Chapter 12

© Copyright 2008 by Elizabeth Delayne



Rachel was leaving.

As much as James would have preferred to avoid the news, people had made it their mission toremind him. Women at church had discussed it openly in his presence, as if he’d failed his entire mission for the year by letting her go.

His father had reminded him countless times over the last week.

And Matt had stopped saying much of anything at all.

It was better this way, James reminded himself. Matt had already started the grieving process. Maybe they all had.

There was no reason to open the wound again.

He told himself that he would have avoided going into town all together, if their supplies would have held out. He had a feeling his own father was a little responsible for missing goods.

But as his father appeared innocent, and his son at least needed to eat, James had little choice but to head to town.

Or slaughter one of his prized cows before it was time.

He had hoped with Rachel leaving, Millie would have been with her, leaving Jasper to man the store alone. He’d gone early, hoping to avoid the crowd that would have demanded both Bartons be in attendance.

He’d gone so far as to pray for it to be his way.

He’d thought God had granted him this simple reprieve when he was able to shop in peace, with Jasper manning the counter.

But the divine reprieve didn’t last for long.

He felt her steely glare even before he saw her. He’d reached out to pick up a can of peas, but pulled his hand back slowly, feeling somehow guilty.

Millie stepped in front of him, the look in her eyes nearly lethal. He looked at her, tried to side step, and was unsurprised when she moved quickly to block him again.

She was so small, so tiny against his height and build, that it should have been laughable that he was just the slightest bit afraid of her.

“It’s no use, Millie.”

“It’s plenty of use.” Millie said, and held up a finger to his chest.

Years of knowing her, of seeing her in his home with Anna, left him un-affronted and unsurprised. She’d been there in the worst of times since Anna’s death and pushed back when she’d thought it prudent.

Most of the time she was right.

But he couldn’t accept her reasoning now.

Couldn’t deal with what he knew she wanted him to be thinking.

“Rachel’s leaving today, James Forester.”

“Is she?”

He tried to step around her again, but she moved with him.

“Do you think its not obvious that you aren’t aware of it?” Her finger came up to his chest again. “You’re doing your shopping a day early and very early in the day. You didn’t bring Matt in to town. You haven’t for most of the spring.”

“He’s busy with his chores.”

“Everyone has chores, James and to use that as an excuse is simply unforgivable. Jeff has chores, but I give time to see his friends, especially when Matt comes to town. Do you know my son misses your son? He even asked if he would see Matt more once Rachel leaves,” she narrowed her gaze as James took in that even a four year old knew his secrets. “And more importantly, do you think it won’t hurt Matt—hurt them both—for her to leave without being able to say goodbye?”

“It will be better–“

”For her and Matt or for you?”

“He doesn’t need to ...”

“What?” Millie asked, then threw up her hands. “They have a connection, James. Whether you keep them apart or let it nurture, it’s not going to change what’s already there. Matt loves me, I know he does, but he’s never ... held onto me the way he holds onto Rachel.”

James let out a breath, and looked away. He tried to work the tension from his jaw. Millie meant well. She meant well, but she didn’t, couldn’t understand.

“Fine,” Millie said. “You do what you want for your own good, but you think of your child first when it comes to this. Bring him by the store and leave him with me, if you can’t bare the whole ritual of it yourself. He didn’t get to say goodbye to his mother, James. Don’t be stubborn enough to hold him back from Rachel.”

As Millie walked away, it wasn’t Matt he thought of, or Anna, but Rachel. He shouldn’t have invited her out to the house. She was everywhere now. When he worked, when he tried to relax.

It was his own fault for staying around the barn when the kids had moved on to the puppies. He was a grown man. He should have been inside with the other grownups. Instead he was sniffing around a girl.

He was too old to be sniffing around a girl.

And yet he’d followed, unable to stop himself.

He’d listened to their voices, to Rachel’s soft exclamation of love. He shouldn’t have. Now the image was branded in his mind.

Rachel holding the puppy to her shoulder as if it were a child, the soft look of love in her eyes.

It wasn’t Rachel, he told himself. He was longing for family, for children. He grieved for Anna. He grieved for their child. It was natural to want.

It was as natural as breathing.

