Mother's Day Miracle and Blessed Baby: Mother's Day Miracle / Blessed Baby

She nodded, but kept her eyes downcast.

“I liked the wedding. I especially liked your dress. You looked beautiful.” His right hand brushed across her hair, fingers rubbing it between them as if it were a fine silk.

She heard the funny catch in his voice and wondered why it was there. “It was my grandmother’s wedding dress. She always said she’d wanted my mother to wear it, but my parents eloped. I don’t think she would have minded.” Her own voice came out in a breathy whisper, but Clarissa ignored that because her heart had just speeded up to double time.

The fingers on his left hand closed over hers in a squeeze, then opened and threaded through hers so their hands were interlocked. She could feel his plain gold wedding band pressing against her knuckle and automatically rubbed at her own.

“It was gorgeous…you were gorgeous.” A tiny laugh came from low in his throat. “I guess I’m a little nervous. I’ve never been married before.”

“Neither have I.” She risked a glance up at him, and found him gazing down at her with a quizzical stare. “It was pretty rushed, wasn’t it?”

He shook his head slowly, his eyes burning into her with a steady flare glowing in their depths. “No. Actually it was perfect. All of it. You did a wonderful job.”

There was something in his voice, something she didn’t understand. But she couldn’t look away from him.

“Actually, I didn’t do any of it,” she babbled in a rush. “It was mostly Mrs. McLeigh….” Her voice died away, the words stuck in her throat. Nothing would come out when he kept looking at her like that.

“Clarissa?” His voice dropped to almost a whisper.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

Clarissa blinked. How did she answer that? “Oh.”

“Do you mind?” His mouth moved nearer, his lips very close to hers, his breath, sweetly scented with the chocolate from their wedding cake mixing with the tang of the punch they’d toasted each other with.

Clarissa took a deep breath. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t mind.” She held her breath and closed her eyes as his mouth came down and grazed across hers. “Not at all.”

“Good.” There was the sound of laughter in his voice. “Then would you please kiss me back?”

She looked up at that, her eyes widening as she saw the caring in his face. He wanted this day to be special for her! That knowledge eased her fears and she slid her hands around his neck, nodding as she did.

“I’ll try. Though I’m not very good at kissing.” Yet, she amended silently. “But I can learn.”

Then Clarissa kissed him with all the pent-up emotion she’d kept so carefully in check during the many times their lips had met during the reception. This time there were no observers, and she tried to put her feelings for him into actions rather than words. If she was a little confused about exactly what those feelings were, well, he didn’t need to know that.

When the kiss ended, Wade’s hands dropped away from her with obvious regret.

“Is something wrong?” she whispered, aghast at her own nerve in kissing this man.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Something is definitely wrong with my brain.”

“P-pardon?” She straightened her jacket and pushed her hair back, conscious of the fact that he’d loosened the entire mass so badly that she couldn’t possibly get it back in order without a mirror and her brush.

“I must be nuts to be sitting here on the side of the road, kissing you with the whole world watching us.”

He jerked a hand toward the window and only then did Clarissa see the interested spectators craning their necks for a better look. Wade rolled his eyes, shook his head and then grinned at her ruefully.

“Shall we, Mrs. Featherhawk?” he asked, almost playfully.

“We shall.” She joined in without a second thought. “Drive on, Mr. Featherhawk.”

After that it was simple to stop for dinner at a small wayside restaurant, to find the campground where a cabin had been rented in their name, to drive through the overhanging boughs of spruce and cedar to a small log building nestled between two massive pines.

“It’s really lovely, isn’t it?” Clarissa stood on the porch and looked around at the beauty of God’s world shown to best advantage in the clear moonlight and a few strategically placed lights. “How kind of them to do this for us.”

She gasped when his hands caught her up against his chest, barely managing to stifle the shriek that would have alerted the other campers, wherever they were, to their presence.

“What are you doing?” she whispered loudly as he struggled to reach the doorknob. She leaned down and unlatched it with her free hand. The other one refused to move from its anchoring position against his neck.

“Carrying you over the threshold. Isn’t that what you were waiting for?”

