The Second Chance Bride

by Indiana Wake

  “Thank you, Janet. But you have to take care to support her head. Babies have real wobbly necks,” Grace said and felt a twinge of fear.

  “Yes, Jimmy’s sister’s baby had a wobbly neck. But she’s all right now, she can sit up and everything,” Janet said and gently lifted the baby out of the crib without further ado.

  She held onto her as if she was the most precious little glass object in the world, cradling her head in the cook of her arm as she had clearly seen Jimmy’s older sister do. She walked so slowly over to Grace that she wondered if the child would ever make it, taking every step with such care that it was almost amusing.

  When she finally reached Grace, she handed her the baby and immediately settled herself down on the bed. Janet couldn’t have been closer to the pair of them, and she didn’t take her eyes off the baby for a moment.

  “She’s all right now, she’s stopped grizzling,” Janet said knowledgeably. “That’s because you got your mama, isn’t it?” she cooed at the baby.

  “She certainly has,” Grace said and reached out to timidly ruffle Janet’s hair. “You both have.”

  Chapter 17

  “She sure is a pretty baby,” Josh said some days later.

  “Thank you. She’s perfect, isn’t she?” Grace was sitting up in the chair by the large window of her bedroom cradling baby Katie, who was resisting sleep with every ounce of determination in her tiny body.

  “Yep, real perfect.” Josh smiled at Grace, although she was too engrossed in the baby to see. “Your husband would be real proud.”

  “He really would.”

  “Does she look like him?” Josh pulled his own chair closer to get a better look.

  He’d been visiting her regularly in the days since she’d given birth and had taken to leaving one of the wooden kitchen chairs in her room for him to sit down on.

  Josh had done his best around the house and was occasionally surprised by a little assistance here and there from Janet, when she could peel herself away from the baby.

  He’d made every one of Grace’s meals and smiled as he watched her politely trying to chew some of the less palatable creations.

  But they’d fallen into a little routine, with Josh running back from the lumber yard at least once every hour to see if she needed anything.

  It was clear Grace was going to get on the mend sooner rather than later, and he could already detect signs that she was growing tired of her confinement.

  “I think she has Peter’s eyes. They’re a lot lighter than mine, see?” she said and turned Katie just a little so Josh could peer into the chubby little face. “You can see them turning from blue to hazel, not dark brown like mine.”

  Josh’s face must have appeared quite suddenly to the sleepy baby, whose eyes opened wide as her little mouth fell open. They both laughed, much to Katie’s disgruntlement.

  “She sure knows how to make her feelings known,” Josh said and reached out to touch the silky pink cheek. “There, that’s not so bad, is it?” He dropped his voice to a low croon. “You’ll get used to me, little lady.”

  “She doesn’t look much like me,” Grace said thoughtfully.

  “They change so much. Janet didn’t look like either Eileen or me when she was this size. But she soon took on her ma’s wild curly hair and coloring.”

  “Apart from her eyes,” Grace said and looked into his for a moment. “Janet’s eyes are just the same shade of green as yours.”

  Josh sat in silence for a moment, relishing not only the eye contact, but the idea that Grace had given any thought at all to something as simple as his eye color. But he dismissed it immediately. He had vowed to himself to give up on his ridiculous notion and get on with life.

  When he thought about it seriously, they had a good thing going between them. There was a time, after all, when he would have given his right arm for nothing more than a housekeeper who would stay on for more than a couple of weeks.

  Now that he’d managed that and more besides, Josh knew he should be grateful for that much. The relief at seeing such a change in Janet was something he could easily compare to the joy of a new-born baby.

  In the end, after so much perseverance, not to mention forgiveness, Grace had managed what he had not; she had broken through the fence around Janet’s heart.

  “Josh?” Grace said when he’d been quietly smiling to himself for a while.

  “Oh, sorry.” He chuckled. “I was just thinking about Janet. She sure does love this baby.”

  “I know, I didn’t think she’d go off to school this morning. She hovered for such a long time and she looked pained when she had to leave.” Grace laughed. “She really has taken to her. It looks like Katie here managed to get through to her with no trouble at all.”

  “I reckon you had a good bit to do with it too. I can’t let the baby take all the credit.” Josh laughed. “She was real worried when, you know, when we were sitting outside in the kitchen waiting. It was genuine, Grace.” Josh hoped Grace would believe him, for it was true. “She thought you were hurt.”

  Janet had changed completely before she had even set eyes on the baby. Seeing Grace in pain and thinking that she had caused her some harm had been the thing, in the end, which had shaken Janet to her very core and revealed the loving, caring little girl who had always been there, albeit deeply buried.

  “I know she’s a good girl, Josh. And despite everything, I always knew.” She smiled at him. “I reckon she was just scared all along that I’d come to take you away. Me and the baby, I guess. And you can’t blame her, that’s how children’s minds work sometimes. It made sense to her that if she could lose one parent, she could easily lose another.”

  “At least she knew Eileen. Not like this little one.” He resisted the urge to poke Katie’s chubby cheek now that she was asleep finally. “She’ll have to rely on stories about her daddy.”

