all right? Will she be joining you again?”
Will groaned and closed his eyes. That was the question, wasn’t it? Would she be joining them on their trip back to the farm, or would he send her back to Ohio? The sliver of the letter he had been able to read stated the pastor’s approval. According to the pastor, Miss Stewart was an upstanding Christian girl, well respected by the other members of the church where she had attended since she had been little. The pastor indicated that he had known her parents and wanted to make sure she was arriving to a Christian home where she would be protected and respected. It had confirmed what Will surmised about her from her letters.
The only problem was her age—how could he bring a young woman to live with them? True, they wouldn’t be completely alone, thanks to Jake and the boys, but it still didn’t seem proper. Yet it hardly seemed proper to abandon a young woman in a strange town, either.
“Oh...all right!” He gave in to his guilty conscience. He needed to go search her out and see what solution he could offer. It was getting later in the day and he still needed to be back to the river by nightfall. “Can you keep an eye on my boys for a minute?” he asked the waitress, wondering what he could possibly do to make this situation better for everyone.
“We’ll be just fine here, right, boys? I remember when mine were this size.” The waitress smiled at Tommy and Willy and then nodded to Will.
Maybe he could ask Mrs. Scotts to let Miss Stewart stay on their homestead. The Scotts were his closest neighbors, and Mrs. Scotts had always struck him as a kind woman. He played with that idea as he left the building and blinked in the afternoon sun. Once his eyes adjusted, he turned and followed the forlorn sound of someone sobbing. When he found her, she was leaning against the building, crying so hard she looked on the verge of collapse. She was the picture of distress and disillusionment. Knowing he had created this big mess, causing her so much misery, struck him like a sucker punch to his stomach.
He had prayed and sought God’s guidance each step of the process that had brought her here. Mother had started everything when she suggested he advertize for a housekeeper last spring. Being that it was her idea, he’d asked his mother to write his ad and get it placed in a good Christian publication. Miss Stewart’s copy was the first he had seen of the original ad. He never even dreamed she had used his given name—Francis, the name he had grown to hate as a boy growing up. Miss Stewart was not the first person to think it a woman’s name. How could it have gone so terribly wrong? Now the poor girl was in a strange place with no one to count on and nowhere to go.
God, I need a little help here, he prayed as he approached, wondering what he could possibly say.
“Um, Miss Stewart?”
She jerked around so quickly that she almost fell. Her pallid face looked as if she had powdered it with flour. Even her lips looked gray. Her red nose and red-rimmed eyes contrasted her lack of color.
She spun away from him just as quickly and her stomach heaved again, although she brought nothing up. A sob escaped her throat and ripped his heart in half. He stepped closer. Supporting her elbows with his hands, he felt her body shaking.
He felt an unaccustomed surge of protectiveness. He wanted to help this girl, shield and protect her from any source of pain. But right now he was the cause of her distress. What could he say or do to make that right?
* * *
Abby had thought the day couldn’t get any worse when she fled the restaurant, but apparently she was wrong. Now he was here watching her toss up her accounts. How embarrassing.
“I’m sorry, Miss Stewart. I wasn’t expecting you to be... I had thought... I’ve made a mess of this.”
His hands still supported her elbows and he sounded truly contrite, but what could she say? It was all right? That it was understandable after he had brought her all this way into the middle of nowhere that he was going to abandon her and leave her with nothing?
The nightmare didn’t seem to be ready to end. Silence stretched out and neither one knew how to break the uncomfortable tension. At least her stomach had settled to resemble a simple storm instead of a full-blown sea squall.
“Listen, I admit this is a mess.” He stated the obvious. If Abby hadn’t been so tense, she might have seen a bit of humor in that. Right now she didn’t have the energy to be amused.
“Really!” She speared him with a pointed look.
“I’m... Why don’t we go back and sit down? Maybe if you eat something...”
“It’ll come right back up,” she mumbled before he even finished his idea. “All I want is to go home...to have a place to go and lie down, a place that’s safe, where I belong.”
The last word caught in her throat. A place to belong and to be loved—it was what she had been searching for a long time. Her fight drained out of her as quickly as her ire had ignited. What was she doing, telling this man her heart’s desire?
“Um... I was thinking. I’ve got neighbors a few miles away who might be willing to let you stay with them while you work for us. At least until we can come up with another solution.” He paused and then asked abruptly, “Do you know how to ride a horse?”
Abby swallowed hard. He was offering her an option. Granted it wasn’t much of an option since it depended on this other family agreeing, but it was a better option than nothing. Clearly he wasn’t planning for her to stay permanently since he’d hardly want her imposing on his neighbors for very long, but at least she would have a place to stay for a few days. She nodded, afraid to say anything.
“We’ve got an extra horse that you could take each day….” He was already planning, but Abby couldn’t suppress a shudder. Did he expect her to ride the prairie for a few miles on her own each morning and night? Would it be safe? “We’ll work something out, at least until harvest. The winter months we spend closer to the house and I can see to the boys. In the meantime, I’ll write to my mother….”
He continued to talk, but she was having a hard time concentrating.
“Well?” he asked, obviously waiting for her to respond.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She almost sank to the ground in exhaustion. The entire trip was now taking its toll. From the moment she had received his letter and realized she was finally free of her sister and brother-in-law, she had slept very little, first packing and then traveling by coach and finally by train for the last week. A woman alone, she only dared to catch catnaps and felt so vulnerable. She had assumed that once she had arrived, everything would be calm and she would be shown her room and be able to rest—not sit for almost an hour in a strange town with no one looking for her and then discover that her job itself might fall through.
“I think you need to get in, out of the sun, and rest. Shall we?” Without waiting for her to answer, he slipped an arm around her waist and half walked, half carried her to the front of the building.
“Mr. Hopkins, I can do this on my own,” Abby declared as firmly as she could in her shaky voice. She couldn’t afford to leave him with the impression that she wouldn’t be able to take care of herself, much less do her work. She swiped at the tears on her face and groaned inwardly. Her face must be a sight, all red and puffy.
“All right,” he acknowledged, releasing her waist and tucking her arm around his like a perfect gentleman, turning them both toward the front door.
Abby
