Jake Walker's Wife Read Online Free Page A

exchanged vows beneath the grape arbor. She'd wear her mother's wedding dress, and the ring Bess would wear for the rest of her life would be the one Micah had slipped onto Mary's finger on their special day.
    String quartet? Absolutely not! Fiddlers, instead. A banjo, a mandolin, a jug blower and a juice harp to make music that would set folks' toes to tapping.
    She' d serve none of those fancy finger sandwiches so favored by Baltimore's elite. Fried chicken and a spit-roasted pig would feed her hungry guests. Her mother would have loved a celebration like that, Bess knew.
    Sighing heavily, she wondered what her mama would have thought about the handsome stranger who arrived today. A romantic by nature, Mary, too, would have been mesmerized by his soft southern drawl. She'd have hidden a grin behind her dainty hand and whispered, "Oh, Bess, honey , isn't he a fine-looking fellow!" And when the giggles faded, Mary's dark brows would have risen sympathetically as she commented on the sadness in his ice-blue eyes...and speculated on what might have caused it.
    Bess snuggled deeper into the overstuffed backrest of her windowseat and hugged a fat white pillow, her fingertips lightly stroking the tiny knots that made up the candle -wicked bouquet. By now, her mother would have discovered the cause of the big stranger's woes, for she had such a way with people! Bess envied her ability to identify and soothe the pain in others.
    It had been that aspect of her gentle nature that cost Mary her life. Bess leaned her forehead against the cool window glass and closed her eyes as the memory roll over her like a wave at high tide....
    On a cool March day, much like this one had been, Everett Thomas had sent his son to fetch Mary, the local midwife. She'd been baking bread, and a dozen loaves of spongy dough were waiting for their turn in the oven when the boy burst into the kitchen, teary-eyed and panting. "M-m-ma's baby is comin', m-m-Miss m-m-Mary, y-y-you gotta come, quick!" Mary had laid a flour-dusted palm against his fear-flushed cheek and kissed his forehead. "We'll stop at the barn on our way out," she told him, removing her frilly white apron and cooking cap, "and let Mr. Beckley know that a miracle is about to happen at your house." Her touch had been enough, Bess recalled, to ease the boy's fright. He was smiling by the time he and Mary headed for the barn, hand in hand.
    At Mary's funeral, t he Thomas clan talked about it in excruciating detail: Three times that night, Everett had said, Lizbeth would have died, if not for Mary; nearly twelve hours after arriving at the Thomas house, Bess's mother gently placed a howling ten pound, four ounce baby boy in his mama's waiting, weary arms. Neighborly concern inspired Everett to invite Mary to stay the night. But she declined the friendly offer, saying in her playfully polite way that she'd rather brave the perils of the night than listen to newborn Daniel exercise his powerful little lungs for even one minute longer.
    Birthing babies often took countless hours, so when Mary didn't return to Foggy Bottom before dark, her family hadn't given it a thought. First thing next morning, Micah headed out to the Thomas' s. As usual, his plan was to hitch his horse to the back of her buckboard, the way he often did when a woman's labor kept her away from home all night, and drive the wagon so that his exhausted wife could doze, head resting on his shoulder.
    But halfway between Foggy Bottom and the Thomas farm, Micah had found her, lying still and pale alongside Beckleysville Road. Later, he told his only daughter how he'd dismounted, scooped her up, and gently lay her in the blanketed wagon bottom. All the way to the doctor's office, he'd said, he refused to believe that her cold, clammy skin and partially opened eyes were proof of the unthinkable.
    "I never should have let her hitch that horse to her wagon," Micah whimpered at the funeral. He'd been trying for weeks to break the beast, but it