Bartered Bride Romance Collection (45 page)

Bertie grinned and disappeared indoors.

Luke trudged down to the barn. There wasn’t much he could do in the dark, but he couldn’t tolerate being in the house and unable to do anything to alleviate Corrie’s suffering. In the corner by the workshop, he once again dropped to his knees. “Almighty God,” he whispered into the hay-scented night, “Your Scripture tells us that You know the plans You have for us. While I want Your plan for me to include Corrie, at this hour what I want even more is for her to live and for You to spare the life of her little one. You know Matty is doing all that can be done humanly. With Your mercy, do more than we can do.” His words ceased, but his heart remained focused on his heavenly Father. Peace enveloped him. He continued in wordless prayer, even as his legs cramped. The burden in his soul made his physical discomfort negligible by comparison. He couldn’t have said how long he knelt before the burden eased, but when he stood, his legs shook. Lighting a lantern, he made his way into the workshop, where an idea began to take shape. Work on the ranch had kept him away from the woodworking he loved. He knew sleep wouldn’t come readily tonight, so he might as well do something he enjoyed. The pile of fine-grained, smooth wood under the bench would make a fine cradle. Through the rest of the night, his hands shaped and smoothed the wood while his soul sent prayers heavenward.

Chapter 6

C
orrie woke to daylight streaming through the window. She felt sticky, achy, and still tired. She stretched, feeling the baby kick at the same time her leg cramped up so severely she let out a quiet cry. Instantly, Matty was by her side.

“Another contraction, Sweetie?”

Corrie could barely speak but managed to shake her head while straining to reach around her swollen belly to rub the cramped muscle. Matty read her body language and rubbed Corrie’s leg with firm, experienced strokes.

“Ah, that’s so much better.” Corrie sighed as the pain abated. “I keep forgetting I can’t tighten those muscles without penalty.”

Matty massaged for a few more minutes then lightly stroked Corrie’s belly. “How’s the baby?”

Corrie grinned. “Busy as ever.”

“That’s a good sign. Any cramping?”

Corrie pondered. “I don’t think so. I feel sore but not crampy.”

Matty’s eyes shone with delight. “That’s good news. You fell asleep around midnight and seemed to sleep peacefully, which tells me the contractions may have stopped.”

“When can I have a bath?”

“I’ll have Bess bring up some warm water, and I’ll give you a sponge bath.”

“I can do it.”

“No, you can’t.” Matty’s voice rarely took such a firm note with Corrie. “Sweetie, you’re not moving out of this bed except to use a chamber pot.”

“Matty!” Corrie heard the whine in her own voice and hated it even while she felt powerless to get rid of it. “I’ll die of boredom up here!”

“No, my dear one, you won’t. You’ll save your baby’s life.”

The bald statement jolted Corrie. She felt the shock widen her eyes.

“I’m not exaggerating, Corrie. If the contractions hadn’t stopped, if your baby had been born today, he or she wouldn’t have had a chance. You need to do everything you can to keep that little one happy inside you for at least another month. That means you need to stay relaxed and quiet. The slightest bit of exertion could start your labor again, and it might not stop.”

Corrie felt despicable tears fill her eyes. She turned her head toward the wall so Matty wouldn’t see. If she lost this baby, her own life might as well end. But a month of being cooped up in this little room?

The first few days weren’t as difficult as she’d expected. Her body seemed to crave sleep. Now there was no reason for her to resist the urge. Her naps frequently broke with the baby’s activity or by her own bodily discomfort, but a change of position usually allowed her to drift back into slumber.

By the end of the week, however, her need for sleep became less acute. She had time to miss the rhythm of family life. Matty came in every morning with her breakfast and a sponge bath. Either Bess or Matty brought lunch and dinner. Matty usually stayed to chat while Corrie ate. Bess always inquired as to how Corrie felt, but she didn’t linger.

In those hours of aloneness, Corrie couldn’t help but contemplate the difference between her life as it was and the life she’d anticipated when she’d married Brian. He’d been a charming, jovial man. In fact, it had been Matty who had introduced him to the family. Corrie fully expected the two of them to make a match of it. But after only two visits, Brian started singling out Corrie. Thinking back, she shook her head at her own naïveté. She’d thought he was just being polite. Though she felt attracted to him, she’d kept her feelings out of sight, in deference to her sister. The night Brian had asked her permission to court her, she’d felt as though someone had tipped her world sideways. She’d refused to give him an answer until she’d talked with Matty.

Matty had assured her there was nothing romantic between her and Brian. “He views me like a sister,” she’d said. “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see courting my other half.”

Six months later, Corrie and Brian were married, Corrie wearing a gown stitched by Matty. Their marriage was better than anything Corrie could have dreamed. Occasionally, she wondered if she’d stolen happiness from Matty. She knew now that wasn’t the case. Brian had never put the sparkle in Matty’s eyes that Jim Collingswood had created almost from the first moment he and Matty met.

The only flaw in Brian and Corrie’s marriage had been the lack of children. Corrie had so wanted to start a family right away, but month after month passed with no pregnancy. At long last, two years after their wedding day, Corrie knew her prayers had been answered. Three days after she’d told Brian their good news, an Atlantic storm swept him off the fishing boat and out of her life. A scant two months later, she was on the train with her sisters, history’s most reluctant mail-order bride.