“No!” Clarissa gasped as he lowered her to her feet, her face burning with color. “I never even thought of such a thing.”

“Well, I want to keep up with tradition,” he mumbled, his face darkening. “Isn’t that what all the hoopla was about earlier?” Then he turned and went back out the door.

Clarissa blinked and tried to pretend that she didn’t wonder if he was coming back. But her sigh of relief when he staggered in the door with their cases gave her away, if he’d been paying attention.

Which he wasn’t. In fact, as he closed the door on the cabin and surveyed the rustic interior, Wade tried to convince himself that he hadn’t noticed anything about his new wife at all. That project was not a success.

The gold band on her finger gleamed as if she’d spent the ride here polishing it. Her hair, loose and flowing down her back, just begged to be brushed until it once more resembled the sheet of burnished silver-gold that he’d glimpsed so many mornings. And that suit of hers—that blazing red drew attention like a fire engine.

Wade didn’t like what he was feeling. None of it. He wasn’t a family kind of guy. Deep down the stark truth was that Wade didn’t believe in families. He sure as shootin’ didn’t believe in his ability to manage one. He’d only done it out of necessity.

Maybe he should have told her that? Yeah, right. Before or after he kissed her?

“Is anything wrong, Wade?” Clarissa studied him with a tiny frown that pleated the porcelain skin between her elegant brows. “Is something the matter?”

“No. Yes. Uh…” Wade shook his head in disgust, trying to come up with a way to tell her. “That is, maybe you’d better sit down, Clarissa. There’s something we need to discuss.”

“All right.” Her voice was quiet, almost frightened. As if she expected the worst and needed to steel herself for it. She sat down across from him in the overstuffed recliner that almost swallowed her delicate body whole. Her hands settled primly in her lap, her chin tilted upward to receive the blow. “Go ahead.”

“It’s not anything bad,” he muttered, mentally kicking himself for spoiling the ambience. She deserved better. He forged on. “It’s just that I wanted us to understand one another right off.”

“You don’t have to tell me, you know. I am quite aware that this is what is called a marriage of convenience. And I’m quite willing to take the sofa.” She forced a timid smile to her lips, obviously striving to pretend that the little quaver in her voice wasn’t there.

“It’s not just that.” He flopped onto that sofa, squeezed his eyes closed and desperately searched for the right words. They weren’t there. “I’m not a family man, Clarissa. I’m too selfish, I guess. I spent a lot of time watching my parents’ marriage fail, and while it did I was responsible for my sister. I didn’t want her to see the ugliness when they were fighting, to hear the awful words.”

Clarissa nodded as she listened. “That’s perfectly natural,” she murmured, her head tilted to one side. “As a big brother, you must have been a wonderful friend.”

He shook his head. “Not really. I made her play the games I wanted to. She had to fall in with my wishes, because I was in charge. But that’s not it.” He chewed his lip in frustration. Why was this so hard to say? Wade thought for a moment, then started again.

“I hated the responsibility of it, you see. I wanted them to look after her, to make sure she was okay. There were so many things I wanted to do and she got in the way.” He shook his head. “I messed up so many times. Once I made her eat some berries and she was sick for a week.” One hand raked through his hair as he remembered her thin body shaking with the fever. “Anyway, my dad left. Uncle Carston probably told you that?”

She nodded.

“It was pretty rough then. I was the man of the house, but I did a lousy job of looking after my mom and Kendra. I couldn’t wait to dump them onto somebody else so I could go after my own dreams.” He stopped abruptly when he realized where this was going. No way was he digging into that now. He straightened his shoulders, drew in another breath and continued.

“Let’s just say it wasn’t any paradise. After Kendra got married, I finally felt free. I made up my mind then and there that I would never be tied down to anyone again. I never wanted the responsibility of someone else’s happiness.” He tried to read her. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, of course.” Clarissa nodded, her eyes clear and calm. “You don’t want to be accountable for my problems. You took the children on because you promised your sister, and you’ve done the best you could with them because you figured it was your duty. But it’s not the life you would have chosen for yourself. Close enough?”

