One year later
Angel knelt in front of Julia-Rose and tied the pink ribbon in her hair. “Now, don’t you look pretty?”
The little girl smiled and threw her arms around her mama. “Thank you.” She picked up her ragdoll and said, “Laura-Ann have a ribbon, too?”
“Honey, I’m afraid Laura-Ann is too little to wear a ribbon, and she doesn’t have any hair to tie a ribbon to, anyway.”
“Oh.” Satisfied with her answer, Julia-rose turned and left the room.
Angel stood and walked to the crib where Laura-Ann lay. Her sweet four month old daughter waved her little arms in the air and smiled. Angel scooped her up and headed to the kitchen where the sounds of her noisy family drew her.
Nate sat at the kitchen table, their four sons busy with homework. She smiled at the sight of Mark patiently helping Luke with his lessons. He’d come a long way since his trouble with reading.
Angel glanced at the kitchen clock. “I think we better put the homework aside for now. We have to be at the church for the christening in less than forty-five minutes.”
“All right, let’s go boys.” Nate stood and reached for Laura-Ann. “How’s my princess today?”
“Papa, I’m your princess,” Julia-Rose said, tugging on his pants.
He bent down on one knee, juggling the baby in his arms. “No, you are the queen and Laura-Ann is the princess.”
“And me?” Angel smirked as Nate stood. “What am I?”
He leaned over and whispered in her ear. She gasped and felt the heat rise to her face. “Nathan Hale, we’re on our way to church!”
He winked at her and placed his hand on her lower back. “Just setting the record straight, sweetheart.”
Once the family arrived at the small church it took some doing to get six children and their parents settled. Sylva and Eli turned from where they sat in the front row, each of them holding a baby wrapped in identical pink blankets. Sylvia beamed at her and Angel smiled back.
Pastor Dunn entered the sanctuary and opened his prayer book. “We will now begin.” He closed his eyes briefly, then began to read:
Brothers and sisters in Christ:
Through the sacrament of Baptism
we are initiated into Christ’s holy church . . .
Angel’s mind wandered as the pastor droned on. The past year had been full of sadness, happiness, and surprises. It had taken more than a week for Sylvia and Eli to receive word of Lucy’s death and return to Oregon City. There had been a great deal of grief at the waste of the young girl’s life. Thank God Eli had Sylvia to lean on during the funeral and mourning period afterward.
It had taken a few weeks of nightmares before the boys and Julia-Rose were able to put behind them the horrible afternoon when they had witnessed Lucy holding them hostage and then shooting their mama.
Angel’s pregnancy had proceeded uneventfully, for which she’d been very grateful. The biggest surprise had been Sylvia and Eli’s announcement shortly after they returned from San Francisco that Sylvia was in a family way. Angel realized it should not have been such a shock since Sylvia was only in her late thirties.
Eli spent his wife’s entire pregnancy racing back and forth to Dr. Penrose’s home, certain this or that was wrong, and he should come out to the house to examine Sylvia. He seemed unconcerned that he had become the subject of many jokes among the townsfolks as he followed Sylvia around the restaurant, lest she fall and hurt herself.
She had insisted he keep his word and let her continue to work, until her bulk grew to where she found it too difficult to maneuver between the tables.
The best story to circulate, however, was how the strong, sharp businessman had fainted when his wife had given birth to twin girls. Angel still smiled when she remembered Eli’s excitement in passing out cigars, even to women and children.
She smiled as she looked around the church. At her six children, her stepmother and stepfather, their two babies, and all the people who had come to celebrate the baptism of Jane and Jennifer Benson.
But most of all she looked at the man who thought he was getting a woman who could cook, clean, and take care of children.
Instead he got her.
Thank God.
The End
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Please turn the page for an excerpt from A Dogtown Christmas, book six of Callie Hutton’s Oklahoma Lovers series.
Guthrie, Oklahoma, 1912. Priscilla Cochran intends to prove to the world she is a grown up woman, able to take care of herself. She accepts a job as a teacher in Dogtown, Colorado where the man who hired her thinks she is a woman of ‘mature years.’
Mitch Beaumont is tired of young women who come to Dogtown and leave in tears because it is not a built up city with entertainment a young woman would want. He has finally secured a teacher for the town who has assured him she is a middle aged spinster, and will be able to last through the hard winters.
Then twenty year old Priscilla steps off the mail coach and falls at his feet in the mud.