What? Whatever she’d expected Adam to say, it hadn’t been that. “You want to hike the Appalachian Trail? Now?”
“Just part of it. It’ll only take about two weeks, and I think it’ll help clear my head, you know? I’ve already talked to Nana Cora, and she’s good with it because we’ll still have enough time to get married before the baby comes.”
“That’s cutting it kind of close, Adam.” The doctor’s warning sounded in her mind.
Any day now.
“It’s only for a couple of weeks, Nat. And then I’ll have to be boring and responsible for the rest of my life.”
Natalie felt a twinge of guilt. There sure wasn’t much left now of the carefree confidence that had attracted her to Adam in the first place.
She remembered the first time he’d walked into the diner. She’d been working the second leg of an exhausting double shift, and Adam had blown in like a refreshing breeze. He was just coming back from a white-water rafting trip, and he’d had a tattered backpack slung over one shoulder and a gigantic grin on his face. To Natalie’s tired eyes, he’d looked like freedom, romance and adventure all rolled up into one slightly rumpled guy. When he’d asked for her number, she’d broken her long-standing policy and written it down on a napkin.
Back then, she hadn’t had her faith to steady her, and she’d fallen for Adam too hard and too fast, blindly assuming that his feelings were keeping pace with hers. The situation they were in now was every bit as much her fault as his.
“All right,” she heard herself agreeing. “Two weeks.”
“Awesome.” A hint of the joy she remembered was in the word. “Nana Cora said you were going to wait on the farm. I left some food in the kitchen. Oh! I...uh...meant to clean that up, by the way. And there’s a goat out back. Some guy gave him to me for free, along with four bags of chow. He even threw in a few chickens... Look, Gary’s calling me. We’re planning to hit the trail first thing in the morning, so I’ve got to go. See you in two weeks, Nat.”
“Adam—” Natalie began, but he’d already hung up.
She sat there, holding the silent phone in her hand. So that was that. She was officially on her own for the next two weeks.
The baby shifted position, reminding her that she wasn’t really on her own anymore. She had somebody else to take care of now.
Which reminded her, she needed to eat something.
She went to inspect the contents of the refrigerator and the kitchen cupboards. The food Adam had mentioned seemed to be mostly potato chips and cheese puffs, but she finally managed to locate a fairly fresh loaf of bread and a half-empty jar of peanut butter.
The idea of eating in the dirty kitchen wasn’t very appealing, so she decided to take her sandwich outside. She could eat it while she checked out the rest of the farm.
She hadn’t realized how musty the house smelled until she stepped out the door into the fresh air. A brisk wind was blowing the last of the gray clouds away, and the sky arching over the farmyard was a sweet eggshell blue.
As she picked her way carefully through the overgrown grass, she startled five striped chickens, who squawked and flapped away. When she reached the barn, the shaggy goat with the patchy brown-and-black fur trotted up to his fence and bleated at her.
She stuck out a hesitant finger to stroke his satiny nose. He tipped up a bearded chin and nibbled lightly on her thumb before bleating again. Natalie peered into his pen. His water trough was half-full, but a battered tin pan sat empty by the fence.
“Are you hungry?” The goat made his sad noise again, so she offered him the last bite of her sandwich. He gobbled it up and looked at her expectantly.
He was hungry. Adam had mentioned some feed. Maybe it was in the barn. She pulled open the rough door and looked in. The building had a dirt floor and smelled damp. Natalie shuddered.
There was a second half-opened door to her right, and she thought she could see some yellow bags stacked inside a small room. She took a step in that direction.
Something scrabbled in the depths of the closet-like space, and she froze.
Please, Lord, don’t let that be a rat. I can’t handle a rat right now, not after the day I’ve had. I just can’t.
The goat cried out again, and she bit her lip. The poor thing was starving. Rat or not, she was going to have to get to that feed. Gathering her courage, she crossed the dirt floor and pulled the door to the room fully open.
Something flew up toward her face in a flurry of feathers and dust. She cried out and jumped backward, stumbling over a couple of rusty paint cans. She caught herself against a wooden post just before she fell, and she heard her dress rip as the fabric snagged on a protruding nail.
The escaping hen clucked loudly as it scurried out into the sunshine. Natalie stayed where she was, breathing hard and waiting for her hammering heart to slow down.
She was all right. It was just a chicken. She hadn’t fallen. The baby was fine.
“Bleaaah!”
The loud noise sounded right beside her, and she yelped in alarm. Rufus was standing in the cobweb-filled barn, looking at her with his weird golden eyes. How had he gotten out of his pen so fast?
“Bleaaah,” he bleated at her again.
“Shoo, Rufus. Go away!” The goat just tilted his head and watched her.
If she had some feed, she might be able to lure him back into his pen, but she really didn’t want to go into that spooky room. No telling what else was hiding in there. The chicken sure had been in a hurry to get out.
The feelings she’d been fighting off for hours swelled over her like a tidal wave. She was tired, her back hurt and she’d just ripped a hole in the only nice maternity dress she owned.