She didn’t get it, not all of it anyway. But she was pretty close. Wade nodded slowly, rephrasing his thoughts. “Well, yes, but…”

She held up a hand. “Oh, I’m not finished yet. I’m not stupid, you know. I understand exactly what you’re saying, Wade Featherhawk. You think I’ll add to your responsibilities, that I’ll be even more of a burden on you. And you’re scared stiff. Is that about right?”

Wade gulped. Meek and mild little Clarissa Cartwright, no Featherhawk, had a lot more on the ball than he’d given her credit for. Now she’d made him feel like a jerk, which he probably was, for wanting to live his life without thinking about anyone else.

“Not scared, no.” He couldn’t let that go. “It’s just an awful lot for me to handle at one time, Clarissa. Four kids! Nobody has four kids in this two-point-five-family world. If they do, they get them one at a time!” He groaned at the selfish words that poured out of his own mouth.

I sound like a wimp. Wade shoved his head into his hands and dragged at the roots, trying to realign his topsy-turvy world.

“I love them, Clarissa. I do! But it’s hard to go from being independent to being a father of four, and then a husband. It’s gonna take me some time to adjust, that’s all I’m saying.” That sounded better, didn’t it? As if he just had a few issues to work through and then life would be rosy.

If it wasn’t the way he felt, she didn’t need to know that. After all, Clarissa was taking them all on and she wasn’t even related! She was going to have to adjust far more than he.

“What I’m trying to say is, don’t get too upset if I’m not very good at this. I’ll probably need a lot of practice before I come anywhere near being the kind of husband you deserve.”

She laughed at him! Wade could hardly believe that light, tinkling sound that shattered the tension in the room like a high note splintering a crystal goblet. He stared, frowning at the smile curling her lips.

“It goes both ways, Wade. I’ve never been a mother or a wife and now I’ve got to get used to all of you at once. At least you had months to train.” She got up and walked over to sit beside him. Her hand patted his. “I promise I won’t expect too much of you,” she said quietly. “We’ll learn as we go along. But please, don’t feel you have to be responsible for me. I’m an adult. I can look after myself. I can look after you and the kids too, if you’ll let me.”

Relief, pure, unadulterated relief washed over him. He didn’t have to be some kind of Superman or Romeo for her. She knew and understood. God had worked a miracle in this woman.

Wade leaned down and brushed his lips across her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered with heartfelt emotion. “Thanks for understanding.”

She nodded, then got up and moved toward the other rooms. “Let’s have a look around, shall we? Then I wouldn’t mind going for a walk. I need to breathe fresh air.”

Wade managed to maintain her light-hearted approach to life for the rest of the evening. He made fishing jokes, teased her about leeches in the lake, insisted she take the bedroom and he the couch.

But late that night as he lay staring through the patio doors at the big moon outside, he wondered if he should have told her all of it. Maybe he should have made sure she knew that he would never love her.

Maybe Clarissa should know he couldn’t afford to love anyone. Not anymore. Everyone he loved died because he was too selfish to care for them when they needed him. Their pain was always his fault. It was also his secret.

Chapter Five

On her very first morning of being Mrs. Clarissa Featherhawk, the bride decided to set the tone of her marriage as she meant to carry it on.

She wanted to know Wade better, certainly. She craved the personal details that all couples learned after months of courtship. But she didn’t have that basis of information to rely on because Wade seemed to think he had to protect himself. Or perhaps he wanted to protect her. She wasn’t sure. Her only hope lay in calming his fears, showing him that she intended to be an equal partner, that she had no intention of dragging him down.

Which was why, tired as she was from the busy day before, she managed to drag herself out of bed as the first threads of sunlight drifted across the sky. By the time she noticed Wade stirring from his uncomfortable position on the sofa, Clarissa had cinnamon buns ready to emerge from the oven and coffee, freshly brewed in a big mug on the table beside his makeshift bed.

“It can’t be morning yet,” he grumbled, his tousled head emerging just above the back of the sofa. “I’ve only had my eyes closed for ten minutes.”

“Rough night?” she murmured, turning away to hide a smile when she saw him force his eyes apart. “There’s a cup of coffee by your elbow. Maybe that will help.”

“Maybe,” Wade muttered doubtfully, but he downed a mouthful just the same. “What are you doing?”