  “Maybe so, but she’s not without a daddy now, is she? She’s a lucky little girl in spite of everything that happened.”

  Josh swallowed hard, not trusting himself to speak. He’d been surprised at the way he had taken to the baby himself, falling in love with the tiny little scrap almost as quickly as Janet had. But he had wondered what his place in her life might be. Protector, yes, and the man who would keep her housed and fed for as long as she needed him to, certainly.

  But to hear Grace describe him as her daddy was an unexpected pleasure which touched him more than he could ever have imagined.

  And that was in the spirit of everything he’d promised. Josh knew he would care for Katie just the same as he did for Janet, just as he was sure Grace would return the favor for his own child. They were an unusual family, but a family nonetheless, and he knew he would have to be determined to do nothing that would upset the balance, however much he might want to. However much his arms ached to pull her into his embrace he knew he never would.

  “I’m just glad to be out of my bedroom. I was beginning to feel like a prisoner in the jailhouse,” Grace said with the extra drama she knew Laura always appreciated.

  “But you still ought to take it a bit easier. It’s only been two weeks and you must surely still have some healing to do,” Laura said in a maternal, chastising tone.

  Grace had come out of her room on the sixth day, determined not to stay there a minute longer. Promising faithfully to stay in her chair in the sitting room and only rise when Katie needed something, Grace had been on her feet and making a quick inspection of the house the very minute Josh was out the door.

  “It feels good to be moving again. And I don’t reckon it does a person much good to sit about. I reckon sometimes we heal faster if we at least move around a little.”

  “Have it your own way,” Laura said and laughed. “But just be careful. It’s obvious that Josh is not going to hound you to get back to normal as some husbands would. You’ve got a real good man there.”

  “Laura,” Grace said in a low voice.

  “Well, he is good,” Laura objected.


  “I know he is, but I also know what you are getting around to again.”

  “Are you really telling me that nothing’s changed, Grace? I can tell by the way you talk about Josh that you care about him.”

  “Of course, I care about him,” Grace said and wished that they could talk about something else.

  She had been struggling with her feelings for Josh more than ever in the last days. She couldn’t help thinking of his panic, the panic he tried to hide, when she was in labor. And she couldn’t stop remembering how he had mopped her brow and held her hand, staying with her right up until the moment Mrs. Woolman ejected him.

  Something about bringing a new life into the world had opened her heart to Josh although she was certain that it had been beginning to open already. She wasn’t quite sure when such deep feelings for him first came to her. She’d always liked him, from the very first, and they had always gotten along very well.

  That was part of what had made it so easy to agree to marry him. His determination that their marriage be nothing more than companionship, a partnership, was such a noble thing that she wondered if it was the beginnings of her falling in love with him. For she was in love with him, she knew she was.

  “Grace? Are you all right? Have I upset you?” Laura said and sounded distraught.

  “You haven’t upset me,” Grace said but her eyes still filled with tears.

  “I’m so sorry. I should have thought.”

  “You really haven’t upset me. And I’m not sure that I’m upset, exactly. Just very emotional. I guess that’s all part of having a child.”

  “Is that all it is?”

  “No,” Grace said and suddenly felt herself drawn to speak, to let go of the burden of solitary thought. “And you’re right, I really do care for Josh.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’re already married to him,” Laura said brightly. “Isn’t it?” she added with more caution.

  “Katie’s stirring, just let me lift her,” Grace said and made to rise from the kitchen table.

  “Oh, let me,” Laura said wistfully, and Grace lowered herself back down into her seat.

  Laura leaned into the little basket and lifted out Katie, whose mouth was wide open in the middle of a mighty yawn.

  “There you go, you come sit with your Aunt Laura, my little Katie.” She sat back down at the table cradling the baby in her arms. “She likes me.”

  “Of course, she likes you!” Grace said and laughed but still had to dab at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “Something really is troubling you, isn’t it?” Laura said in a low voice.

  “You’re right, Laura, but it’s more than just caring for him.”

  “You’re in love with him?”

  “Yes, I am.” She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes again. “And I just wish it wasn’t so complicated.”

  “Honey, I really don’t think that Peter would have minded. He would want you to be happy, I’m sure he would.”

  “And I’m sure he would too. I guess having Katie made me realize that life is meant to be lived, whatever twists and turns you get handed along the way. And it really isn’t the thought of Peter that’s upsetting me.”

  “Then what?” Laura gently rocked Katie from side to side as the tiny baby lifted her legs high and squinted at the sight of her own toes.

  “He doesn’t feel the same way.”

  “How do you know?” Laura said and looked surprised. “Did he actually say it? Have you asked him?”

  “No, of course, I haven’t asked him,” Grace said. “I don’t need to ask him, I just know.”

  “That can’t be right,” Laura said and shook her head firmly. “The way he looks after you, it has to mean something.”

  “It means he’s a good man,” Grace said a little desperately.

  “Good man or not, he asked you to marry him as soon as you told him you were expecting. A man doesn’t just do that without some feeling.”

