Lucky Penny

by Catherine Anderson

  Brianna just sat there, feeling as if her heart were shattering into a thousand pieces.

  “Well, now,” David finally said, “you’ve got one thing in your life that’s not fake, Daphne, a dog that loves you so much he’d die for you.”

  Brianna wiped tears from her cheeks and sent David an exasperated look. This wasn’t about the dog.

  David ignored her visual warning. “Good old Sam,” he said, ruffling the dog’s fur. “He’s loyal to a fault.”

  Daphne stifled a sob and rubbed her eyes. “He’s my only real friend. When I got hungry, he brought me a bone he found behind a restaurant. I couldn’t eat it, and it made Sam sad. Then that awful man came, and Sam bit him. He’s my friend for always.”

  “Yep,” David agreed. “He sure does love you, doesn’t he?” He went silent for a moment. “That’s kind of strange because, unless I missed something, you don’t have any of Sam’s blood. But he loves you anyway.”

  Daphne buried her face against her bent knees.

  David let her cry for several seconds. Then, in a soft, velvety voice, he said, “Love has nothing to do with sharing blood, Daphne. It’s a magical thing that happens in the heart.” When Daphne refused to look up, David went on. “A long time ago, two baby girls who looked exactly alike were left on an orphanage doorstep in Boston. One girl’s name was Brianna, and the other little girl’s name was Moira.”

  “I don’t want to hear a stupid story!” Daphne yelled, her small body shaking. “Just go away and leave me alone!”

  David ignored her. “Those two girls were what people call identical twins. There’s something very special between identical twins. Lots of times, it’s as if they are one person in two separate bodies. Brianna and Moira were like that. They sensed each other’s feelings, they were absolutely devoted to each other, and they shared everything. Sometimes they even pretended to be each other to fool the nuns at the orphanage. Then one sad day after they grew up, Moira died, and as she took her last breath, she asked her sister Brianna to raise her baby girl as her very own. That was an easy thing for Brianna to do because, way deep down, Moira had always been a part of her, and she’d always been a part of Moira. Does that make any sense?”

  Brianna felt Daphne lean closer to her. She was almost afraid to breathe for fear of breaking the spell David was weaving. Keep talking. Don’t stop. You’re getting through to her.

  “Anyhow,” David went on, “Brianna loved Moira so much that she did exactly as her sister asked and raised Moira’s little girl as her very own. When she reported the baby’s birth, she listed herself as the mother, and from that moment forward, she was the baby’s mother. She was loyal to Moira for always, just like Sam is to you.

  “It wasn’t always easy for Brianna to be a good mother.” David stopped to stare up at the strip of sky that showed between the buildings. “But I don’t have to tell you that, Daphne, because you’re the baby girl she raised. Nobody knows better than you how hard Brianna worked to keep her sister’s baby safe. And nobody knows better than you how much she loved you, through thick and thin, sometimes going without food herself so you could eat.”

  “Stop!” Daphne demanded in a thin, quivery voice.

  David sighed. “I can’t stop. This is one story you have to hear, pumpkin. It’s the most important tale I’ll ever tell you, barring none. No matter how bad things got, Brianna never broke her promise to Moira. She just kept on, trying her hardest to be a good mama, always putting you first, until somewhere along the way, she started to feel that you really were her little girl, at least in every way that counted. Do you remember all those times?”

  “Yes,” Daphne admitted.

  “Do you remember writing letters to your papa, asking him to come for you? A man named David Paxton?”

  “Yes,” Daphne pushed out again.

  “Well, one day all those letters, a huge canvas bag of them, were delivered to me in No Name. After I read them, I had no choice but to journey to Glory Ridge to see if that little girl, Daphne, might be my daughter. Remember how we met on the street when both of us bent over to pick up the same penny?”

  “We almost bumped heads.”

