by Merry Farmer
“For Faith,” he explained, lowering his voice. “I think…I think she’s mixed up in something…strange. She all but admitted it to me in the car just a second ago. But she says she doesn’t want to stop, that it’s the only thing that makes her feel special.”
Doc seemed to catch on that the matter was serious. He shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “Is it something illegal?”
Cooper’s first instinct was to answer yes. He caught sight of the Culpepper Police Station over Doc’s shoulder and had second thoughts. There was a jail in that station, and it would eat him up to have to visit his wife there. And besides, there was still a chance this was all being done with the consent of the mothers of Culpepper, although why any woman would give up her baby was beyond him.
“I don’t think it’s illegal,” he said at length, sighing as the weight of what could be a lie settled on his shoulders. “But it sure isn’t normal.”
“What is it?” Doc asked.
Loathe to tell him, Cooper looked over his shoulder at the post office instead. Faith and Nancy were still chatting away. Both women wore smiles. Faith looked downright transformed.
That couldn’t be good.
Before he could ask any more questions or tell Doc something to get him to let the matter drop, Faith and Nancy came out of the post office, heading for the truck and another load of baby boxes.
“You ladies need any more help?” Doc asked, his smile settling particularly on Nancy.
“We’ve got it,” Nancy beamed back. “Actually, I’m going to be helping Faith’s business here a lot more in the near future.”
Cooper’s eyes widened. They closed to narrow slits as Faith and Nancy carried another load of boxes into the post office. Now the reporter woman was helping Faith too? What was wrong with women these days?
“She’s nice,” Doc said, still grinning like a teenage boy.
“Is she?”
“Yeah. She’s got this little, black sedan that she drove all the way here from Kentucky. It can’t handle some of the more rugged roads around here. She popped a tire the other day, and since I was on my way back from the Gilroy farm, I stopped to change it for her.”
“That’s mighty neighborly of you.” Cooper wasn’t sure if he should continue to chat with his friend or follow Faith and her new accomplice into the post office to break up the baby ring, or if he should just stand there and cry.
“Well, I told her that next time she plans to drive that kind of distance, she should take a rental car,” Doc went on. “She said that was a good idea, actually, because then she could do whatever she wanted with the car and it wouldn’t come back on her.”
Doc chuckled.
Cooper’s blood ran cold. He had a bad feeling he’d just figured out what Faith and Nancy had been talking about, how Nancy was going to help Faith’s business. He’d wondered how the babies would actually be transported to their new mothers. Well, now he had a bad feeling that he knew.
8
Running into Nancy Tilson at the Culpepper post office and chatting with her for a few minutes went a long way to making Faith feel better about things. Nancy was eager to do a story about That’s My Baby going from a hobby to a national sensation. She promised she would treat the story with all the sensitivity it deserved so that when Faith’s parents read it, they would be proud instead of enraged. If her parents could be proud of their daughter doing something other than getting married and being a good wife. Luckily, Nancy knew what that kind of upbringing was like and promised to feature her marriage—the marriages of all the Quinlan Quads—as part of the story. If Cooper was okay with that.
Cooper. Faith sighed and slumped as she sat on the edge of the bathtub in Linda’s master bathroom. She still had to figure out how to tell Cooper everything, only now he was acting really strange.
“Cheer up.” Chastity sat next to her and shoulder-bumped her. “I know we’re just taking these pregnancy tests on principle, but I’m willing to put money on the fact that you’re preggers.”
Faith rolled her eyes mournfully. “I seriously doubt it.”
“Well, one of us needs to be before the end of the year for the guys to keep the ranch,” Joy said. She leaned against the counter, arms crossed, glancing down to the three pregnancy test sticks that rested on a hand-towel beside the sink. They’d all taken advantage of the daycare’s naptime to zip into the bathroom to do what they’d pledged to do once a month until all four of them were pregnant.