She turned to find him frowning at her, one eyebrow quirked upward in a question. Her cheeks grew warm under his steady regard.

“I was just making some buns, before the day got too warm. This year has been a strange one, hasn’t it? You never know if you’re going to fry or freeze.” He was still staring at her. “Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to do this before the cabin heated up too much. I’ve got our dinner started in that Crock-Pot.”

“Dinner?” He blinked twice, took a gulp of coffee, then winced as it burned down his throat. “I didn’t realize you were so industrious.”

Clarissa wanted to pinch herself. How stupid of her! Of course. He wanted to sleep in and she’d disturbed him.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, transferring one of the buns to a small plate. She kept her eyes averted. “I’ll just pour myself some coffee and go outside. I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. Go back to sleep if you want. I’ll sit in the sun and read.”

He muttered something in that low husky rumble of his, but Clarissa didn’t hang around and listen to what it was. She scurried out the door like a frightened mouse and carried her breakfast to the edge of the lake where earlier that morning she’d set out two of the chairs from the veranda.

“So much for romantic dreams,” she scolded herself. “Just get on with your life and quit expecting it to change. It’s a marriage of convenience, girl. Not a love match.”

She’d known that, of course. But still the foolish dreams had filled her mind last night. Those teasing “maybe” dreams. Maybe one day, maybe if they got to know each other, maybe somehow she could be a real wife, a real mother.

The sun rose slowly, its warmth spreading like fingers across the tree strewn landscape, rippling over the lake on butterfly wings. Birds drenched the air with their song. The put-put of a motorboat echoed the presence of a fisherman out early to cast a line.

Clarissa closed her eyes, tipping her head up to let the sunshine chase away the doubts. “Lord, I thank You for this wonderful creation. And for Wade. I know Your hand was in this marriage. ‘All things work together for good.’” She stopped a moment to wonder what life would be like in another five years. The murmuring sounds of other campers drew her back to the present, and she hurried on with her prayer.

“I want to do my part, to be all that You want me to be. But I don’t know what to expect, what Wade expects. Please give me patience and strength to wait on You.” She opened her eyes, her attention riveted on the man who’d just stepped outside their cabin door. She’d have to hurry.

“And God, if You could make him care about me, just a little bit, it would make this marriage so much easier.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, God. Amen.”

Wade flopped down in the chair beside hers, his bare arm brushing against her hand where it held her coffee mug out of harm’s way. “This place is like an isolated piece of solitude in a messed-up world,” he told her, his eyes on the trees sparkling in the bright sunlight, their reflection shimmering in the smooth lake water. “In a way, I guess it reminds me of the reservation, though there wasn’t much solitude there. In fact, when I lived there, I felt as if nobody else knew I existed.”

Clarissa saw through the undertones to the pain he tried to mask. “Abandoned, you mean?” she murmured softly, keeping her gaze on the water. “I know what that’s like. When my parents died and I went to Gran’s, it was as if the life I’d known died. Gran was wonderful, of course,” she rushed to assure him. “But she was older, and she’d just lost her only child. I didn’t want to impose.”

She could feel Wade’s eyes on her. “It must have been tough.”

Clarissa nodded. “It was. Maybe that’s why I can empathize with your kids. In one split second, everything you’ve ever known is changed and you can’t ever go back.” She took a deep breath, crossed her fingers, then plunged in to something she had no business questioning. If she was going to learn more about Wade, this was the time.

“You must have felt that way when Kendra died and you had to take over for her. Your plans, dreams, hopes for the future. They all had to be put on hold, didn’t they?” She hoped he’d tell her what those hopes and dreams were. She hadn’t expected his mocking chuckle.

“Snooping, Clarissa?” He caught her chin and forced her to meet his glinting stare.

Clarissa knew he could see the round spots of embarrassed color that burned in her cheeks but she didn’t back down.

“Yes, maybe just a little. I’m hoping I can learn to understand you and the kids a little better, get to know what your lives were like then.” She refused to look away. “Is that wrong?”

He stared at her for a long time before his hand fell away from her jaw and he sighed, a deep huff that told her he would give just so far and no further.