Tears flooded her eyes again and ran down her cheeks. She hadn’t wept much over her loss. The pain had been too deep for tears, and the future too frightening. Now as she lay in a warm bed, surrounded by her sisters’ tenderness and without the distraction of work, her pent-up grief began to flow freely. She couldn’t lay facedown to weep into her pillow, so she pulled the blanket up to her face and stifled her sobs in the scratchy wool. She allowed herself to weep until it felt as if every drop of moisture had been wrung from her body. Matty would probably say she shouldn’t cry so hard, for the baby’s sake, but her sorrow refused to be denied its rightful release.

When the storm abated, she carefully eased herself out of bed. Matty had left the washbasin on the bureau. Corrie dipped a cloth in the now-tepid water, wrung it out, and then buried her face in the soothing coolness. The raw knot in the vicinity of her heart felt less tangled, less stabbing in its pain. Tears still ran but less intensely. It likely wasn’t the last time she’d weep over the loss of her mate, but she felt a small measure of healing. Returning to bed lest Matty catch her upright, Corrie snuggled down into the covers and let a peaceful sleep claim her. She didn’t wake until Matty brought her lunch.

The days passed, and Corrie came to relish her imposed solitude. She remembered, she wept, and she felt herself become stronger. One afternoon as she reminisced over her wedding, she recalled a private moment with Mama.

“I decided years ago I’d give this to whichever one of you girls married first,” Mama had said, placing her big black Bible in Corrie’s hands. “May it give you as much wisdom in raising your family as it’s given me.”

Corrie had treasured the link with her mother, especially after Mama’s death a mere three months later. Still she’d spent little time reading the Book itself. Her life had been too full of Brian and new love. Yet, when gathering her meager belongings for the trip west, Mama’s Bible had been the first thing she’d put in her trunk.

Devoutly hoping Matty wouldn’t make a surprise visit, Corrie waddled to the trunk, which sat under the window. After just a few moments of digging, her fingers encountered the smooth, hard outlines of a book. She closed the trunk and carried the Bible back to her bed. She had no idea how long she lay there, tracing the edges of the Bible with her fingertips, remembering Mama. This had been one of her most treasured possessions. Though Mama had worked long hours every day, helping Papa in the dairy and raising her five daughters, each morning and each evening found her cradling the Book in her lap as she sat in her rocking chair. From an early age, her daughters knew not to disturb Mama when her Bible lay open before her.

Corrie had made her own profession of faith at ten years of age, mostly in response to Mama’s strong, yet quiet, faith. Corrie wanted to be like Mama in every way, and faith was part of the package. But it had been an inherited faith, not her own. When her parents had been killed and then when news of Brian’s death had come, faith wasn’t where she turned first. It had been Matty who had bolstered them both, whose faith had kept them going.

Now Corrie felt a longing for a personal faith. She opened the Bible, not sure where she should start reading. One passage, then another, caught her attention, the words familiar from the many times Mama had read Scripture aloud. But nothing made her linger until some underlined words in John’s Gospel beckoned. “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t had an abstract belief in God. But Jesus Himself was saying it wasn’t enough. She scanned the surrounding verses and realized He was talking with His disciples, and yet it felt like a message designed for her personally. The verses that followed talked about keeping His commandments and then about Him sending the Comforter to be with them.

She gazed unseeingly at the wall across from her. A prayer formed deep within, though she didn’t speak the words aloud.
Father God, I feel like I’ve known about You all my life, but now I want to know You personally, the way Jesus said we can. I need Your comfort, and I also need Your wisdom as I prepare to raise this child
—she paused; it was time to stop hiding from the truth—
these children alone. Please use these coming days of solitude and rest to help me learn to know You as my personal heavenly Father
.

Luke once again dismissed the urge to prop a ladder on the side of the house and crawl up to Corrie’s window. It had been almost a month since he’d seen her, counting the week he and Jim had been out herding before the crisis. It was practically unbearable knowing she lay just up the stairs and around a corner but as remote from him as if she’d returned to Rhode Island. Matty had assured him Corrie and the baby were doing well, but she had been adamant that Corrie would not be getting out of bed for any reason anytime soon.

He tried to hide his loneliness in work. After putting in a full day on the ranch, he spent evenings in the barn and workshop mending tack, sharpening tools, and his favorite activity—painstakingly crafting the cradle. He couldn’t recall why his dad had originally purchased the wood. It was fine-grained, smooth, and straight, so it must have cost a fair bit. Perhaps he’d been planning a storage chest for Mom or a hope chest for Annie. Whatever the original intent, Luke was sure Dad wouldn’t mind the use he’d found for it.

Still, suppertime remained the worst part of the day. For some reason, it was then that he missed Corrie most intensely. Perhaps it was seeing the tender glances between Jim and Matty and knowing that an entire evening of togetherness stretched before them. Maybe it was just knowing that only a layer of wood and two strong-minded women separated him from the woman who’d unknowingly claimed his heart.

Whatever the cause, he’d even contemplated eating his supper at the bunkhouse. But that would stir up questions he preferred to leave unspoken. He pushed the beans around on his plate, knowing he’d better eat them or explain why he couldn’t.

Jim’s teasing tone interrupted Luke’s mental dilemma. “Hey, little brother, if your lower lip were any longer, you could just use it to scoop your food into your mouth.”