A moment later, the toilet flushed and Hope came out of the closed-off toilet room, her pregnancy test in hand. Faith thanked heaven Linda had one of those bathrooms with the toilet in its own little closet. She loved her sisters, but watching them pee on a stick wasn’t her idea of a good time. They, at least, had the ability to get a positive result. She was doomed to sit there waiting for her negative to tell her what she already knew.
Hope handed her test over to Joy with flushed cheeks and a downward glance. Joy smiled as she took it, checked the oval where the results would appear, and lined it up with the others.
“So this Nancy chick,” Chastity went on. “She really thinks the business is worth doing a story about?”
“She’s from a newspaper in Louisville?” Joy added before Faith could answer.
“Yes and yes.” Faith sighed.
“So why are you depressed about it?” Hope leaned against the toilet door, deliberately turned away from where the pregnancy tests were developing.
“I haven’t told Cooper about the business yet.”
Her sisters gaped at her. Chastity shook her head. “You’re nuts, you know. I mean, failing to mention your successful business at the beginning is one thing and can be explained by all the stuff that was going on to fulfill the will.”
“Yeah, now it’s just weird,” Joy agreed.
Faith chewed her lip. “I know. The problem is, now Cooper is acting weird too.”
“Cooper?” Hope stood straighter. “Why would he act weird?”
“I don’t know.” Faith spread her hands. “He’s been extra attentive to me lately. He wants to spend more time with me, wants to do things like give me backrubs or do…well, things I’m not going to talk about, even with my sisters.” Even though he pretty much knew that she couldn’t have babies. The awkward conversation they’d had in the truck at the post office came back to her, and her face flared hot with shame.
The other three laughed, and Chastity nodded knowingly.
“Cooper keeps trying to get me to talk about Mama and Daddy and growing up…almost like…” She tilted her head to the side as she reviewed some of the things he’d asked and said recently. “Almost like he’s trying to be my therapist or something.”
“If a man wants you to talk about his feelings with him, I wouldn’t question it too much.” Joy chuckled.
“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to think that he’s got problems of his own, you know?” Faith went on. “I mean his thing about keeping everything on schedule has gotten downright strange. He makes sure I get up with him, and then practically marches me out to the workshop and encourages me to ‘do my sculpture,’ as he says it.”
“Well, there you go.” Hope pushed away from the wall, taking a step closer to her. “If he’s encouraging you to work on the dolls, he probably already knows about the business.”
“That’s just the thing.” Faith’s frown deepened as she puzzled over all the things in her life that didn’t make sense. “I could have sworn he knew everything that day we went to the post office.” Absolutely everything. The dolls and the consequences of being around all the electricity and radiation of her kiln. “But then…I asked if he wanted to see one of the dolls, and he went on and on about Raggedy Ann.”
The other three blinked and exchanged odd looks.
“So wait.” Chastity shifted on the edge of the tub to face her. “Does he think you make rag-dolls?”
It was like a lightbulb going off in Faith’s brain. “You know, I think he might.”
Joy shook her head. “Then what does he think your kiln is for?”
“Sculpture, I guess.” Faith let out a breath. “But what does he think I’m sculpting, then?”
She felt as though she was right on the edge of a precipice, just about to figure out everything that was going on in her weird, crazy life. One minute she was certain Cooper had figured her out, and the next she was convinced he was as in the dark as he’d been all along. But if he was in the dark about That’s My Baby and the effects of being so close to a dangerous kiln all the time, then what was all that conversation about babies and getting help?
Another wave of questions struck her. If he didn’t know all of the stuff that her mom and Dr. Morrison had told her about the side-effects of being close to the kiln all the time, if he didn’t know it had made her barren, then was he still being so sexy with her in the hopes that she would get pregnant?
The horrible thought struck her that she was right back where she’d started. Cooper wanted a family and she had no idea how she was going to tell him that she couldn’t give him one. The worst part was, now that she’d been a part of the Culpepper family for a while, she wished more than ever that she could be the mother Cooper needed her to be.