She was cornered in a spidery barn with a goat and scary chickens, and somehow she had to figure out how to take care of herself and these animals for the next two weeks on the forty dollars she had in her purse. And if the baby came early, she’d have to take care of him, too.
All by herself.
There was no way she could do this.
Natalie felt the sobs start from somewhere deep down, and this time she didn’t have enough strength to stop them. She leaned against the splintery post and cried her heart out while Rufus nibbled on the hem of her ruined dress.
* * *
The midday sun streamed through the stained glass windows of the Pine Valley Community Church sanctuary as the pianist began the last verse of the morning’s closing hymn. Jacob sang along with his congregation, profoundly relieved to see the worship hour come to a close.
He was anxious to get out to Lark Hill and check on Natalie Davis.
He’d spent a restless night imagining every kind of disaster that could possibly happen to a pregnant woman out at the old Larkey farm. It had turned out to be an impressive list. He never should have left Natalie out there alone, no matter what she said.
After pronouncing the benediction, he posted himself in his usual spot at the church entryway, prepared to offer handshakes and hugs as his church family filed past him. Today the line moved a lot more quickly than it usually did. Nobody seemed to want to linger and chat, and normally friendly people were having a hard time meeting his eyes. In fact, he noticed that several members slipped out the side door without speaking to him at all.
Something was definitely up with his little flock. But what?
He hadn’t had a chance to check in with Arlene before the service, so he’d have to wait to find out. Arlene would know what was going on. She always did.
The arrival of four-year-old Katie Barker was a welcome distraction. Completely unaffected by the tension around her, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek as soon as he crouched down within her range.
“This is for you, Pastor,” she announced, handing him a dampish mound of green clay with various lumps sticking out if it. “I made it in Sunday s
chool. It’s the turtle from Noah’s ark.”
“I can see that,” Jacob fibbed with a smile. “Wow. And you made it for me?”
“No, I made it for my daddy, but one of its legs fell off and Tommy Anderson stepped on it and smushed it before I could stick it back on. I’m going to make Daddy a better turtle, and you can have this one. Because you’re nobody’s daddy, and a three-legged turtle is better than no turtle at all.”
The few church members still within earshot chuckled, and Katie’s mother flushed bright pink. Jacob offered the flustered woman a reassuring smile before turning his attention back to the little girl.
“That’s true, Katie-bug. I don’t have anybody to make me turtles, so I’m extra glad to have this one. I’ll put it in my office so I can see it every day.” He’d add it to the collection of Vacation Bible School crafts and Sunday school projects that Arlene was always pestering him to throw away.
His secretary was wasting her breath because he planned to hang on to every lopsided Popsicle stick and faded scrap of construction paper on that shelf. Katie Barker had summed up why with the artless truthfulness of a preschooler. Three-legged turtles were better than no turtles at all.
Arlene, as usual, had stationed herself at the tail end of the line. She didn’t bother to comment on his sermon. She never did. “When you preach a bad one, I’ll let you know,” she’d told him once.
He believed her.
“That piano needs tuning,” his secretary informed him, riffling through her black purse for her car keys. “I’ll set it up tomorrow morning.” She scanned Jacob’s face with narrowed eyes. “You don’t look so well. I sure hope you haven’t caught that flu Good Shepherd’s passing around.” She snorted. “Isn’t that just like those folks? You go do them a favor, and what do they give you in return? Germs!”
Jacob rolled his eyes. Pine Valley Community and Good Shepherd had a long-standing, mostly amicable rivalry that had started on the softball field and which Arlene tended to take a little too seriously. And she wasn’t the only one in his congregation who felt that way. Maybe it was time for him to give his We’re All on the Same Team sermon.
Again.
“I’m fine, Arlene. Just tired. Listen, how much money do we have in our benevolence fund right now?”
“I don’t know exactly.” The concern in Arlene’s expression shifted to suspicion. “I’d have to check. Jacob, this doesn’t have anything to do with what happened at that wedding yesterday, does it? Because that poor bride is Good Shepherd’s problem, not ours.”
“I don’t think she’s a member there, and anyway, I was the minister present when everything went to pieces. I feel responsible for her.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.” His secretary glanced warily in the direction of the door. She waited until the last members of the congregation were safely out of earshot before speaking again. “And I’ll tell you this—after missing that meeting yesterday, the very last thing you need to do is start doling out our benevolence money to somebody who isn’t even a member of our church.”
“Was Digby that upset?”
“He wasn’t upset at all, which was far worse, I can assure you. He spent the entire meeting hounding the church board about that fellowship hall. He’s won over three more of the members. You know what that means.”
Jacob’s heart sank. He knew, all right. If it came to the floor now, the fellowship hall approval was only one vote shy of going through.
“And that’s not the half of it. Digby brought up that nephew of his at least four times. He’s graduated from seminary now, and what’s worse, he’s gotten married! Digby was passing the wedding photos all around the conference table.”
Jacob started to chuckle, but he caught a glimpse of Arlene’s expression and cleared his throat instead. He’d never seen her this upset before, not even on that Wednesday evening last summer when a bat had blundered into the sanctuary and started dive-bombing the senior ladies’ prayer meeting.
“What’s wrong with the nephew’s wife?”
