Arlene James - Baby Makes a Match

Bethany looked around to find Chandler standing in the doorway, his boots in his hand. Her heart racing, she gasped. “You frightened me.”

“Sorry.” He walked across the floor in his stocking feet. “You didn’t answer my question. Why aren’t you asleep?”

She shrugged. “Just feeling kind of weird, I guess.”

Frowning, he lifted a hand to her forehead. “Maybe you’re coming down with something.”

“I’m fine.” She reached up to remove his hand from her brow. The baby suddenly moved. Bethany instinctively placed Chandler’s hand on her abdomen. “I’m not the only one who can’t sleep.”

He stared at her belly as it rippled, little hillocks appearing here and there, only to smooth out again as the baby moved. Finally the baby subsided into stillness, and Chandler looked up at her with awe in his cinnamon eyes.

“Amazing,” Chandler whispered.

Their gazes held for several moments before he abruptly snatched his hand away.

If only, she thought, if only this was a true marriage.

says, “Camp meetings, mission work and church attendance permeate my Oklahoma childhood memories. It was a golden time, which sustains me yet. However, only as a young widowed mother did I truly begin growing in my personal relationship with the Lord. Through adversity, He has blessed me in countless ways, one of which is a second marriage so loving and romantic it still feels like courtship!”

The author of more than seventy novels, Arlene James now resides outside Dallas, Texas, with her beloved husband. Her need to write is greater than ever, a fact that frankly amazes her, as she’s been at it since the eighth grade. She loves to hear from readers, and can be reached via her Web site at www.arlenejames.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.

—John 6:5–6

For Lisa Onvani,

friend, artist, beautiful soul.

Thank you,

DAR

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

“Six hundred dollars?” Bethany gaped at the mechanic. The man was unknown to her, just the first possible help that she had found along the road to Dallas after steam had started pouring out from under the hood of her pathetic little heap. “You’ve got to be kidding. The car wasn’t worth six hundred bucks when I started out in it!”

The hulking fellow wiped grease from his hands with a grimy red cloth. “Can’t argue with that,” he agreed, eyeing the offending vehicle.

“Look, I’m not even going as far as Dallas,” she pleaded, clutching the thin cotton skirt of her empire-style, ankle-length, blue-and-white-flowered sundress, inadvertently pulling the fabric taut across her distended belly. Her slenderness made her look further along in her pregnancy than she actually was, but she didn’t think about that now. “Isn’t there something you can do to get me to Buffalo Creek?”

He scratched his bald head. “Tell you what, I’ll give you three hundred cash for it as is. Maybe I can part it out, get my money back that way.”

“Three hundred?” Bethany repeated in dismay.

Making three hundred dollars beat shelling out six hundred that she did not even have, but how was she to make it to Buffalo Creek if she sold her car? The baby moved, producing an odd fluttering sensation inside her abdomen, as if to say she might as well get on with it. She wasn’t going anywhere in a broken-down car that she couldn’t fix, anyway, so she really had no choice here. That didn’t solve the problem, though. She shook her head, trying to see another way.

The tubby, middle-aged man spread his hands, displaying sweat stains on his coveralls. Bethany didn’t know how he managed to work in this old garage in the stifling July heat.

“Sorry. Best I can do,” he said. “You can always get a bus ticket at the diner next door.”

Well, that was better than nothing, she supposed. Sighing, she shook back her dark hair and smoothed her hands over her mounded belly, feeling a cramp building.

The cramps had started a couple weeks ago, at only five months into her pregnancy. She had attributed them to stress. Lately, her life had consisted of reeling blow after reeling blow. This was just one more.

Trying to look on the bright side, she reminded herself that three hundred bucks would more than double her pathetic bankroll. Besides, it was really her only option. She could take the money and buy a bus ticket or sit beside the road until she grew roots here, just a couple hours from her brother.

“Thank you very much,” she said quietly, accepting the offer. “I appreciate your help.”

“I’ll get your cash.”

While the mechanic went for the money, Bethany opened the trunk on her old car, lifting out the smaller of her two suitcases. Thankfully, she’d had sense enough to pack up her important papers, including the title to the car, which she’d bought used way back in high school.

Eight years later, she was afoot again, but she didn’t suppose she could complain about that. The car had been far more dependable and serviceable than anything or anyone else in her life. She was sorry to see it go, sorry enough to feel tears gathering.

So, what else was new? She’d cried so much lately that it would have been easier to count the minutes she hadn’t wept.

The mechanic returned with a receipt and a stack of bills. Bethany signed over the title before going back to the car for the remainder of her belongings. He helped her wrestle the larger suitcase out of the trunk. Stacking the smaller piece of luggage atop the larger one, she pulled up the handle, unlocked the wheels and rolled the lot out into the sweltering Texas sunshine.

Squinting, she slung her handbag over one shoulder, gathered up her hair in her free hand and trudged toward the diner. Not ten months ago, she’d chopped off her dark, sleek locks at her chin, but since she’d gotten pregnant, it now brushed her shoulders again. Thankfully, with the sun hanging low in a white-hot sky, the distance was short. She silently prayed that the wait would be also.

Lord, please, I don’t want to be stranded here in this dot on the map for hours on end. Can’t You help me out? I mean, after everything else that’s happened, can’t I get a break here? I just want to get to my brother safely. And soon.

Absently, she noticed a somewhat battered, dirty white, double-cab pickup truck, towing a large horse trailer behind, on the feeder road that ran along Highway 45. The rig slowed and turned into the eatery’s parking lot. The driver obviously knew what he was doing. Plodding along, Bethany watched as he expertly maneuvered the rig into the shade of the only tree within sight, drawing up mere inches from the portable sign at the edge of the lot.

A tall, slim-hipped, light-haired cowboy with broad shoulders got out and fitted a pale, high-crowned hat onto his head before moving down the side of the trailer. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but it was none of her concern. She had enough concerns of her own.

Somehow, she had to get to her brother. She didn’t have anywhere to go except back to Buffalo Creek and Garrett. Her brother was the only family she had and the only person on the face of the earth who would undoubtedly help her.