Sweet Forever (16 page)

Together, Opal and Rosaleen helped Patsey into the house.

“I know it won’t be easy, Patsey, but we must get you upstairs to a bed,” Opal urged in a no-nonsense tone as she and Rosaleen practically carried Patsey between them.

“I can make it,” Patsey gasped. “Ain’t gonna’ have this chil’ on the floor or the dining room table, neither!”

Rosaleen breathed a relieved sigh when they reached the second floor.

They maneuvered the mother-to-be into a room Rosaleen had readied for prospective boarders. Opal yanked the covers down on the bed, sat Patsey on the edge of the mattress, and then turned to Rosaleen. “I’ll get her into a nightdress. You hurry and fetch Andrew and Jacob.”

Rosaleen flew down the stairs, out the boardinghouse, and up Mulberry Street. She raced down Main-Cross Street and just missed being hit by a passing carriage.

Oh God, give me strength and speed.

By the time she reached the church, her burning lungs felt as if they might burst.

“Rosaleen!” Jacob caught sight of her and threw his hammer to the ground with a thud. “What’s happened?” Running to her, he drew her into his arms and held her while she gasped for breath to speak.

“It’s Patsey.” She gulped a lungful of air. “The baby’s coming.”

At his wife’s name, Andrew dropped the wheelbarrow of bricks he’d been pushing, paying it no heed as it toppled and spilled its contents onto the ground. His dusky face blanched to only a few shades darker than Jacob’s, and he raced for the wagon.

Her legs spent, Rosaleen sagged against Jacob. She allowed his tightened arm around her waist to propel her to the wagon. He helped her up then climbed to the seat beside her.

Andrew hollered and smacked the reins down hard against the mules’ backs. The animals bolted, causing the wagon to lurch to a dizzying speed.

The wagon bed full of lumber bounced and clattered as they careened along. Rosaleen clung to Jacob, fearing they might overturn at the junction of Main-Cross and Mulberry. There, they narrowly missed a wagonload of pork barrels.

Ignoring the frightened neighs of the rearing horses and the angry protests of their driver, Andrew urged the mule team around the corner, stopping only when they reached Opal Buchanan’s boardinghouse.

In a blur, Patsey’s husband leaped from the wagon, bounded to the porch, and shot through the front door.

Jacob helped Rosaleen down then climbed back to the wagon seat. “I’ll go get Ephraim,” he called over his shoulder as he turned the wagon around.

Rosaleen nodded and headed inside. Upstairs, she informed Opal and the expectant parents that Jacob had gone to fetch Dr. Morgan.

Andrew nodded but kept his eyes fastened on Patsey’s face, scrunched with pain. Kneeling beside his wife’s bed, he gently took her hand in his. In soothing tones, he whispered words of love and encouragement.

“First babies always take a while,” Opal said lightly, bathing Patsey’s face with a wet cloth. But the lines around the older woman’s mouth looked tight.

When Dr. Morgan arrived with Jacob, the concern on his face struck fear in Rosaleen’s heart. He immediately banished her and Jacob from the second story. He allowed Opal, and on Patsey’s insistence, Andrew, to remain in the room.

Guilt-ridden, Rosaleen sank forlorn to the settee in the parlor. She’d spent too much time the past couple of weeks with Alistair, shifting a larger portion of the household work to Patsey. Now Patsey and her baby might have to pay with their lives. The thought was more than Rosaleen could bear. Slumping forward, she sobbed into her hands.

“Ephraim has delivered lots of babies. I’m sure everything will be fine,” Jacob’s quiet voice comforted.

“It’s my fault,” she choked through the sobs. “I spent too much time attending to Alistair and not helping Patsey.”

His soft voice murmured consolation. “No, my dear Rosaleen. No.” Sitting down beside her, he gathered her into his arms and rocked her against him. “You know Opal would never allow Patsey to do more than she should. You felt an obligation to Mr. Ralston. You are not to blame—not in any way.”

Rosaleen wondered how she could have been so selfish. Why had she not once thought of Patsey’s condition during the past two weeks? “If anything should happen to Patsey or the baby, I don’t know if I could bear it.” Devastated, she clung to Jacob, weeping against his neck.

