Christine Flynn: The Baby Quilt

“Mrs. Clancy,” Emily murmured. A vein bulged by the pink tape holding a curl in place at the woman’s temple. “Remember your blood pressure.”

Connie Clancy glared at Justin’s back for another moment then huffed a breath. “Well, I am of a mind to think they haven’t a feeling bone in their bodies,” she muttered, nowhere near ready to give up the subject now that she’d started on it. “They live their highfalutin lives and don’t give a whit about common folk’s livelihoods. Did this Sloan fella say what kind of lawyer he was?”

Actually, Emily thought, he had. He’d said he was ‘corporate’ which didn’t bode at all well for ending the present course of conversation.

“A good one,” she replied, because he’d certainly implied it.

“Sounds just like ’em.”

The terse statement drew Emily’s brow in a faint frown. The thought that Justin could be as coldhearted and presumptuous as the men Mrs. Clancy was so upset about disturbed her. For a twenty-four-year-old woman, she knew she was woefully unsophisticated, but that hadn’t been her impression of him at all.

Dismissing the thought, and knowing the woman would go on forever if she didn’t change the subject herself, Emily edged back the diaper to see how her little girl was doing. The nagging thought that maybe she was just being naive gave way to a more profound concern.

“Do you think Anna’s grown any since you saw her last week?”

Bated exasperation softened the disgruntled woman’s expression. It softened a bit more when she looked over to where the pink-cheeked infant had fallen asleep at her mother’s breast. “Emily Miller, I know new mothers worry, but I’ve never heard of one worrying the way you do.”

“But she doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger.”

“That’s because you’re with her every minute of the day. She’s only a couple of months old. How big do you think she’s supposed to be?” She shook her head, looking vaguely amused. “She’s not some strapping boy like Paula Ferguson’s grandson, you know. Why, that child must have put on a pound a week to be as big as he is now. Of course his mother isn’t exactly dainty herself,” she confided.

She pulled a deep breath, preparing to head off on yet another tangent, but the commotion from the barn had her clamping her mouth shut before she could even get started. A calf shot out of the rubble, its rust-colored rump bouncing as it headed for the flattened cornfield. Over the clatter of boards inside the barn, the bovine bellowing grew more insistent.

The men were nowhere to be seen.

Mrs. Clancy’s hand flattened over her heart. “What in the world…?”

Pulling the diaper from Emily’s shoulder, she tossed it over her own and reached her weathered hands toward Anna. Even as she did, Emily was buttoning herself up and trying not to panic at the thought of what might have happened to Mr. Clancy—or to the man who knew far less than her husband had about the hazards on a farm.

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