Instant Prairie Family (Love Inspired Historical) (3 page)

“Yeah,” Tommy answered for his father, “he caught you at the
train. You were gonna fall on your face.”

“Yes, I was. I don’t think I had a chance to thank you,
sir.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m glad you didn’t get hurt,” Will mumbled
uncomfortably. It had been years since he was in polite company.

“Can she eat with us, Pa? Please.” Tommy pushed the issue.

“She probably wants some peace and quiet after her train ride,
Tommy.”

“Yeah, you talk too much,” Willy whispered to his brother.
Tommy’s face fell and he bit his lower lip.

“I’d love to eat with you, young man. You’re the most handsome
gentleman who’s ever invited me to sup with him. I’d be honored, but your pa
might want to have you boys all to himself.”

“It would be our pleasure to have your presence at our table,”
Will responded, belatedly standing in the presence of the lady as his mother had
taught him. “Please, have a seat, if you’d like.” Even as he stepped around to
hold out the chair between Tommy and Willy and opposite his, he wondered what he
was thinking. The young woman had just given him the perfect out and instead of
taking it, he asked her to join them and endure his sons’ antics. Maybe it was
just the idea of talking to another adult or maybe it was the worried look she
was trying hard to hide from the boys.

“Thank you again,” she murmured. The waitress set a menu in
front of her and soon returned with a glass of water for everyone.

“Well, my young friend.” She smiled down at Tommy. “I don’t
believe we’ve been properly introduced. My name—”

“I’m Tommy,” he interrupted, “and I’m six years old.” He held
out his hands and this time he had managed to get six digits to stand in the
air.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Tommy.” She grinned and
shook his hand as if he were a grown man.

“And you would be...?” She turned her attention on Willy.

Will did all he could not to stare at the young lady. Her eyes
were a mix of green and blue and she smiled genuinely at his son. Her blond hair
had been pulled back into some sort of braids and then wrapped into a bun. With
the jostling about of the train and the wind, little spirals had escaped,
bouncing close to her diminutive ears.

She couldn’t be more than eighteen. What person had sent her
out on the train by herself? Didn’t they know that the prairie was full of
single men? Many hadn’t had an opportunity to socialize with a lovely lady for
months or even years. Where was her father or brother? What was she to do now
that no one had shown up to the station? And who was so irresponsible to have a
young lady like her come halfway across the continent and then not meet her
train?

“He’s my big brother. He always tells me what to do. He’s sweet
on Jill. So, what are you going to eat? Pa likes the chicken ’cuz we mostly eat
venison and rabbit on the farm. I’m gett’n’ the same thing ’cuz it’s got
potatoes in it. I think I like potatoes.”

“That’s very nice, Tommy, but you didn’t tell me you brother’s
name.”

“I told ya you talk too much,” Willy muttered.

“I do not!” Tommy answered his brother with a glare.

“Do, too!”

“Do not!”

“Do, too!”

“Boys!” Barely keeping his voice low, Will intervened and
frowned when he saw the young lady biting her lower lip. Was she trying not to
laugh at the boys or trying not to show her discomfort? He had had almost all
the humiliation that he could take for one day. “Behave yourselves.”

His warning was understood and both boys lowered their eyes.
“Forgive us, miss. We don’t get to town very often and it seems we’ve left what
few manners we have back home.”

“Don’t think another thing about it, sir. My nieces and nephews
were always saying things without thinking them through first. I find your boys
refreshing.” She smiled reassuringly at both boys.

“Well, I should try to start the introductions again,” Will
stated, wondering why her smile made his stomach flutter just a bit. It must
have been the hunger for his supper sending ripples though his middle. “I’m Will
Hopkins and this is Willy.” He pointed to his older son.

“It’s a pleasure—” The young lady had turned to Willy,
extending her hand to shake his, when she froze and turned stunned eyes back to
Will. Willy stared at her strangely, his hand in the air.

“I... What did you say your surname was?” she asked in a choked
voice.

“Hopkins, but around here we usually are very...” Her face had
gone deathly white and she looked as if she was going to faint.

She looked too stunned for words, barely gathering herself
together enough to speak. “I... Where is Mrs. Hopkins? Where is Francis?” she
stuttered.

He hadn’t heard anyone call him that in years—in fact, other
than his mother, no one called him that at all. He could feel himself flush, and
tried to talk over it. “I’m, um... My father was... I’m Francis, Francis William
Hopkins. I go by Will most of the time.”

“But you’re not a widow!”

A widow? Why would anyone think he was—

“I thought... My mother’s best friend was Frannie,
Francis...and if you...if you’re... Why didn’t you tell me who you were at the
station? You just walked past me and left me there!” The confusion on her pretty
face gave way to obvious anger.

“How’d you know my given name? What are you talking about?”
Will asked, curious and accusing at the same time.

“Your ad.”

“What ad?”

