Читать книгу A Baby For The Minister - Laurel Blount - Страница 14
ОглавлениеFinally the cramp ebbed away. Natalie relaxed and opened her eyes. Jacob was watching her, his face tight with concern.
“I’m okay,” she said quickly. “That was just a Braxton Hicks. I’ve been having them for a while now. The doctor says they’re perfectly normal.” She managed a shaky smile. Normal, yes. Fun, not so much.
“Whew.” Relief washed over his face. “I thought it was the real thing there for a minute.”
“Not time for that yet.” She spoke lightly, but she remembered another thing the obstetrician had said on her last visit to the clinic. First babies don’t pay much attention to their due dates.
She sure hoped her baby would be the exception because she wasn’t even close to being ready. All her plans were falling apart. She had no husband, no money. She didn’t even have a crib, and all the secondhand baby clothes she’d bought had driven away with Adam in the back of his Jeep.
Natalie straightened her shoulders. There was no point wasting time feeling sorry for herself. She had more important things to do right now. She needed to sit down and start figuring out how she could manage on her own until Adam showed back up.
If he showed up.
“Thanks for driving me out here, Jacob. I don’t want to take up any more of your time, so I’ll let you get on back to town.” She tilted up her chin and tried a smile. “And anyway, it looks like I have a little cleaning to do.”
“No.” Jacob was shaking his head before she’d even finished speaking. “I’m not leaving you out here alone. Not in your condition.” He scanned the messy room, his face tight with disgust. “And you definitely shouldn’t be cleaning up a disaster like this.”
In spite of the day she’d had, Natalie nearly laughed out loud. There was nothing wrong here that some soapy water and a few big trash bags couldn’t fix. Jacob might have had a lot more schooling than she’d had, but right now he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
She’d cleaned up messes way worse than this. “I’m not afraid of a little dirt.”
“This is more than a little dirt. Look, let me give you a ride back to town. We’ll find you another place to stay. If money’s an issue, I can give my church a call—”
Cora’s warning replayed itself in Natalie’s memory, and she cut him off firmly. “I appreciate that, but I’m staying here. Adam’s grandma is sure he’ll be back by tomorrow or the next day.”
Jacob looked around the room again and started rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “Then I’ll help you clean this up.”
Natalie felt a stir of panic. “No need for that. I’ve worked as a waitress ever since I...got out of school. Believe me, I can clean up a kitchen without any help.” She’d almost said dropped out, but she’d caught herself just in time. She didn’t want to admit to this man that she’d quit school when she was sixteen. It was a choice she’d always regretted, but at the time it had seemed like the only way to get out of her mother’s apartment—and away from her mom’s endless parade of hard-partying boyfriends.
A little over a year ago, she’d gathered up her courage and enrolled in free GED classes at a nearby community center. To her relief, she’d managed the classwork pretty well, and she’d passed the test with flying colors. She’d daydreamed about taking some college night courses, maybe even becoming a teacher one day. She loved the idea of teaching children.
Of course, when two blue lines had shown up on her pregnancy test, all those plans had come to a screeching halt. Dreams like that were for women who didn’t have babies to take care of.
Jacob was looking at her with a concerned crease between his eyebrows. “I can’t leave you here to deal with this all by yourself.”
“That’s sweet, but I’d really rather you did. I want to be alone for a while. I have a lot to think about, and cleaning is like therapy for me.” Maybe that was stretching the truth a little, but she was starting to feel desperate.
Pastor Jacob Stone was a very hard man to shoo away.
Jacob was silent for a moment, studying her. She kept her eyes on his and waited him out.
It worked. Although he clearly wasn’t happy, after a minute he blew out a slow breath and shrugged. “Well. If you’re sure that’s what you really want...”
“It is.”
To her horror, he pulled out a worn leather wallet. “Here. At least let me—” he started.
“I don’t need your money.” She flushed at the startled expression on his face. Maybe she had been a little too forceful, but she didn’t want this minister’s charity. She’d already been humiliated enough for one day. “Thank you, though,” she added belatedly. He’d gone out of his way to be kind. She could at least be polite.
“I was going to give you a card with my cell number on it.” He pulled one out and held it in her direction. Pine Valley Community Church was written in blocky blue letters across the top of it. “I want you to promise to call me if you need anything. Okay? Anything at all.”
“Thank you.” She wouldn’t call, of course. She didn’t need this man or his church involved in her problems. She’d find a way to deal with them herself, like she always had.
Granted, she’d never had problems quite this big before. But she’d manage.