  David chuckled and nodded. “Yep, and then I got a good look at you. It took the wind out of my sails, I can tell you that, because you were the spitting image of my mother, and you even had what I thought was the Paxton birthmark on the side of your neck, a mark almost exactly like mine. From that instant forward, I believed with all my heart that I was your daddy.” He continued with a modified version of all that had taken place between him and Brianna ever since. “I didn’t learn I wasn’t your papa until just a few days ago.”

  Daphne had definitely pressed closer to Brianna during the story. Now she lifted her blond head to peer through the shadows at David, apparently captivated by what he was saying.

  “It came as a huge shock to me,” he went on. “And the news came way too late because I already loved you and your mama way too much to give you up.”

  “She isn’t my mama, only my aunt.” Daphne hid her face against Brianna’s sleeve and said in a muffled voice, “I want a real mama and papa, not pretend ones.”

  “Ah,” David replied softly. “So is Sam your real friend, or is he only your pretend friend?”

  Daphne straightened to shoot him an indignant glare. “Sam is my real friend.”

  “But how can that be?” David retorted. “You have none of Sam’s blood, and he has none of yours, but the friendship between you is real?”

  Daphne nodded emphatically.

  “So,” David mused aloud, “why can’t it be the same with people and love? Brianna isn’t truly your mama, but she loves you as if she were. I’m not really your papa, but I love you as if I were. Why can’t the three of us decide that love is more special than blood and go on from here? I’ll be your papa, and your aunt Brianna will be your mama, and you’ll be our little girl, for always.”

  “Because we can’t!” Daphne cried.

  David nudged back his hat to hold her gaze. “I think we can. All we have to do is believe in it hard enough.” He touched the front of her frock. “Do you still have our lucky penny, or were you so mad at me that you threw it away?”

  Daphne planted a hand over her waist. “I still have it.”

  David smiled. “Remember when I told you we should only make wishes on it for truly important things? I think our being a real family is one of the most important things in the world. Maybe if we wish for it to be true on our lucky penny, God will reach down and help us to make it happen. What do you think?”

  Daphne tugged on the chain to pull the penny from under her frock. In the dim glow from the lampposts, the coin shimmered on her palm.

  “See there? It’s winking at us,” David told the child. “I think there’s still enough magic in it to make one great big wish come true. And then we’ll just go home and pretend we never heard that ugly lady with the wart on her nose saying all those awful things. What do you say?”

  Daphne sniffed and smiled faintly. “Miss Wright doesn’t have warts.”

  “I’m certain I saw warts,” David insisted. “You willing to place a wager on it? I’ll put up a golden eagle and an ice cream at Roxie’s that Miss Wright has a huge, ugly wart right on the end of her honker.”

  “I’d win,” Daphne said. “There’s no wart on the end of Miss Wright’s nose.”

  David tousled the child’s hair. “You can never collect on the bet if you won’t come home with me and your mama to take another look at her.”

  Daphne stared down at the coin on her palm. Then she flicked imploring glances at both David and Brianna. “If we all three wished really, really hard on the lucky penny, do you think we could be a real family?”

  Brianna locked gazes with David. She remembered that day when she’d railed at him about the penny and how he’d popped back, saying she was right, that people should turn to God, not objects, for help. But then he’d added that it never hurt to have special re
inforcements.

  Perhaps for Daphne, a little magic was needed tonight.

  Fighting to find her voice, Brianna said, “I think all three of us should wish on the penny so we can be a real family.”

  David seconded the motion. Daphne stared at the coin for a long while and then clenched her fist around it. David and Brianna enfolded her small hand in theirs, and together, there on that grimy, dimly lighted walkway in a dangerous part of town, the three of them wished aloud that God would make them a family.

  Sam seemed to understand. He whined and licked Daphne’s face as if encouraging her to go home.

  Daphne’s eyes filled with tears again. “I don’t feel any different. I don’t think it worked. I want a real mama and papa, a real family.”

  It was all Brianna could do not to burst into tears when she saw the longing in Daphne’s eyes. It was like going back in time. So often Moira had looked pleadingly at her and said the same thing. From Brianna’s earliest memory, her sister had always yearned aloud for a real mama and papa. It was a wish Brianna had been powerless to grant to her sister, and now it was a wish she couldn’t grant her niece.