“The ad that you placed in the ladies’ Christian monthly
pamphlet,” she explained. “I subscribe to it and in April of last year, there
was an ad...” She pulled her satchel up onto her lap and started sorting through
her things. Finally she pulled out a paper and handed it to him.

He only read the first few lines before he glanced back up to
study the young woman again. It was the ad his mother had created to find him a
housekeeper. The ad Miss Stewart had answered. But that meant... No, it couldn’t
be. This girl didn’t look a day over twenty, and the letter he’d received had
clearly stated that his new employee was in her fifties. The woman in front of
him, who looked as if she might give in to tears at any moment,
couldn’t
be Abigail Stewart.

“What’s wrong, miss?” Tommy asked her, having come to stand
next to her, his small hand on hers.

Will watched as some of the anger and frustration melted out of
her expression as she looked down at his son. “I’m not quite sure of that
myself, honey,” she answered, pressing his hand with hers. “It’s been a long
trip and I have had a very taxing day. I was looking forward to meeting my new
employer and her...
his
family. But this hasn’t gone
at all like I thought it would.” She looked up from Tommy to glare at Will.
“Especially the part where I was left alone on the train platform while your
father walked away.”

“You’re...you’re Miss Stewart?” Will said incredulously.

She straightened her back and tilted her chin up to look him
straight in the eye. “Yes, I’m Abigail Stewart.”

Any answer Will might have given was interrupted by Tommy’s
response. Throwing his arms around the woman’s waist, he squeezed tight while
yelling out, “You’re our auntie House!”

Chapter Two

“H
ousekeeper, not Auntie anything,” Willy hissed at his brother.

Abby didn’t know how to respond to that, so she addressed their father. “I came all the way from Ohio just to be part of Mrs. Francis Hopkins’s household. Now what am I going to do?” she asked out loud, not expecting an answer from him.

“But you’re not old!” Willy burst out. Abby tried to focus on the boy, but her head felt clouded.

“That’s right. You wrote you were fifty-eight.” Will eyed her suspiciously.

“I did no such thing. I’m twenty-six, as I told you in my letter.” How could he say something so strange? She had been a little uncomfortable when Mrs....er...Mr. Hopkins had asked her age, knowing that the posting had specifically requested a “mature” Christian woman, but she decided to be honest, deciding that if her honesty somehow lost her the opportunity to work for the family, it was because God was closing that door. When there had been no further mention of her age in the letters, she had assumed her new employer had decided that it wasn’t important.

“Here, I’ll show you.” Mr. Hopkins reached into his worn denim shirt pocket and pulled out a pile of letters that even from a distance Abby recognized. Her heart sank. There was no doubt about it. She had been corresponding with
Mr.,
not
Mrs.
Hopkins.

He shuffled the papers and then scanned one, holding it out to her, his strong, calloused finger pointing to a paragraph. As she took it, she noticed that the page was watermarked and that the ink had run. Even Abby had to admit that the number she had written out did look like a fifty-eight.

“I’m sorry. It must have gotten wet. I
did
write that I’m twenty-six. I never intended to be dishonest or misleading.”

“I believe you,” he replied gruffly. “But I’m afraid that doesn’t resolve the problem. I’m sorry if there was a miscommunication, Miss Stewart, but I was specifically looking for a, um...” He looked uncomfortable as he searched for the right wording. “A more mature woman. Someone closer to the age of my mother.”

“Well, I’m not the age of your mother, but I can cook, clean and teach as well as anyone twice my age.” Suddenly, staying here and keeping the job was important to her. If Mr. Hopkins withdrew his offer, where else could she go? She couldn’t go back to Ohio. Emma and Palmer would never welcome her back, and if she went anywhere close by, they would make life impossible for her and anyone who was daring enough to help her. No. She had to find a way to stay out here in Nebraska. And since jobs for women in the area seemed to be scarce, her best chance was to convince Mr. Hopkins that she could be his housekeeper after all.

“I don’t doubt your capacity, miss. It’s just that on the farm it’s just me, the boys and my nephew, Jake. It wouldn’t be proper or right for us to have you out there with us, a single woman of your age. I’ll take care of paying your passage back to Ohio and then you can be with your sister again.” His words were meant to be reassuring but elicited the opposite effect.

“I can’t go back,” she whispered to herself. This was worse than not being picked up at the station. Before, she had wondered if something had interfered with Mrs. Hopkins’s arrival, but now she knew she had been judged unwanted again.

“Why not? Did something happen to your sister?”

“My brother-in-law...” She almost spilled out everything but then remembered the boys listening. Straightening her back, she lifted her chin. “I can’t. I’ll have to look for work around here.”

“I doubt there will be very much in the way of work for a decent woman.” He studied her for a moment more and then shook his head. “Why did you even apply to come out on the frontier at your age? You should be looking to settle down and marry. Have a bunch of kids of your own.”