“Shh, my sweet, don’t do this to yourself. It is not your fault. Ephraim says many times babies come early and only God knows why.” He pushed away enough to wipe the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “I think we should go to God right now, don’t you?”

She nodded, reluctant to leave the haven of his embrace.

Holding her hands in his, he pressed the side of his face against hers. His breath felt soft, warm, and comforting against her ear as he whispered a prayer for Patsey and her baby’s safety.

❧

The sound of an infant’s lusty cries caused them to spring apart. Jumping up, they ran to the bottom of the stairs.

After a few breathless moments, Dr. Morgan came to the second-story landing at the top of the stairway, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. “It’s a boy,” he announced, grinning. “He’s a bit small, but by the sound of him, there’s nothing wrong with his lungs. Patsey’s exhausted but doing well,” the doctor said before returning to Patsey’s room.

“Thank You, Jesus!” Jacob shouted his prayer of thanks.

“Yes, Jesus, thank You! Thank You!” Rosaleen echoed, wiping the tears from her face. She felt weak as the tension drained away from her body.

Jacob and Rosaleen fell into each other’s arms, their mutual relief gushing out in joyful laughter. When Rosaleen pushed away, Jacob gazed into her eyes. His smile faded as he whispered her name. Suddenly his eyes closed and his arms tightened around her, his mouth capturing hers.

Returning his caresses, Rosaleen floated for a glorious moment in the fantasy of her beautiful dream before reality gripped her.
No! I mustn’t do this. Not until Jacob makes his intentions clear. Not until he asks me to stay
.

Shaken, she pulled away from him and fled upstairs.

After Dr. Morgan left, Rosaleen tidied up Patsey’s room, glad to have something to take her mind off the kiss she’d shared with Jacob.

Opal washed the newborn infant then swaddled him in a soft cotton towel.

“He is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Rosaleen said, tensing as Opal placed the tiny, squirming infant in her arms. “I’ve never held a baby, let alone a newborn baby.”

“You’re doin’ fine. Just support his head,” Opal instructed with a smile.

“We’ve decided to call him Adam, since he’s our first,” Patsey said, grinning from her bed. “Andrew couldn’t wait to git over to Georgetown to crow about him.”

“I should think so, with a fine son like little Adam here.” Rosaleen carefully deposited the mewling baby in the crook of his mother’s arm.

Offering to start supper while Opal tended to the new mother and baby, Rosaleen descended the stairs. Jacob was nowhere in sight, and she was glad. Her heart still quaked from their impulsive kiss.

As she neared the bottom step, three quick raps sounded at the front door. She answered the door and blinked in surprise to find Sophie Schuler’s beaming countenance.

“I’m afraid Jacob is not here,” Rosaleen said, managing a weak smile.

“It’s not Jacob I want to talk to. It’s you.”

“Me?” What business could Sophie have with her? The answer came as swiftly and unexpectedly as a stiletto through the heart.

“Oh, Rosaleen,” she said with an excited squeal, “I so have the hypo, I can scarcely contain myself!”

Rosaleen knew from her time at the finishing school that “hypo” was a term young ladies used to express extreme excitement.

“I’ve just become engaged to be married, and I want you to play for my engagement party as well as for my wedding.”

Staring at Sophie’s face crinkling with excitement, Rosaleen felt the blood drain from her own. So Jacob had gone directly from kissing her to proposing marriage to Sophie.

“I—I suppose.”

Sophie is not marrying Jacob.
The thought drowned out the girl’s prattle about the newest fabrics that had just arrived at the dry goods store.

Rosaleen mentally wrestled with the puzzling turn of events.
If Jacob isn’t planning to marry Sophie, why hasn’t he asked me to stay in Madison?
He’d once asked her to marry him—begged her to marry him. He confessed that he’d wrongly accused her of gambling at the Billiard Saloon, even asking her forgiveness for his hasty judgment. Had he since thought better of it and decided to leave well enough alone after she’d called off their engagement?

“Rose. Yes, rose for Rosaleen,” Sophie said with a giggle.

“What?”