  “Well,” David said in an authoritative voice, “that’s only because we haven’t made our wish official. What we need to do is see a judge and have him draw up a bona fide contract that all three of us must sign. I will promise to be your real papa, forever and always. Your aunt Brianna will promise to be your real mama, forever and always. And you will have to promise that you will be our real daughter forever and always. After we all sign the document, the judge will stamp it with his official seal, and then it will always be so.”

  Daphne’s little face glowed with hope. “Can the contract also say that my mama will always be my papa’s real wife, and that my papa will always be my mama’s real husband? No more pretending?”

  David flashed Brianna a twinkling look and nodded. Brianna knew that the circuit judge who came to No Name was a good friend of David’s. He apparently felt certain the man would stamp anything they put before him if he realized how important it was to one beautiful little girl with a dimple in her cheek.

  “Deal,” David said, pushing to his feet.

  As he helped Brianna to stand, she echoed him with, “Deal.”

  Daphne scrambled up between them. “Deal!” she cried excitedly.

  As the three of them walked to the train depot, hand in hand, with Daphne in the middle and the dog trailing faithfully at her heels, the little girl looked up at David. “Can Sam be in our contract, too, Papa?”

  David was momentarily flummoxed. He wasn’t sure how the judge would feel about that. But then he decided that anything could be included in a document that meant nothing legally. It would be an agreement conceived in a child’s heart, and the judge would understand.

  “Sure he can,” he assured Daphne.

  Daphne skipped along between him and Brianna, suddenly happy as only children can be after an earth-shattering event. A few minutes later, as David helped everyone board the train, he smiled, thinking that he now had the one thing he’d wanted all his adult life, true and everlasting love with the woman of his dreams, a beautiful daughter, and a fabulous dog.

  In short, he finally had a real family.

  Epilogue

  I

  t was funny how things could turn out, Brianna thought as she walked with David and their daughter to see the circuit judge, who came to town every two months and had taken up temporary chambers at the town hall to conduct court business. It had been only six weeks since that momentous night on a dark Denver street. Now David and Brianna were about to make Daphne’s dream come true.

  Under his duster, David wore pressed jeans and the blue shirt Brianna had made him for his birthday, but outwardly, he still had a roughrider air about him. How odd that she now found that so attractive when it had once scared her nearly to death. Ah, well, the man was so handsome he almost took her breath away, and she seriously doubted that would ever change. There was just something about David Paxton that charmed her, and she suspected that she would be madly in love with him until the day she died.

  Daphne walked between them. They each held one of her hands. Sam, ever faithful, trailed at the girl’s heels. It was a sunny summer afternoon. The sky was powder blue without a cloud in sight, and in her new silk day dress, Brianna felt hot and vaguely nauseated. Doc Halloway, No Name’s aging physician, assured Brianna that morning sickness was to be expected during the early weeks of pregnancy. Normally Brianna felt better by noon, but then she’d taken to staying indoors after the sun reached its zenith. Becoming overheated didn’t sit well with her these days.

  David sent her a questioning look. He’d become overprotective since she’d told him she was with child. Brianna smiled. “I’m fine, David. Just feeling a bit wilted. Stop fussing.”

  Instead of paying her any mind, he slowed the pace. He worried constantly that Brianna might start to bleed if she did too much, just as Moira had. That wasn’t going to happen. Aside from a queasy stomach each morning, Brianna felt strong, right with the world, and perfectly fine.

  Excited about signing a contract that would make them a real family, Daphne stepped out ahead of them, trying to hurry them along until her arms were angled out behind her. “Don’t lollygag,” she scolded. “We’ll be late!”

  Brianna had talked with David, and they’d decided not to tell Daphne that she would soon have a baby brother or sister until their contract to be a core family was signed and stamped. They both wanted the child to know she was as much theirs as any child that might come along in the future, and Brianna and David hoped to have a passel.

