September 1889
This was worse than any gunshot. Clint looked at the window of the Healing Hearts Clinic and felt his stomach tumble toward his boots. He hated the thought of Katrine being ill. They only had each other—even the slightest hint of losing her made his heart freeze into sharp splinters. He’d made such a scene in the infirmary that Alice had been forced to shoo him outside.
Clint stared at the church, now finished, and thought about the morning he wed her under that very steeple. I can’t lose her, Lord. I’ll die. It’s that plain and simple.
Lije came out of the clinic door, a serious look on his face. Clint knew that look. Nothing good came from that look. He’d never tell Lije he called it The Pastor Bad News Face, but Clint could see his brother steeling himself for a difficult conversation as clear as if there were a sign around Lije’s neck. No. Three months ago, he’d have classified himself as a man never given to hysteria. Clint was pretty sure he was on the verge of hysteria now.
“How is she?” he blurted out, remembering the sallow look on Katrine’s face, how the energy seemed to be seeping out of her with every day. “She’s lost too much weight, hasn’t she?”
Lije came up and put a hand on Clint’s shoulder. It felt like Lije handed him a shovel and told him to pick out a pretty spot for a headstone. He cleared his throat. “Clint...”
“That bad?” Katrine could not, would not be Brave Rock’s first true funeral.
“I need to have a...difficult conversation with you.”
How would you like to bury your wife?
“You were...alone a long while before you met Katrine.”
You’ll know what to do when you are alone again.
Lije cleared his throat again. Glory, how bad was it? Was she gone already? They wouldn’t leave him out here in the yard while his wife drew her last breaths, would they? “In all that time, Clint, did you ever...have you ever...”
“Ever what?”
“I’m trying to get to that, little brother. I want you to know we’d do our best to look past a straying of that sort given how...”
“Exactly what are you askin’ me, Lije?”
Lije ran his hands down his face. “Have you ever been with a...”
The nature of Lije’s question hit Clint like a cannonball. “Have I ever...?” He stomped, pulling his hat off to slap it against Lije’s shoulder. “What kind of man do you take me for? No! No, I have never...what you’re suggesting...before my wife. Hang it, Lije, what kind of question is that?”
Lije pinched the bridge of his nose. “So we’ve never really known for sure, then.”
Clint was near his boiling point. “Known what?”
Lije shrugged and held Clint’s eyes with a glare that said, you’re not going to make me say it, are you? After a ridiculously long pause Lije chose his next words with pastoral delicacy. “What if Cousin Obadiah was wrong?”
What did long-dead Cousin Obadiah have to do with— Clint felt his world grind to a halt. He wasn’t even sure he could spit the next words out. “Wrong about...”
“Clint, Alice thinks Katrine might be pregnant.”
Clint felt his knees buckle underneath him. He had to grab on to Lije to keep from keening over. He looked up at his brother with his mouth open, but couldn’t get even the start of a word past the firecrackers going off in his chest.
“Actually,” Lije said with a smile that was quickly dissolving into full-blown laughter, “Alice is almost certain Katrine is pregnant.”
Clint grabbed Lije’s face in his hands, staring into his brother’s eyes. He had to be sure that’s what he heard. “Katrine. A baby.”
“Yes.”
“Katrine is having a baby.” He shook Lije’s face as the firecrackers inside nearly consumed him. The world spun too fast all of a sudden. “We’re having a baby.”
Lije steadied Clint’s shoulders. “So it would seem.”
For a long, crazy moment, Clint stared in disbelief at his brother. He wouldn’t lie, not about something like this. Not with that look of flat-out wonder and joy in his eyes. Then it struck him; why on earth was he staring at Lije’s eyes when he should be inside, staring into Katrine’s eyes? “What am I doing out here?”
With a wide grin, Lije stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture toward the open infirmary door. Clint took the yard in a matter of seconds, flying over the threshold in something far too close to a leap, skidding into the room to see Katrine sitting up on an infirmary cot with glistening eyes. She looked frail and radiant and weary and beautiful, all at once. He went to pull his hat off his head, only to realize he’d dropped it somewhere along the way.
“What is it you always say?” Katrine said through the tears that made her eyes shine like stars. “God is mighty fond of surprises?”
He knelt down on one knee beside her on the bed, feeling like all the air had just gone out of the room. “Really?” It seemed far too much to hope for, more happiness than he knew how to bear.
Katrine nodded, another precious sob of joy shaking her dear slim body. He touched her hands, her shoulders, her wet cheeks in an attempt to convince himself he was wide awake. Katrine took his hand and moved it to her belly, and Clint thought he’d up and die of joy. Never, in every lonesome day since leaving Pennsylvania, did he dare to think Obadiah could be wrong about something so terribly serious. He’d memorized every inch of Katrine’s tall and slender build, but now Clint felt just the slightest hint of a curve under his hand. He closed his eyes for a moment, overcome at the thought of the child under his palm. His child. Their child, the family he and Katrine had worked so hard to do without.
Alice’s voice came soft over his shoulder. In truth, Clint had forgotten there was anyone else in the whole world right now. “She’ll need to be careful, feeling so sick and all, but these things tend to pass later. I expect she’ll be just fine and about April...”
“April,” Clint repeated.
“A spring baby,” Katrine said, meeting Clint’s eyes which were now filled with tears. “Just think. Brave Rock was born in April this year, and our baby could be born on Brave Rock’s first birthday. It fits, don’t you think?”
“It fits perfectly,” came Lije’s voice from behind him. Clint looked back to see his brother holding Alice’s hand as she wiped away tears of her own.
Suddenly Gideon’s frame filled the doorway, concern in his eyes. “Walt told me you brought Katrine in sickly. Is everything all right?”
“More than that,” Clint said, bringing Katrine’s pale hand to his lips and planting a kiss there. “Way beyond, in fact.”
Gideon shifted his weight. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on here?”
Lije lifted an eyebrow at Clint. “He ought to be the next to know, don’t you think?”
Clint turned and stood to face his brothers. “We’re having a baby.”
Gideon’s eyes popped big as saucers. “A baby? But I thought—”
“We all thought. It’s what Cousin Obadiah always told me. Never occurred to me not to believe him.” Clint wiped his hands down his face and took another long, wonderful gaze at his wife. “I ain’t never been so glad to have thought wrong in all my life.”
Suddenly the room was filled with shouts and handclasps and enough happiness to fill the entire territory. Clint came back to the cot and swept Katrine up carefully in his arms. When she rested her head against his shoulder, it was as if the world slid perfectly into place and the future opened up wide and wonderful before him.
“Well,” he said into the sun-yellow of her hair, feeling like it would take a dozen years for the smile to leave his face, “at least we know one thing.”
Katrine raised her head to stare into his eyes. Glory, he hoped the child got her stunning, sky-blue eyes. “What’s that?”
“That baby’s going to be one strong kicker.”
Katrine laughed and threw her arms around his neck to hold him tight. She was brave and beautiful, his wife, and he never dreamed he could love her more than he already did.
Well, God was fond of surprises, wasn’t He?
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE GENTLEMAN’S BRIDE SEARCH by Deborah Hale.