Had she known about the baby when she’d agreed to marry him? Surely a woman knew these things. Had she planned the night she’d stayed at his cabin all along, knowing everyone would expect him to do the right thing?
As soon as the thought entered his mind, he dismissed it. She didn’t even know where he lived, and even if she had, she’d had no idea she’d find him passed out in the woods or that it would storm or—
“According to the ladies, it happened during the few short days she was married...or thought she was.”
The comment, something Will had already figured out for himself, was delivered by the man coming around the side of the house. Caleb Gentry, another of Blythe’s brothers, the wealthiest farmer in the county.
“Where did you come from?” Will asked.
“Gabe told me a little of what was going on, so I thought I’d come and check on things. Rachel told me about the baby and sent me to look for you. Are you okay?”
Will stared at the porch boards. Was he okay? He was still trying to reconcile the things he’d just heard with the future he’d begun to envision with Blythe. A future that had been hazy at best, but one he felt had become a little clearer the night before. Now all that was changed because there would be a baby.
Unaware of the torment in his eyes, he looked at Caleb. “I’m barely used to the idea of having a wife, and now I’m supposed to become a father, too. What do I do, Caleb? I didn’t sign on for that. Is this one of those ‘for worse’ things that happen in a marriage?”
Sensing his owner’s distress, Banjo whined.
Caleb smiled and gave Will a brotherly slap on the shoulder. “It’s not a ‘worse,’” he said. “It’s a baby.”
“What on earth will I do with a baby?”
“Love it.”
If the idea of a baby was foreign, the idea of loving another man’s child was doubly so. “How do I do that?”
Caleb smiled his rare smile. “Believe me, it’s easier than you may think. I do understand how you feel, Will. More so than most. I didn’t sign up for marriage to a widow with three kids when I asked Abby to come be a wet nurse for my Betsy after Emily died, but here we are.”
“But you love Abby.”
“Of course I do now. But the day we said our vows I was angry and resentful and scared to death. My first marriage wasn’t all that good. Abby’s had been the best, and I was afraid of failing. I was so different from her first husband, and didn’t know how to be what she wanted or how to be a father, but the first time Laura smiled at me, I was a goner. And here I am. Father of five.”
Will had been aware of the scandal when Abby Carter had moved into Caleb’s house to care for his baby daughter after his wife’s death during the delivery. He recalled how the gossip had more or less forced them into marriage, too.
“We had a rocky start,” Caleb added, “and at one point I even told her to leave, but she wouldn’t go because she said her Ben told her that the two of us had made a promise to God.” He offered a wry smile. “Out of the mouth of babes...”
He gave a shake of his perpetually shaggy head. “I can’t tell you what to do, my friend. I guess it all boils down to whether or not you meant the words when you said them and if you’re willing to let God help guide the two of you through the rough patches.”
Will knew his reason for marrying Blythe was less than honorable. How many men married one woman to rid himself of the nuisance of another? Talk about needing to rid himself of the beam in his eye before condemning Blythe for the mote in hers!
“Look, bud, I need to get back to the farm, but I’ll be praying for the two of you.”
“Thanks, Caleb,” Will said as his friend went back around the house. Something told him they’d need all the help they could get.
* * *
After a long while Blythe regained control of her crying. She’d managed to tamp back her shame, at least for the moment. Her mother and Rachel hadn’t spoken in several minutes, either because they didn’t know what to say or because they were giving her a chance to gather herself. All her thoughts centered around her future with Will...or what was left of it.
Where did she go from here? Should she go back to the farm or just cut her losses and forge ahead as she had when she’d left Boston? Would Will even come back? What would he say if he did? Was he done with the marriage before it even got started? If so, did it really matter to her beyond the shame and embarrassment of yet another debacle?
Oh, yes. It mattered.
“It’s going to be okay,” Rachel said. “Will can act the fool sometimes, but he’ll come to his senses and do the right thing. He’s always taken his obligations seriously.”
Blythe felt like bursting into tears again. In a matter of minutes she had gone from a bride Will didn’t want to a woman he would stay with out of a sense of duty.
“Well, that sounds just grand,” she said in a bitter tone.
Rachel didn’t bother replying.
As she had once before, Blythe pushed her misery aside as best she could and gathered her dwindling courage. Lord knew she’d need it in the coming weeks. The first thing she needed to do was think the situation through and then talk to Will. She needed to gather herself before she saw him. She needed to be calm. Collected. Sure of herself. She’d seen the ravages of her prolonged crying often enough to know that her complexion was red and splotchy and her eyes were swollen and irritated. She brushed back a straggling wisp of hair that clung to her wet cheek and began to prepare mentally for the upcoming battle. “Mama, can you hand me a wet washcloth?”
Without a word, Libby rose to do her bidding.