He had no idea how she’d longed for that—a husband and children, a home of her own. But there had been no chance of that. No man in Ohio had any interest in a girl who wore her sister’s old castoffs and was too busy minding her nieces and nephews and looking after the housekeeping to go to any social events. This was the only way for her to leave her sister’s house—to find a job somewhere else. What would she do if that chance was taken away?

“I’m sure that once you get back to Ohio, some young man will be real glad to see that you’ve come back where you belong. And no doubt your family will be glad to have you home, too.”

“I wish it were that simple,” she answered. “I have lived with my sister and brother-in-law since my parents died when I was thirteen. My brother-in-law is very powerful... I can’t go back now that I left against their wishes.”

“So you disobeyed your sister and brother-in-law to come out here?”

“Yes. I came because...” She glanced at the boys and bit her lip. “I had to get away from Palmer—my brother-in-law. I didn’t feel quite...safe living with him anymore,” she finally finished, hoping he would understand what she had left unsaid. “But my sister, Emma, felt that I had a responsibility to stay and continue to take care of the house and the children. The day your last letter came to the house, Emma found it and I had to snatch it from her or I would never even have gotten the money or ticket. I ran all the way to my pastor’s house, and he and his wife helped me get away. I even have a letter from Pastor Gibbons for you...or at least it was to be given to Mrs. Hopkins.”

She reached down and once again sifted through the different letters until she found what she was looking for and handed it over to Mr. Hopkins. As she watched him unfold it, she felt dizzy. What if he still decided to send her back? What was she going to do?

“Have you made your choice?” The poor waitress was back, pad of paper in hand.

“Um...”

“Why don’t you try the chicken like me?” Tommy prompted.

“Or she could try the steak that I’m gonna get,” Willy suggested.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. She didn’t really feel like eating anything and was afraid that food wouldn’t stay in her churning stomach even if she could swallow past the huge lump of fear wedged in the middle of her throat. She took a sip of her water and willed it to stay down. “I guess I’m not really that hungry right now. It does all sound so good, but—”

“Don’t worry about the money,” Mr. Hopkins interrupted with a deep frown on his face, his eyes not even lifting for the first page of the letter. “I’ll cover it. It’s my fault, after all, that you’ve come all this way for nothing.”

Suddenly Abby knew that she had to get outside and breathe some fresh air. Her stomach threatened revolt. Even with the letter from Pastor Gibbons in his hand, the man was going to refuse to hire her.

Without explaining anything to anyone, she bolted from the room, out the door and around the side of the building. She was almost to the back of the clapboard restaurant when she couldn’t keep her stomach from emptying any longer. For the first time in her life, she wished she had died with her parents. What was to become of her? She was truly alone in this world—and in this strange and unfamiliar town. Back home, the sky had been high and the hills had surrounded her, but she had not known the immenseness of God’s creation until she sat hour after hour and watched prairie grass wave to an endless clear sky. She was a small speck on a wide-open prairie and only God cared she even existed. No wonder King David had asked, What was man that God was mindful of him? She was as insignificant as a stalk of the prairie grass.

“Oh, God, What am I going to do now?” she cried. The sobs that racked her body were almost as painful as the retching. She leaned her forearms against the clapboard wall and hung her head between her elbows. She didn’t even feel the coarseness of the building scratching her arms. Closing her eyes she prayed for a home. Somewhere to go where she could rest—where she could feel safe. She had traveled more than a thousand miles thinking she found a new home only to find it was the biggest mistake of her life.

* * *

Will sat staring at the spot the girl...Miss Stewart, had just vacated. He almost hoped that this was just a bad dream and he’d wake up any minute now to find that he was still camping down by the river on his way into Twin Oaks to pick up his new housekeeper. But Tommy’s little hand pushing on his shoulder, trying to get him to pay attention to yet another barrage of questions, made him aware this was all too real. The new housekeeper was a young, beautiful girl who looked as if a stiff wind could carry her off. She wouldn’t last a week on the frontier.

“Pa, where’d she go?” Tommy asked, his confusion making Will regret even more having started all this craziness. Surely he and Jake could handle the boys on their own just as they had done in the past. Maybe he would not plant in the western field he had cleared last month. He would still make a profit, though not as much as he had hoped. Still, that sounded better than adding more chaos and anxiety to his boys’ lives.

“Pa!” Tommy’s hand pounded harder and Will finally focused on his small son.

“I don’t know where she went. Maybe she needed to get a breath of air.” What did he know about women anymore? He’d been a failure at being a husband, and it had been more than ten years since he had seen his own mother or sisters.

“Um, sir?” The waitress was back again. This time she had two plates full of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, chicken and broccoli. The third had a large steak and a baked potato with the same side vegetables. “I have your meals.”

She set a plate in front of each of them and then leaned a little closer to him. “Is the young lady 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.”