“No, it isn’t wrong. It’s normal, I suppose. What do you want to know?”

Clarissa groaned inwardly. This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him to open up of his own accord, to share a piece of himself because he could trust her. Maybe it was too early for that.

Please help me, Lord.

“I want to know anything you want to tell me,” she murmured, wishing she could smooth away the lines of tension around his eyes. “What were you like as a little boy?”

Clarissa settled back in the chair and drew her knees up to her chest, smoothing her skirt over her legs to hide from the prickles the sun was already making against her skin. Thank goodness she’d thought to tug on the old straw hat she’d found. That along with her long-sleeved shirt should give some protection. She didn’t want to go home looking like a boiled lobster!

She turned to nod at Wade. “I’m listening.”

He shook his head wryly. “Don’t give up easily, do you?” His eyes darkened, then glassed over as if he’d gone far away, to a place where she couldn’t go. “What was I like? I was a brat, Clarissa. Disobedient, willful, argumentative. All the things you were probably instructed not to do—” he raised one eyebrow, then continued when she nodded her understanding “—I did them. All of them. There wasn’t a younger kid I didn’t terrorize, a teacher I didn’t sass back, a rule I didn’t break.”

“Problem child,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. But he heard it and nodded, his face drawn.

“Worse.” He summed it up succinctly. “I’m sure you can’t possibly understand.”

Her lips smiled, but inside her heart ached. “Can’t I?” She remembered the times she’d cried herself to sleep, begging God to bring her parents back so they could be a family again, promising anything if He’d just stop punishing her.

Wade frowned as he watched her, his eyes inquisitive. “You couldn’t. You’ve had the perfect life.”

“Have I?” She pleated the fabric between her fingers, noting the glossy pink polish that Bri had applied just yesterday morning was now chipped. Sort of like her dream of blissful married life. Clarissa decided it was too ironic to dwell on. “Don’t get sidetracked so easily by what you see, Wade. Truth is sometimes hard to find.”

He inclined his head. “I guess. Anyway, it got worse when the fighting got worse. My parents couldn’t agree on what side to butter the bread. They sure couldn’t compromise on raising Kendra and me. Dad got fed up and pretty soon I figured out that if you were out of sight, you were out of mind. I made it a point to be out of his sight as much as possible.”

The wealth of understatement in those words drew tears to Clarissa’s eyes. She wanted to say so many things, to comfort Wade, tell him she understood. But more than anything, she wanted him to continue talking. She made herself be satisfied with touching his arm as she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t turn her way, but his head jerked in acknowledgment.

“My mother, bless her, never gave up on me even though I disappointed her so many times. She wanted me to have all the things she’d missed and to her, that meant living on the reservation, learning about my heritage.” He grimaced. “All I could see was that being an Indian and loving a white man had made her life a misery. She didn’t fit into his world, and he sure didn’t fit into hers. I fit into neither. I was determined to get as far away from there as I could, to find something better.”

“So that’s when you ran away?” Clarissa laid her head on the back of her chair, her fingers light on the bunch of muscles that clenched and unclenched as he spoke.

“Yes, I ran away, but I thought I was running to something. I just couldn’t figure out how to find it. When I was seventeen, I finally ran far enough that I ran into someone who showed me there was more to life, if I was willing to take it. His name was Ralph Peterson and he was an artist, a good one. He picked me up when I was hitchhiking, took me in and kind of adopted me for the two weeks I was gone. He showed me the places he’d sketched, real and dreams, places he could draw on a piece of paper. Places so wonderful they took your mind off your problems. He had a house full of pictures—buildings and places around the world. I was hooked on those cathedrals, castles, temples.”

“So you decided to become an artist?”

“Not really. I just got more and more curious about the process of how you got a building from a picture. When the police brought me home, I spent every spare moment I could find at the library. I read about Frank Lloyd Wright, I studied the styles and I started to sketch.” He made a face. “You can imagine how that went over—a macho male sitting around drawing! I got into a few fights over it.”

“I’d like to see your drawings sometime,” she whispered, aching for the almost-man who’d searched so hard to find himself. “You have a real talent with building things, so I’m sure that’s where it came from.”