drove her to it.
Even though the rocks behind the falls were slippery and wet, even though she shivered in her sweater and pulled the well-wrapped baby closer to her aching chest, she struggled along the ledge, clinging to the gleaming black rocks with one hand and to the baby with the other.
The crash and roar of river water filled the air, filled her head, filled her completely and terrifyingly. She must do this. She must. Whisper Falls was her last and only hope.
With water spraying relentlessly against her face and hair, she edged along the rock face. Thank God for the rock cleaves and ledges made by nature and humans, many perhaps as desperate as herself. People who’d climbed down the rocks to the ledge below and clung to the rock face like snails to somehow manage the difficult journey to that sacred spot behind the waterfall.
The roar grew louder. Tons of water cascaded in front of her, a white spray of fierce beauty. Her body trembled violently from cold and wet, fear and exhaustion as well as from the lonely, terrible suffering of solitary childbirth hours before.
“Please, God,” she whispered, “help me do this for my baby.”
She’d heard the tales of Whisper Falls. Tales of whispered prayers answered if the one in need had the courage to climb behind the falls and send a prayer on angel wings to God.
One more step and she’d be there. One step. Barely able to hold on because of the violent weakness in her knees, she slipped successfully behind the falls. Just that quick, she stepped into a place of tranquility and quiet as though the curtain of white water blocked the painful, bewildering world she’d fled.
She let out a long sigh of relief, eyes closed, resting the back of her head against the hard, cold rock for a moment. Mist drenched her face and clothes, but the baby rested warm and dry, protected by a vinyl tablecloth.
“Dear God,” she whispered.
She wasn’t sure how prayer worked or if there were rules. But she knew God was big and if anyone could help her, He could. He was likely the only one.
“I need your help, God. I don’t know where to go or what to do. Tell me what’s best for my baby.”
She waited, unsure, hearing nothing but the waterfall’s mighty rush. She didn’t know what she’d expected but not this loud silence.
“If you’re listening, God. If you even listen to someone like me, take care of my baby.”
The tears she’d held inside all through the grueling birth fell now and mixed with the swirling mist until her chilled face ran like a windowpane.
“I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for her. She didn’t do anything wrong. Please, God, send a family to love her.” Her voice choked. “Really love her. This is all I’ll ever ask of You.”
She gazed down at the tiny red face, memorizing the thatch of dark hair above the perfect nose and chin. Then she offered up the child, a living sacrifice for her mother’s sins. Her terrible, terrible sins.
Chapter One
A baby on the doorstep was a cliché. Wasn’t it?
Creed Carter shook the early morning cobwebs from his head. He should have had one more cup of coffee. Maybe two.
No one abandoned babies on doorsteps anymore. Especially in a town as small as Whisper Falls.
But this wasn’t a doorstep. This was the altar of Whisper Falls Community Church. A small church that was always as quiet as a tomb on Tuesday mornings and every other morning he came in to pray before starting his day in the air above the Ozark Mountains.
Creed blinked and crept closer, tiptoeing, hoping his vision would clear or he would awaken and laugh off the silly dream.
Maybe a child had left a doll behind. Maybe the Christmas committee had gotten the baby Jesus doll out of storage for some reason.
But this was spring. Christmas was months away.
Suddenly, the small wrapped bundle stirred. Creed’s heart jumped, kicking up to a hundred knots. A man who’d flown helicopters over Iraq wasn’t scared of anything. Except very small human beings who cried a lot and couldn’t talk. Or walk. Or feed themselves.
A pair of tiny fists rose from the odd-looking bundle. Right behind them came the mewling cry.
His heart slammed against his chest wall as if he’d lost power over Whisper Falls with the chopper filled with sightseers. Creed rushed to the altar and fell on his knees beside the bundle. A tiny baby, face wrinkled and red, eyes still puffy and slanted as if she or he was brand-new, quivered and kicked. The tiny rosebud mouth opened with a loud, distressed wail.
Creed glanced wildly around. Surely this child had a mother around here somewhere. Reverend Wally Schmidt opened the church every morning at five before making his trek over the mountains to his day job in Fayetteville. If Creed arrived early enough, sometimes they prayed together. But not this morning. The church was empty. Not even Wally’s four-wheel drive was parked outside. There wasn’t another soul around except him and this little bitty, squalling baby.
Heart revving faster by the minute, Creed offered up a quick prayer and then whipped out his cell phone and did what any sensible man would do. He called 9-1-1.
* * *
The sound of JoEtta Farnsworth’s moped had barely died when the Whisper Falls police chief slammed through the double doors into the sanctuary. Short and stocky and tough as shoe leather, the middle-aged blonde looked like a scooter-riding version of Amelia Earhart.
“What’s going on in here?” she demanded in voice like a foghorn.
“I found this baby,” Creed said, realizing how sad that sounded. People found pennies, not babies.
It was weird. He, an only child whose experience with babies was limited to diaper commercials on TV, was downright heartsick to think anyone would leave a baby alone. Even if the little thing had been left in a church, he or she was alone. Abandoned. Helpless.
“What do you mean you found her?” Chief Farnsworth eyed him as if he was a teenaged driver caught spinning doughnuts on Main Street.
“I came in a few minutes ago, and there she was.” He hitched his chin toward the long, oak altar.
“On the altar?”
The baby stirred. “Wrapped up in this thing. It’s a tablecloth, I think.”
“Uh-huh. The kind you carry on picnics.” The chief stepped closer. “Flannel on the inside. Vinyl on the outside.”
“She quieted down when I picked her up.”
He’d rocked her, too, and sung “Jesus Loves Me” in the rough, pathetic voice that could make dogs howl and soldiers throw things. She’d seemed to go for it.
Creed didn’t mention the singing and rocking to the chief.
“Anyone else around?”
“No one I saw.”