“Okay, you’re starting to scare me with how gloomy you just got,” Chastity said, sliding an arm around Faith’s back. “What’s wrong?”
She had to tell. The time had come when she finally had to confess to her sisters what their mom knew all along. She stood abruptly, her whole body going stiff with fear.
“I can’t have children,” she blurted out.
“What?” All three of her sisters balked and blinked and looked confused. Chastity stood and tried to squeeze her arm, but Faith stepped away.
“It’s true. Dr. Morrison said so.”
“Dr. Morrison?” Hope snorted and shook her head. “That old coot?”
“He might have a good golf game and be one of Daddy’s best friends, but he’s not exactly up to date on all the latest in medical science,” Joy added.
Part of Faith wanted to cling on to that shred of hope, but she couldn’t. “It’s because of the kiln,” she rushed on. “I was having really bad cramps. It was just after Mama found out I’d been selling the dolls instead of just giving them away to people. I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and she went on about how that’s exactly what she was afraid of. She said that she’d known all along that those kilns were bad news, that the electrical currents and radiation that came from them interfered with a woman’s reproductive abilities. She said that’s why she wanted me to stop with the dolls, or at least cut back, that she had my best interest at heart.”
Faith expected an outpouring of sympathy. Instead, her sisters exchanged cringes and doubtful looks.
“Honey.” Hope stepped forward and touched Faith’s arm. “I think Mama pulled one over on you.”
“Yeah,” Chastity seconded. “I wouldn’t put it past her to make that story up to get you to close the business before it started.”
The truth of that idea rang so hard in Faith’s gut that it made her feel sick. She didn’t want to believe her mother—her own, dear mama—would stoop so low to manipulate her out of doing something she loved.
“But Dr. Morrison ran tests,” she said faintly, pressing a hand to her spinning stomach. “He confirmed Mama’s suspicions.”
“Dr. Morrison.” Hope crossed her arms. “The guy who used to go down to the shooting range with Daddy and a box of cigars.”
Faith moaned at the thought, clutching her stomach tighter. How could her own mother lie to her and set her up like that?
Then again, this was the mother who had forbid her daughters to go to college for anything more than domestic science or have any sort of real job outside of the home. The betrayal rose like bile in the back of her throat.
It was too much. Faith had to do something. She had to talk to someone who wasn’t involved, who could be an innocent, reasonable voice.
“Nancy,” she muttered. Nancy Tilson had experience of conservative families, but she didn’t know any of Faith’s back story.
As if to underscore the idea, the timer on Joy’s cell phone went off. All four sisters temporarily forgot Faith’s drama and turned to the hand towel on the side of the sink.
“They’re ready.” Joy’s face lit with excitement and expectation. She leaned over the tests that she’d lined up. Faith had lost track of which test had been put in which spot. Chastity hopped over to take a look too.
Both Joy and Chastity gasped.
“Two!” Chastity shouted. “Two of them are positive.”
Faith’s stomach nearly heaved. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sit there and watch two of her sisters rejoice over an exciting new future. Whether her mom had lied to her or not, she knew, knew in her bones that she couldn’t have children.
Without waiting to see who the lucky two were, she turned and bolted from the room. Tears sprang to her eyes, making it harder for her to see as she tore down the hall.
When she burst out into the kitchen, Linda popped her head up from making lunch for the dozen or so sleeping children racked out in her living room on cots and pillows.
“Something wrong?” Linda whispered.
Faith stopped and swallowed. She could tell Linda. Linda was an honest third-party. But no, she had to get away from the ranch and the happiness that was about to bust out all over it.
“Can I borrow your car?” she asked, ashamed that her voice was so weak.
“Sure, honey, but why?” Linda moved to get her the keys.
Faith sucked in a breath and forced herself to smile and forget about crying. “I said I’d meet a friend, Nancy Tilson, in town for lunch today. I forgot about it, and now I’m late.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want that. Here you go.”