  “There were feelings, deep ones, but they were about his daughter. You know what things were like for him with Janet before I arrived, and long after I arrived. He needed me to stay, he needed a ma for his daughter. And he never made any pretense of it, I really have nothing to complain about. I just wish that my own feelings hadn’t changed. I wish I could just go on liking him the way I always did. This is too much, it’s too hard.”

  “You really love him that much?”

  “Yes, after all my denials, not just to you but to myself, yes, I really do love him that much.”

  “Then I think you have to tell him, you have to talk to him.”

  “No, I can’t do that. He offered me something that I needed at the time, that we both needed. And he was real clear about the terms of that offer. He’s never once given me the idea that he is looking to change it. I mean, my room’s right next door to his and he never comes in, not without knocking.”

  “He’s just being polite.”

  “He’s my husband,” Grace said with exasperation.

  “Just give it time. He’s not going anywhere, is he?”

  “I’m just scared that my feelings for him will grow and grow and never be returned. I just don’t think I could live like that.”

  “What’s the alternative? What else can you do?”

  “I don’t know, maybe I ought to go back east just as I planned to all along.”

  “Grace, you know you don’t mean……”

  “Janet, honey, come on in,” Grace said, seeing Janet suddenly appear in the open doorway of the kitchen. “Did you have a good day at school?”

  “Yes, thank you, Grace.” Janet was smiling, but not quite as broadly as she had been doing of late.

  She looked shyly at Laura and Grace gathered that she was just a little sheepish in another woman’s company.

  “Do you want to hold her, Janet?” Laura said kindly. “Grace tells me you’re real good with baby Katie. She doesn’t know what she’d do without you.”

  “Yes, please,” Janet said and hurriedly settled herself down in the chair next to Laura and patiently waited to have Katie put into her arms.

  Janet was smiling again, only with more ease this time, and as Grace looked on, she felt her heart swell. She couldn’t be more grateful for her new friendship with Janet, not just for Janet’s sake, but for her own.

  Grace really had come to care for Janet and now that the child was no longer an adversary, she couldn’t help but think of her as a daughter. A real sister for baby Katie.

  In her heart, she knew she would never go back east. There was nothing there for her anymore; there had been nothing there for her from the very moment she and Peter had embarked upon their journey. She would just have to find a way to rein in her emotions, to see Josh as her partner, a man who’d been there for her every time she’d needed somebody.

  And in the end, a partnership like that was worth its weight in gold.

  Chapter 18

  “You’re home early,” Josh said with some surprise when Janet wandered into the lumber yard office. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”

  “I’m not in trouble, Daddy,” Janet said with an air of disappointment. “I’m not early either. School’s finished for the day, that’s all.”

  Josh checked the time and realized she was right.

  “Sorry, honey,” Josh said with a wince. “I guess I’m not used to seeing you come straight in here after school. You’d normally run right past me to get to baby Katie. You haven’t fallen out with her, have you?” He laughed.

  “Don’t be silly. How could anybody fall out with a baby?”

  “Quite so, Janet.” He bowed by way of an amusing apology. “So, to what do I owe the honor?”

  “What does that mean?” Janet wrinkled her nose.

  “The honor of your presence.”

  She gave him a look of desolation and confusion.

  “All right, why are you here? You don’t normally come straight in from school to see me, you go straight into the hous
e to find the baby. I know you too well, Janet, what is wrong?”

  Josh was pleased to see his daughter laugh, relieved every day that there had been no return to her old behavior. He didn’t really understand how everything had changed. He had his own little ideas here and there, but he couldn’t truly explain how everything had seemed to come together, to come right, all at once.

  Everything seemed perfect, or almost everything. As long as he kept a lid on his growing feelings for Grace, his life was certainly going to be content.

  “I just came in to tell you that there’s a barn dance in town on Saturday,” Janet said and shrugged.

  “A barn dance?” Josh said with some confusion and leaned his elbows on the counter which separated his little office area from the racks of dried wood and barrels of nails.

  “Yes, you know. A dance held in the barn, the town barn.”

  “I know what a barn dance is.” Josh laughed again and studied her closely. She was up to something, he was sure of it. “But honey, you’re just a bit young for a barn dance. Maybe when you’re sixteen, or closer to it than you are now. But you’re only just about to turn thirteen and I don’t think that’s old enough yet. Not to go out on your own like that.”

  “I didn’t mean me,” Janet said and huffed loudly, her hands flying to her hips in an amusing attitude that reminded him of her mother. “I thought you might want to go.”

  “You thought I’d want to go out dancing?” Josh was really confused now. “I can’t remember the last time I went dancing. It must be years.” He laughed and shook his head. “But that’s real nice of you, Janet. Real nice of you to think of me.”

  “But you might enjoy it.”

  “I might, but maybe I’ll go another time,” he said, trying to placate her.

  Josh had never been much of a dancer, that was true. But in his younger days he had enjoyed such things and had even taken Eileen to the barn dance once or twice before they had married.

  “But I was thinking you could go this time,” Janet persisted.