Somehow.
“I’ll bring in your overnight bag before I leave. And I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow after services.”
Natalie shook her head. She was having enough trouble getting him to leave this time. She didn’t need to go through all this again tomorrow. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine.”
His mouth hardened into a stubborn line. “You’re stranded out here without a car. I don’t even like leaving you overnight. Are you sure I can’t talk you into going back to town?”
“Yes.” She spoke firmly, but softened her refusal with a smile. “Completely sure.”
“Then I’ll see you around lunchtime. No,” he interjected as she opened her mouth to argue again. “It’s not up for debate. I’m coming back. I’m a minister, remember, and helping people through difficult situations is what I do. I’m here for the duration, Natalie. Until we get your situation more...stable, you can consider me your right-hand guy. Okay?”
It wasn’t the least bit okay, but how could she explain that? He was smiling at her, a friendly smile that came complete with a set of boyish dimples. But underneath all that charm, she saw a firmness that made her heart sink right down to the toes she hadn’t seen for the last month and a half.
Natalie had dealt with enough bullheaded people in her life to recognize stubbornness when she saw it. Jacob Stone wasn’t going to budge, so she might as well give in now as later.
“Suit yourself. But it really isn’t necessary.”
She didn’t sound particularly gracious, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Casting one last uneasy look around the cluttered room, he headed for the door.
When the rumbles of his truck finally faded into the distance, Natalie sank onto a sticky chair and rubbed her chilled arms.
Alone for the first time since she’d heard the news about Adam, she realized how comforting Jacob’s company had been. Even if he was a minister, he was also a friendly, concerned human being. Without him, the house felt colder and dirtier, and the reality of how alone she truly was began to seep in.
She would not cry, pregnancy hormones or not. She was a Christian now, wasn’t she? All those encouraging devotionals she’d been reading told her to pray and trust God when things went wrong. Granted, right now that seemed nearly impossible, but what choice did she have? She shut her eyes and clasped her hands together.
Lord, this sure isn’t the way I thought today would turn out. I read in the Bible that Your strength is made perfect in weakness. I hope You meant that because I’m just about as weak as anybody can get right now. Please...help me.
She opened her eyes, but the scene in front of her hadn’t changed. Her gaze wandered over the room, lingering on the litter of food wrappers and the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. She glanced down at her left hand, still bare, resting on a pregnant tummy that seemed to get bigger by the minute.
None of that was too encouraging.
Her cell phone suddenly erupted in a burst of reggae music, and she gasped, digging wildly in her purse. That was Adam’s ringtone. Her hands were shaking so hard that it took her three tries to answer the call.
“Adam?”
There was a silence on the other end of the line, then a sheepish sigh. “Sorry, Nat. I kind of freaked out.”
He sounded like a guilty kid, and she’d never liked the nickname Nat. Still, getting angry with Adam never helped. Natalie rubbed her temples wearily. “Where are you?”
“I’m crashing at Gary’s place for a few days.”
Natalie frowned. “You drove all the way to Tennessee?”
“I didn’t know where else to go. I just snapped.”
Natalie’s head was beginning to pound, and she was feeling a little shaky. She’d been too nervous to eat breakfast or lunch today. “You snapped.”
“Well, yeah. The last couple of days out on the farm, I kept remembering how Grampa Ed loved that old place. He always talked about retiring there and growing blueberries, but Nana Cora wouldn’t let him. She wanted to stay in Fairmont. That’s all I could think about today at the church, you know? How Grampa Ed never got to do anything he wanted, and how I’m going to be just like him.”
She couldn’t muster up too much sympathy for Adam, or his grampa Ed either, for that matter. But of course, Adam had a right to make his own choices, no matter what his grandmother thought.
“Adam, look. If you really don’t want to get married...”
“Come on, Nat. Let’s be honest. Neither one of us really wants to get married, but we’re stuck because of this baby thing.”
She started to argue but stopped. It was the truth.
She didn’t really want to marry Adam. She just wanted a better life for her baby than she could provide on her own. And Adam wanted to hang on to his grandmother’s good graces, and more importantly, her checking account.
What a mess they’d made.
“So what are we going to do?”
“Get married, I guess. What choice do we have?”
“So you’re coming back?”
“Yeah. But—”
“But what?”
She heard Adam take a breath, then the words tumbled out. “Here’s the thing, Nat. Gary and some buds of his are leaving tomorrow to hike a leg of the Appalachian Trail, and I want to go with them.”
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 school. 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!”