“Rosaleen, you
must
keep up!” Sophie gave an exasperated sigh. “I said, with your coloring, that rose silk I saw at Fitch & Williams would be just perfect for you, don’t you think?”

Rosaleen smiled. “That sounds wonderful. I can’t wait to see it.” There would be plenty of time to assimilate the heart-jarring news. Just now, Sophie deserved her full attention.

After a half hour of discussing quadrilles, ballads, and serenades, Sophie rose, smoothing wrinkles from her apricot lawn skirt. “Well, I have a million things to do and little time to accomplish them all.”

Rosaleen hugged Sophie, realizing she hadn’t even offered the girl her best wishes. “Please allow me to extend my most sincere felicitations.”

“Thank you, Rosaleen.” Sophie gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I can scarcely wait to tell Edwin you’ve agreed to play for our engagement ball.” Her eyes grew round while her little pink lips drew into a dainty pout, reminding Rosaleen of a child begging for a treat. “Won’t you please consider staying until after the wedding in October? It would mean so much to us if you were to play for our wedding.”

“I will consider it,” Rosaleen said as she walked Sophie to the front door.

Returning to the parlor, Rosaleen stood at the front window and watched Sophie’s carriage drive away. Her heart sagged with her shoulders. Jacob had said he wasn’t in love with Sophie. Now she must assume, despite the kiss they’d shared earlier, he must have decided he wasn’t in love with Rosaleen
,
either.

❧

Jacob stood in the Madison Branch Bank beside Roscoe Stinnett. “I want to thank you for this loan, Roscoe,” he said dipping a pen into an inkwell and scratching his signature onto the document. “I reiterate the fact that it is a
loan.
You will be paid back with interest.”

“I’m a businessman, Reverend. Loans are part of what I do.” Stinnett cleared his throat. “Besides, Myrtle and Sophie have their hearts set on that wedding taking place in your new church. If I don’t make that happen, there’ll be no living with them.”

Their business concluded, they exited the bank together.

Jacob couldn’t help a little grin. “Still, I thank you. The church will provide more room for a larger number of worshipers at services, and I pray many more souls won to Christ. You’ve done a good thing this day, Roscoe.”

Roscoe only nodded, but Jacob noticed a softening of his hard-shelled, all-business facade. Never having had children of his own, the man seemed to have been blindsided by the wiles of his niece.

As Sophie had predicted, soon after her uncle allowed Edwin Applegate to court her, Roscoe grudgingly agreed to the match. Jacob hoped the young couple’s relationship would help repair the rift between Roscoe and the elder Applegate.

With a handshake, the two men parted company.

Jacob touched his vest pocket where the copy of the loan crinkled beneath his fingers. He felt glad but not joyful. This was what he’d wanted for two years—plenty of money for material and labor to build the church. He was glad, too, that he’d be able to pay Andrew in a timely fashion for his masonry work on the church. With the arrival of baby Adam, Andrew and Patsey could well use the money. So why, Jacob wondered, wasn’t he shouting his thanksgiving to the heavens? What had dulled the joy in his heart?

“Rosaleen.”

Her name floated from his lips on a soft sigh of regret. He hadn’t realized how long he’d imagined standing before his congregation in the new church and seeing her lovely face beaming up at him from beside the piano. He swallowed hard, blinking quickly as Mulberry Street dimmed before him.

Two days ago, when Alistair Ralston left Madison, Jacob had breathed a sigh of relief to find that Rosaleen had indeed stayed behind at the boardinghouse. He’d thanked God when he learned that Sophie had managed to persuade Rosaleen to stay and play for her and Edwin’s engagement party. He prayed that Sophie might convince her to play for the couple’s wedding in October as well.

Entering the boardinghouse, Jacob reminded himself of Christ’s promise: “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”

Believing.
That was the thing. Did he truly believe he could win her love again, convince her to stay and be his wife? The larger question remained:
Do I even deserve her love?

He felt a sardonic grin pull up his mouth at the absurd question. Of course he didn’t deserve her love. He’d made a grand mess of everything. He’d wrongly accused her of gambling and impropriety and even questioned her conversion and honesty.

Jacob winced at the excruciating memory. How
could
she love him? How could she even think of marrying a man who’d accused her of such things?