“Nothing! That’s the problem. She’s everything a minister’s wife should be. The girl’s a pianist, and her parents are missionaries. I’m telling you, it could hardly be any worse.” His secretary glared at him suspiciously. “This isn’t the least bit funny, Jacob. It was plain as day that Digby’s angling to put his nephew in your place, and if you don’t stop worrying about other churches’ jilted brides and focus on your own problems, you may very well find yourself looking for another job!”
Chapter Four
Thanks to Arlene, it was nearly one thirty when Jacob finally drove up Lark Hill’s rutted driveway. No battered Jeep was in sight, so the runaway groom must not have returned. Natalie was nowhere to be seen, either. She was probably inside resting with her feet up, or doing whatever else pregnant women were supposed to do, he told himself. That was most likely why the place looked so empty.
Still, he quickened his step as he mounted the shaky porch. He knocked firmly. “Natalie? It’s Jacob Stone.”
He had to knock twice before he heard her coming down the hall. When she finally opened the door, his heart lifted with sweet relief.
Natalie Davis was just fine.
She looked good, actually. Her brown hair was swept away from her face in a simple ponytail, and she was dressed in a blue-and-white-striped maternity top with matching pants. She’d folded the sleeves back over her elbows, and she clutched a damp rag in one hand. Even though the April afternoon was unseasonably chilly, there was a faint sheen of perspiration on her face, and she smelled like freshly sliced lemons.
She didn’t, however, look very happy to see him. “Hi.” The polite smile she offered him didn’t quite reach her eyes.
He gave her his warmest one in return and hoped for the best. “Hi! I’m glad to see you survived the night.” He made the comment lightly, but he meant every word of it. He wasn’t about to leave Natalie out here alone again, not without setting some sensible safeguards in place.
Which was going to be difficult if he couldn’t even make it past the door. “Do you have time for a quick visit?”
She bit her lip. “I’m...kind of busy right now. I’m cleaning.”
Nice try, but during his time as a minister, Jacob had charmed his way past more doors than he could count. “Really? I’d love to see how the place is shaping up. I won’t get in your way.” He smiled again. “Scout’s honor.”
Natalie hesitated another few seconds. Then she sighed and opened the door. “All right.” She poked her head out onto the porch and scanned the yard. “You’d better come in quick, though. That Rufus goat was out of his pen this morning, and he seems to want to come in the house. He was at the back door just a minute ago, but he can be really fast when he wants to be.”
So could Jacob. He was inside before Natalie could change her mind.
Things at Lark Hill had definitely improved. The living room had been dusted, and an aqua-and-silver vacuum cleaner, the kind with a long hose attached to a round wheeled tub, sat in the middle of the floor. It looked ancient, but it must have worked because everything was a lot cleaner. She’d taken down the dingy curtains, and sunlight sparkled through the bare windows, casting golden rectangles on the floorboards.
“You really have been cleaning.” It came out like an accusation. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She glanced up at him, her eyes startled wide. They were clear and bright today, and just the color of the spicy amber tea his grandmother had always brewed at Christmastime.
“I don’t like dirt,” she answered simply, “and anyway, I’m just using plain old dish soap and water. That’s not going to hurt anything.”
As Natalie led the way into the kitchen, Jacob halted in the doorway, stunned.
The litter of trash had vanished. The worn countertops and appliances shone, and the chipped enamel sink was empty of
dishes. A raggedy broom leaned against one corner, the peeling linoleum floor was neatly swept and a bowl of sudsy water sat on the table. The lemony scent was strong in here. She must have been in the middle of scrubbing when he knocked.
This kitchen had been a complete disaster yesterday, but now it felt homier than his own bachelor apartment. Jacob shook his head slowly.
Women were amazing creatures.
But still... “I really don’t think you should be working this hard.”
She laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. “Don’t worry about me. I’m used to hard work.” She pulled out one of the chairs and lowered herself into it slowly.
He dragged out a second chair and joined her at the table. “I’m guessing Adam didn’t come back.”
“No, but he called.” Avoiding his eyes, Natalie dipped the rag into the bowl, wrung it out and busied herself scrubbing at a spot on the table. “He’s coming back in two weeks. I’m going to stay here in the meantime and get things ready.”
So the wedding was still on. Supposedly. But in Jacob’s opinion, the rest of that plan was definitely a nonstarter. “You can’t stay way out here on your own for that long in your condition. You don’t even have a working car.”
For a second or two, her rag stilled. Then she tightened her lips and began scrubbing even harder. “I’ll be fine.”
Jacob considered the stubborn set of Natalie’s jaw with a sinking feeling. From the look of things, unless he was prepared to manhandle an extremely pregnant woman out of this house and into his truck, there wasn’t much he could do.
But he had to do something.
He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts until he found the one he was looking for. Two rings later, his call was answered.
“Hey, Mike. Listen, I need a favor. There’s a car parked over by the Sunset Motel on Highway 36. Do you think you could tow it back to your garage and get it running?”
“What are you doing?” Natalie had straightened up in her chair, the dripping rag forgotten in her hand. She shook her head at him furiously, her ponytail swinging.
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