And anyone ... anyone as lovely and as loving as Rachel would do.

* * *

“Just say it,” Millie said as they waited outside the store for the Reverend to arrive with the wagon. He was picking up Mrs. Jones, who was accompanying her as a chaperone on the train and the Lynne’s guest for the summer.

“What?”

“What you’re thinking. And why you keep looking west when it’s east you’re going.”

Rachel sighed. “I’m going to miss him, Millie.”

“Matthew or James?”

“There is no James,” Rachel looked at her friend pointedly. “You told me yourself he was in town this morning. He didn’t even bring Matthew. He doesn’t even care enough to let me say goodbye.”

For that, Rachel would harden her heart. Against the man. Against the day dreams that had plagued her since Matt’s birthday.

Against all the prodding from well minded people in town.

It wasn’t her fault that she and Matt had grown close. She didn’t even know for sure where the bond had come from. Maybe simply from the plea of a desperate grandfather with love in his eyes. Maybe drawn from the depth of her prayers for the boy and his family.

It hadn’t been her plan when she’d traveled west to bring this ache ... this longing back with her when she returned home.

And it certainly wasn’t fair to punish Matt.

James had to of known it would hurt her.

“I tell you what,” Millie said as she spotted the Pettersons approaching with Mrs. Jones already settled in the wagon. “We’ll talk to the Reverend. There’s time yet for you to swing out to the Forester’s.”

“Oh, Mrs. Petterson already handled that for me,” Rachel grinned. “Did you really think I could leave without saying goodbye? I couldn’t do that to myself or Matt.”

“I should have known better.”

It seemed the town turned out to wish Rachel off. She said goodbyes again, while her single bag was loaded into the wagon. Her school children were there, giving her hugs. She ran her hand over the head, and wished—not for the first time—that she could stay.

But she couldn’t. Rebecca was having a baby. Her twin. And Rachel missed her. It had been hard being so far away.

And yet, these people of Lenox had become her family ... they were part of her. They were her family as well.

“Well,” Millie said from her side. “Would you look at that?”

Rachel turned.

And there he was.

James, on horseback, had ridden to the edge of the crowd. He was lowering Matt to the ground. Her eyes were riveted. Not to the child, but to the father.

He hadn’t held this back from her. From either of them.

Matt ran to her, but it was James she watched.

Matt’s arms went around her, and Rachel clasped him to her—but it was the look on James’s face that brought tears to her eyes. She hadn’t planned to cry. She was coming back.

When she realized Matt was talking to her, she knelt down so she could look him directly in the eye. There was so much to say and so much she didn’t have to say. She gave him a smile, even as she wanted to weep.

As he talked, she listened, hoping she would carry the sound of his voice with her back home. She wanted it in her dreams, to remember her sweet Matthew. She didn’t have a picture. She reached up and cradled his face between her hands as he talked, searching his eyes–trying to take in the way he just ... lived. He was living now, no longer the little ghost she had met back in August.

And then, even with the time they’d gained not having to ride west toward the Foresters’, it was time to go. The Reverend was urging her on. She had one last hug for the children, for Millie, and then for Matthew. She pulled out the gift she’d chosen for him from her bag, and kneeling at his level, handed it to him.

“This was my favorite book, from when I was your age. My father would read it to me every night.”

“I’ll tell Pa. He’ll read it to me, too,” Matt said seriously, as if she was giving him instructions instead of just a simple gift. “When we read it, we’ll think of you.”

There was nothing she could have said, nothing that would have escaped over the lump in her throat. She pulled Matthew close for one last hug, and felt his arms wrap around her. He held him against her heart and pressed a gentle kiss on the top of his head.

Oh, she needed this, she realized. God had to have known how much she needed this one last hug.

She opened her eyes, Matt’s arms still holding on, and she found herself looking right into James’s.

A bubble of ... something rose from her throat.

Something rough, something desperate.

Ask me to stay, she wanted to say.

Suddenly that was all there was to say. She would, she realized, if he asked.

But she couldn’t. It wasn’t her call.

And then she was standing, running her hand over Matt’s head, over Jeff’s, and squeezing Millie’s hand. She was climbing into the wagon.

She looked at James as she settled herself.

And she watched him watch her as the wagon pulled away.



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