won Claire over.

  It hadn’t taken long. A month ago, Nick had walked his mother down the aisle. Beth had been the maid of honor.

  Before she had left for her honeymoon cruise, Mom had ambushed him, suggesting that maybe it was time for him to make a new start, too. At first, Nick had rejected the advice.

  A new start? He was doing fine. He and Beth were both doing fine.

  But she’d made him promise that he would pray about it.

  In a roundabout way, the answer to that prayer was the reason he and Beth had ended up trading a two-bedroom condo in the Windy City for a fixer-upper that looked as if it belonged on the set of Green Acres.

  “Look at her barn!” Beth squealed. “It’s huge.”

  From the expression on his daughter’s face, Nick could tell she was trying to determine just how many horses a barn that size could hold.

  As they pulled up to the house, the curtains in the window drifted shut. It occurred to Nick that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to drop in unannounced on an elderly woman who lived alone on an isolated country road.

  “Beth, why don’t we—” Come back another time, he was going to say. After they’d called first.

  “Get the brownies, Dad!” His daughter had unbuckled her seat belt and was already scrambling out of the car.

  By the time Nick had closed the car door, Beth was halfway up the flagstone walkway that led to the front door.

  Because it was tucked away in the sheltering circle of a stand of oak trees, Nick hadn’t realized the house was so big.

  Or so imposing.

  His gaze moved from the stately two-story brick home to the L-shaped barn farther down the driveway. Several outbuildings fanned out around it, all of them painted an identical shade of brick-red and trimmed in white. Flower boxes lined the multipaned windows of an oversize shed, ready for spring planting.

  There was an understated elegance to everything. In fact, it looked more like a country estate than a farmhouse. And it was a far cry from the house that he and Beth were going to call home.

  Nick resisted the sudden urge to check for a servants’ entrance at the back.

  By the time he reached Beth’s side, she’d enthusiastically tried out the bronze door-knocker several times.

  She frowned up at him. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”

  “That’s all right.” Nick tried to hide his relief. It was probably better this way. “We can leave the brownies on the porch with a note.”

  “But her dog might eat them.”

  “I didn’t see a dog.”

  “Neither did I, but she has to have one. It’s a farm, Dad.”

  Nick knew there was no point in arguing. Beth firmly believed that everyone who lived in the country would have as many animals as possible. Just because they could.

  “Fine. I’ll find a safe place for them while you run back to the car and write Ms. Windham a note. There’s paper in the glove compartment.”

  Beth looked disappointed but darted back to the car to carry out her part of the mission.

  While Nick tried to decide the best place to keep the pan of brownies away from a dog that may or may not exist, the front door opened.

  A woman stepped onto the porch but she wasn’t the elderly neighbor Nick was expecting to see.

  Not even close.

  This woman was in her mid to late twenties. Tall and slender, her cap of honey-blond hair framed delicate features—sculpted cheekbones, a small, straight nose and a pair of stunning, violet-blue eyes.

  Nick blinked.

  Because the cool look in those stunning, violet-blue eyes made him sorry he hadn’t checked for that servants’ entrance.

  “I’m…We’re looking for Julia Windham. I’m Nick Delaney.” He extended his hand. “My daughter, Beth, and I are moving into the house down the road. We wanted to stop by and introduce ourselves.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she touched her fingers to his in the barest of handshakes before quickly pulling her hand away.

  “I’m Julia Windham.”

  Chapter Two

  Nick Delaney.

  Moving into the house down the road.

  Julia barely had time to connect those two shocking pieces of information when the petite, redheaded whirlwind she’d seen from the window skidded up to them.

  “I’m Beth Delaney.” The girl grinned up at her. “We thought you’d be old. Dad and I were just about to leave the brownies on the porch. I didn’t want to because I thought your dog might eat them. Chocolate isn’t good for dogs, you know. Dad’s a veterinarian so I know all kinds of things about animals….”

  “Brownies?” Julia slipped in the question when Beth Delaney paused to take a breath. She was trying to make sense out of the “we thought you’d be old” comment when another one registered. “Dog? I don’t have a dog.”

  Disappointment clouded Beth Delaney’s big brown eyes for a moment. “Cats?” Her tone was hopeful.

  “No. No cats, either.” Julia fought the strangest urge to apologize.

  “But you have horses, right? We saw the barn.”

  Julia sucked in a breath. Funny how one simple question possessed the power to pierce her defenses and scrape against a wound that had never completely healed.

  She shook her head. “No horses.”

  “But this is a farm.” Beth looked confused. “I saw the sign by the driveway. Wind River Farm. All farms have animals. Dad said I could name our farm…unless it has a name already. Do you know if it has a name?”

  Julia took a step backward. Toward the safety of the house. She shouldn’t have answered the door. When she’d heard the car pull up and saw the little girl jump out of the passenger side, Julia had assumed she was involved in some sort of school fundraiser.

  If she’d had any inkling the vehicle belonged to her new neighbors, she would have followed her first instinct and ignored the enthusiastic pounding on the front door.

  Julia stole a glance at the girl’s father and then quickly looked away.

  She’d thought the
situation with the house was a major complication but Nick Delaney could very well fall under a whole separate category.

  They had expected her to be old? Well, the Delaneys hadn’t been the only ones guilty of making false assumptions.

  Julia’s imagination had created a picture of the man who had snapped up what was supposed to have been her land and it had been what the locals referred to as a “weekend warrior.” A middle-aged man in Bermuda shorts and a polo shirt—holding a chain saw in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.

  Nick Delaney, with his tousled sable-brown hair, jade-green eyes and ruggedly masculine features, fit the warrior part of the equation, at least.

  That was what was so unsettling.

  Not only did he possess traffic-stopping good looks but he also had the appealing aura of a man who didn’t seem to know he possessed traffic-stopping good looks. If someone found that quality appealing. Which Julia didn’t.

  “Does our farm have a name?” Beth repeated the question, tilting her head in a curious way that reminded Julia of the chickadees that visited the bird feeder outside her kitchen window every morning.

  “I don’t think so,” Julia murmured. “Everyone around here calls it the old Kramer place.”

  Beth’s freckled nose pleated. “It’s too pretty for that name. After Dad and I fix it up it’ll look even better. We stayed there last night, and next Saturday we’re going to bring the rest of our stuff.”

  “You’re going to live there?” The words spilled out before Julia could stop them and her eyes flew to the girl’s father. “I thought…when Lucy Robertson said you were from Chicago, I assumed you would be spending weekends there. Or maybe fixing it up in order to resell it.”

  “No—we’re here for the long haul.” Nick Delaney sounded way too cheerful about it. “I accepted a partnership with Dr. Blake.”

  “I see.” Julia braced one hand against the doorjamb. She vaguely remembered hearing a rumor that Thomas Blake, the small-animal vet, was planning to retire soon, but most people had assumed his son would return to Clear Springs and take over his practice.