* * *
Rachel watched the emotions chase across her young sister-in-law’s face. Young. That was maybe the best word to describe Blythe. Most women of her age might have held up better through all the travails she’d been through, but then most women, at least those Rachel knew, had grown up in situations that forced them to mature much faster than Blythe had. Many already had two or more children by the time they were her age.
But despite the way Blythe had been raised, Rachel knew her sister-in-law was very adult in other ways and possessed knowledge and skills in other areas. Her problem was that she’d been caught up in two very volatile situations in a very short time, both of which were forcing her to grow up much faster than she might have otherwise.
Though Rachel knew that this unexpected baby was a bitter pill for both Will and Blythe to swallow, deep in her heart, she felt that they were a good match. Blythe was as far removed from Martha as night from day, and Will, cantankerous though he may be, was at heart a good and honest man.
Rachel prayed that they could both find a way to ease the pain that gripped them and find peace and happiness. Though she had no idea what that might be, she knew from her own experience that the Lord had things under control and that He had already set some sort of plan into place.
Chapter Seventeen
Blythe lay against the pillows, bathing her face with the cool cloth and wishing she were anywhere but where she was. Now that the initial panic had passed and she’d settled down somewhat from the pain Will’s storming off had inflicted, there was no way to keep from thinking of the changes that having a baby would make in her life. She placed her palm on her tummy to see if that would make it seem any more real. It didn’t, but just because it didn’t seem real, didn’t mean it wasn’t. She was terrified, and she was scared and very angry.
Why, God?
Wasn’t it enough that she’d been dealt such misery through Devon’s other wickedness? Wasn’t it enough that she’d been forced to marry a stranger for performing an act of kindness? Why did the Lord continue to punish her? What had she done to deserve this? Even as she thought it, she knew blaming Him wasn’t fair.
My grace is sufficient unto you.
The words slipped into her mind with the ease of her foot into a comfortable slipper. Deserving had nothing to do with it. Choices did. Sometimes the choices were the wrong ones and bad things happened. God could straighten things out, but often there was pain along the way before a good place was reached.
Because he had been so very good at deception, she had chosen to listen to Devon’s pleas, even though she’d known full well she would be the subject of gossip. But believing he and his vows of love and marriage were on the up-and-up, she’d behaved accordingly. There was no fault in that. She’d had no control over his actions.
Stumbling onto Will in the woods had been an accident, pure and simple, and she would go to her grave believing she had done the right thing by staying through the night with him, no matter the consequences.
And now this. A baby. A baby fathered by a man who had done her tremendous wrong. It wasn’t fair.
My grace is sufficient unto you.
The words echoed through her mind once more. As a Christian, she had no doubt that the Lord wanted the best for His children. She’d always believed that even when things happened, good or bad, God was in control. His thoughts and His ways often looked like tribulations to His children.
Like Ace and Meg. Meg had made choices that had put her squarely into a life and a marriage that had been almost unbearable to endure, but the hardships she’d overcome had made her the woman Ace needed after suffering through his own trials.
Blythe was dabbing at her eyes with the cloth when the door burst open. Will stood in the aperture. He didn’t look a lot better than she figured she did. His hair stood on end and there was a grim tightness to his mouth that reminded her of his anger when he’d said he wasn’t marrying anyone.
Especially not her.
Whatever he had to say, she couldn’t imagine it was going to be pleasant. His gaze darted from Rachel, who sat at her side, to her mother on the opposite side of the bed.
“Would you mind giving us a minute?” he asked.
Rachel, who seemed to have lost all patience with her longtime friend and was already furious at the way he’d bolted from the room, looked as if she’d like to give him a piece of her mind. Both women looked at Blythe, trying to gauge her reaction to his demand. She gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head. “It’s all right.”
The moment the door closed behind them, some of the tension seemed to drain from the room. And Will.
“Please. Sit.” Blythe gestured toward the chair sitting next to the bed.
“I’d rather stand.”
Ah. It was going to be that way, was it? She’d expected it, of course, but somehow she’d treasured a tiny bit of hope that things would be different. Yet even as she’d hoped he wouldn’t walk away from her, she wondered why she wished it.
Years of watching her mother wield the iron fist in the velvet glove stood her in good stead. Always take the initiative. “There’s no reason to be so defensive. I have no intention of holding you to the marriage,” she told him in a crisp, businesslike tone. “I’ve already told mother to contact Philip to see what it will take to have it annulled.”
Will regarded her with narrowed eyes. “What?”
“The marriage,” Blythe said. “I’m sure you think I only accepted your preposterous proposal so that I’d have a father for my baby.”
He nodded, wary of her taking the lead in such a confident manner. One thing about it, she had a way of keeping him on his toes. He was never certain how she’d react to any given situation. Her take-charge attitude changed everything he’d been thinking.
“It crossed my mind,” he said, “but it doesn’t wash. There’s no way you could have planned on stumbling across me in the woods and you were pretty adamant about not wanting to marry me even if I did ask. What I can’t understand is that when I made the suggestion that we marry to help us both out of sticky situations, you changed your mind pretty quick. Why?”