Linda handed her the keys. Faith did her best to smile. She hid her true misery by closing Linda in a tight hug and kissing her cheek.
“Thanks so much.” She had to whisper through impending sobs as she pushed back, then turned to bolt from the house.
After all the flak that Cooper had taken over keeping to a ridiculous schedule from his brothers, it was incredibly satisfying to have that schedule turn out to be exactly what would save him and Faith now. He strode across the yard at 11:57 on the dot, on his way to what he hoped would be a restful and therapeutic lunch with his wife.
These last couple of days, talking to her about her past had been incredibly productive. Faith had seemed happier, or at least more settled. She’d been focusing her efforts in the workshop, working on her sculptures and, he hoped, those rag dolls of hers. She hadn’t loitered down at the daycare at all, which meant she hadn’t been able to lure any more women into giving up their sweet babies. And there had been no strange phone calls or anything either.
Yep, as far as Cooper was concerned, he was well on the way to curing his wife of whatever weird obsession she had with smuggling babies. Maybe now she could stop being so obsessed about other people’s babies and start focusing on making some of their own. Although he wouldn’t say no to dragging the process of making them out just a little longer—as long as it took to have fun and still fulfill the terms of Granddaddy’s will.
“Faith?” He stepped through the mudroom door and toed off his boots, then continued on into the kitchen. “Hey, Faith, you home?”
The house was silent. It didn’t really surprise him. Sure, it would have been nice if Faith was in the kitchen, making some sandwiches in time to fit with their schedule. He was just glad that she’d taken to working during specific hours in the first place. It was no skin off his back to go to the fridge, get out the bread, lunch meat, mayo, lettuce, and tomatoes to put together a feast fit for a newlywed couple.
By 12:08, Faith still wasn’t there. Cooper had a fantastic plate of sandwiches cut into precise triangles, a fresh bag of chips open, and two tall glasses of sweet tea—his Mom’s recipe—poured and waiting on the kitchen table, but
Faith wasn’t there. 12:09. The back of his neck started itching. She should have been there four minutes ago.
The only thing for it was to go looking for her in the workshop. He headed back to the mudroom, putting his boots back on, then heading across the drive. His brothers could laugh all they wanted, but schedules were what kept everything on the up-and-up. They gave a body something to do at a specific time. They would keep Faith from getting distracted and looking for trouble, he was sure of it.
“Faith?”
He pushed open the workshop door. The room was warm, but quiet. The lights were off, so Cooper flicked them on. He frowned. Faith wasn’t there. So much for his brilliant idea to introduce her to scheduling. She must be at the house. Which meant she was around the kids.
Cooper’s expression sank to a scowl. He turned to leave the workshop, but curiosity got the better of him. Instead of leaving, he took a quick look around to be sure no one was watching him, then shuffled into Faith’s workspace, shutting the door behind him. He wasn’t an expert on crafty workstations, but at first glance, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Sure, there didn’t seem to be as much fabric as he thought there should be for someone who made dolls. Most of what Faith had stacked on the shelf by the table with her sewing machine was the kind of stuff he’d seen in baby clothes.
He moved closer, surveying the table, but coming up with no ideas. Just a sewing machine. Nothing that would indicate babies were being stolen—or given willingly—and smuggled. He twisted and turned, looking at what else the workshop held. A stack of boxes sat against the wall at the other side of the room. He crossed to investigate those.
The boxes held raw clay. Cooper squinted as he read the labels. “Porcelain Cone 7, 50lbs.” He shook his head. That meant absolutely nothing to him. He turned around to look at the worktable where Faith’s sculpting tools were laid out. The surface had been recently cleaned, and her tools rested in a neat row. The only thing that made him nervous about the space was that she’d pinned about two dozen printouts of sleeping babies on a corkboard above the table. Some of the pictures showed close-ups of baby feet or hands or mouths.