  They reached the end of the boardwalk and stepped off onto packed dirt gone powdery in the heat. Up ahead, Hazel Wright’s house stood empty, awaiting the newly hired teacher who would arrive in late August. After writing a lengthy letter of apology to both David and Brianna, Hazel had left town to take a higher-paying job in Denver, which she’d snagged only because Brianna, as the wife of No Name’s marshal, had insisted that the woman be given a glowing letter of recommendation from the city council and school board. Loving David as Brianna did, she knew how badly she might have behaved if the shoe had been on the other foot. David Paxton was a man that no woman could easily give up.

  Happily, Hazel’s rant had carried little weight with the townspeople. Why, anybody with eyes could see that Daphne Paxton was the spitting image of her papa and his ma. Gossip had it that if a jilted woman was going to spin lies, she’d best be sure they were believable. Daphne wasn’t David’s daughter? Pshaw! That little girl was Dory Paxton all over again.

  Brianna was relieved to step into the community hall, where she was shielded from the sun. She waved a hand in front of her face. David swept off his hat and hung it on a hook.

  Daphne dashed to the judge’s desk, Sam circling around her legs. “We’re here to sign an official contract to make us a real family.”

  Judge Claymore was elderly, with silver gray hair, kindly blue eyes, and a wry smile. He patted a stack of papers on his makeshift desk, a table normally used for buffets. “Your father gave me all the particulars ahead of time, so it’s all drawn up and ready.”

  David curled an arm around Brianna’s waist and led her forward. When they reached the table, he released his hold on her to shake the judge’s hand. “Your Honor, good to see you. I hope this heat isn’t getting to you.”

  “Not badly. One thing about Colorado is that you can always count on cool breezes in the evening.” He stood, as any gentleman would, robed or not, to meet Brianna and shake her hand. Then he resumed his seat to proceed with business.

  As promised, Daphne, along with her parents, was to sign a contract that would legalize her real family. The judge had good-naturedly prepared a document that would never be recorded, which stated in impressive-sounding language that her mama would always be her mama, and her papa would always be her papa, and she would always be their daughter. Even Sam got to sign. David pressed
the dog’s right front paw onto the ink pad and then the paper.

  “Now you’re my real mama and papa!” Daphne cried. She jumped around, flapping the skirts of the new pink dress Brianna had fashioned for her. “Forever and always!”

  David’s family members began to file into the hall. They had come to witness the nuptials between David and Brianna and the signing of adoption papers to make Daphne legally a Paxton. No one else had been invited because the secret of Daphne’s true parentage had to be carefully guarded. The judge had deemed David and Brianna’s first marriage to be slightly out of order, and with the adoption of Daphne and the coming of another child, he wanted the union to be unquestionably legal. Brianna had never agreed to the first marriage, and there had been only one witness. David was a fairly wealthy man. The judge wanted to be certain that Brianna’s claim to David’s estate, in the event of his untimely demise, could never be contested.

  Brianna wasn’t thinking about death when she and David said their vows. She looked into his eyes—those incredibly beautiful and compelling blue eyes, which were so very like Daphne’s—and thought about that night, which seemed so long ago now, when she’d confessed to him that she had no sense of direction. He’d vowed then to teach her how to find her way.

  And he had. Only the lessons had nothing to do with north, south, west, or east.

  She’d once envied him his uncanny ability to know exactly which way to go, but now she had developed her own inner compass. As she stood in the midst of his family, which had become hers as well, and said, “I do,” she knew that her compass needle would always direct her only one way, straight into David Paxton’s arms.

  The moment David and Brianna’s union as husband and wife was signed, stamped, and ready to be recorded, the judge turned his attention to the adoption papers. His expression was solemn as he leafed through the Pinkerton report. “According to this investigation, Stanley Romanik denied all charges and refused to acknowledge any biological connection.” He stopped short and glanced at Daphne, clearly choosing his words carefully so the child wouldn’t understand the import of what he said. “I see no legal obstacles to this adoption. There is no one to contest it.”