“What are you implying?”
Will raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t know what to think, Blythe. I don’t know who you are or what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, that makes two of us. Half an hour ago you were a mess. Now you’re sitting here as calm and unruffled as can be, talking about hiring a lawyer to put an end to our marriage. You actually sound a lot like your brother, and I’m starting to think that maybe you’re more like him than people think.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the workings of the female mind are way beyond me. Maybe your refusal was some sort of convoluted plan to catch me off guard. How should I know? I’m just a simple country boy who works hard for a living, who married a woman who did me wrong, even though I did everything I could to make her happy. And for that, she walked out on me. Now this.”
Blythe pressed her lips together tightly to keep from saying something she knew she’d regret and blinked hard and fast so she wouldn’t appear to be a “mess” again.
“Let me make sure I understand,” she said when she had her emotions more or less under control. “You think that I knew I was pregnant, refused to marry you at first, just to what? Make you less wary? And then when you did suggest we marry—just to keep your ex-wife at arm’s length, I would remind you—I agreed to so that I’d have a father for the baby I didn’t know I was carrying?”
She gave a sarcastic laugh. “If that’s how your mind works, it’s no wonder your business is a shambles.”
As soon as the words left her lips, shame swept through her. It wasn’t like her to be so spiteful, but she was tired of being taken in by words and her emotions were as raw as the hand she’d burned on the skillet.
Coldness crept into Will’s dark eyes, something she’d seen often in the gaze of her brother. It was a deliberate distancing. A way of separating themselves from anything that might hurt them. Protection.
She realized with a sinking heart that their relationship was doomed. Since there were far too many obstacles for them to overcome, she decided to get everything off her chest.
“While we’re on the subject of ulterior motives, what about you agreeing to marry me for my money?”
“You said you were broke,” he reminded her, “and I thought we already had this conversation.”
“I am broke, so I’d say that the laugh was on you, except that Martha told me that she’d heard Win offer to recompense you to marry me.”
Will felt like punching someone. Was there no end to Martha Rafferty’s deviousness? He tried his best to recall the conversation he’d had with Win the day he came to talk to him in this very room. “I thought we’d settled this.”
“We did discuss it,” she said, “but it’s a long way from settled. I chose not to pursue it so that I could keep fooling myself that everything would be okay between us. Didn’t Win say something along the lines of there being advantages to your marrying into the family?”
Will stared at her, feeling his life slip away for the second time. He was many things, but he wasn’t a liar, so he might as well tell her everything.
“He did say something like that. You’d have to ask him what he meant. Either way, I told him I didn’t want to marry anyone.” Will began to pace. “When we talked at the mill, and I turned him down on the partnership again, I told him about a plan I had to get back on my feet. Since he’s a successful businessman, I asked him if he thought it would work and, if so, if the bank would be willing to give me some financing.”
“Ah. Those advantages,” she said in a smug tone.
“No. When I explained that you’d looked at the books and found out what Martha was doing, Win realized I could pay the money back, no problem. So even if we weren’t married, I’d have gotten the loan. A loan, Blythe. Not a sellout or a handout from my brother-in-law so that I’d marry y
ou.”
* * *
His announcement robbed her of the last remnants of her anger. She didn’t think she’d been so miserable since the day she’d found out the truth about Devon.
“So now I guess we know exactly where we stand,” he said.
As ashamed as she was, she refused to give him the satisfaction of an apology. The hurt went both ways. “It appears so.”
She heard the barest hint of a quaver in her voice and wanted nothing more than to get rid of him before she broke down again. “If you’ll send my mother in, I’ll tell her to have Win start the process to end our marriage as soon as possible.”
“No.”
“No?”
“We made a promise to God. We said that we believe in the sanctity of marriage and we agreed there would be no divorce, no matter what.”
“B-but that was before either of us knew about the baby, before there was so much...anger and distrust between us.”
He ignored her comment and continued. “We took vows,” he stated firmly. “And whatever else you may think I am, I don’t go back on my word.”
Blythe stared at him, her mouth parted in surprise. After everything that had just passed between them, she could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“But you don’t like the idea of a baby.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Will. Be reasonable. We both know that we were going into this marriage as a way out of our problems.” She gave a weary shake of her head. “I’m not sure how we fooled ourselves into thinking we could get through a lifetime together, but after today I can’t see anything but disaster ahead.”
“Maybe,” he said again. “My mother has always said that nothing worth having comes easy, and this sure won’t be. I guess this is where the commitment comes in. Are you feeling well enough to travel?”
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m going to go have a talk with Edward. If he says it’s okay, we’re going home.”
* * *
“I’m sorry, Will. There’s no way she can ride that far in the back of a wagon at this point,” Edward said. “Rachel and I both think she’s in danger of losing the baby.”
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