BEVERLY BARTON - Faith, Hope and Love

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

“I think that rain is going to change over to snow,” Jody Crenson said as she gazed out the double windows in the living room of Faith Sheridan’s duplex apartment. “You’d better not only take an umbrella, but wear a hat and gloves, too.”

“I’m way ahead of you. I have my hat and gloves ready.” Faith emerged from her bedroom carrying a brown knit hat and matching brown gloves. She laid both on top of her ankle-length camel tan wool coat hanging over the back of the sofa beside the closed umbrella. “I’ll have to leave soon.” She checked her watch again—for the tenth time in ten minutes. “We’re supposed to meet at eight o’clock and it’s nearly seven-thirty.”

“The town square is only a ten-minute walk from here. You wouldn’t be just a little overeager would you?” As she turned from the windows, Jody grinned. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? I’ll disappear the minute he shows up.”

“I’ll bring Worth back here and call you to come over and meet him. I promise. But once you meet him, I want you to make yourself scarce and go back to your apartment next door. Worth and I will have a lot of plans to make for our future.”

Jody forced a smile as she sauntered over to Faith and grasped her hands. “Sweetie, nobody wants this to work out for you more than I do. But don’t get your hopes up. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve had guys sweet-talk me into the sack, then forget my telephone number.”

“Worth didn’t sweet-talk me. He’s not like that.” A sudden blush burned Faith’s cheeks. “I actually asked him to…well, you know.”

Jody shook her head. “Ah, Faithie, I really hope the guy shows, but if he doesn’t—”

“He’ll be there,” Faith said, with utter conviction. “I know he loves me. And I’m sure by now he’s figured out for himself just how much he loves me. We were meant to be together.”

“You’re terribly in love with him, aren’t you?” Jody sighed. “When you first told me about him—about the way you two met when he rescued you from those terrorist kidnappers over there in Subria—I thought you just had a major hero-worship crush on him. But it’s more than that for you.”

“For him, too.” Faith swung Jody’s hands back and forth, then released her and twirled around several times. “How do I look?”

“Lovely. I’ve never seen you looking prettier. You’re absolutely glowing.”

“That’s because I’m in love and I’m happy and I’m—” Faith smiled broadly as she hugged herself. “Just think, less than two months ago I was a kidnap victim who could have been killed and now I’m home and safe and have a wonderful life ahead of me.”

“If you and Worth decide not to come back here, you call me. Otherwise, I’ll worry about you.”

Faith picked up her hat and pulled it down over her long brown hair, the two almost identical in color, then she eased on her gloves and put on her coat. “If for any reason we don’t come back here to my apartment, I’ll let you know. But don’t worry about me if I don’t call until late. Worth may have made his own plans for us.”

“If you aren’t back by midnight and haven’t called me, I’ll send out the Highway Patrol.”

Faith grabbed the umbrella and headed for the door. She glanced over her shoulder. “You’re going to be my maid of honor, so you’d better start thinking about a fancy dress. Maybe something in velvet.”

“Velvet will be kind of warm for a June wedding.”

“We won’t be waiting until June.” Faith opened the door. “I’m sure when I tell Worth my news, he’ll want us to get married right away.”

“Your news?” Jody’s eyes widened in a speculative stare. “What haven’t you told me? And why haven’t you told me?”

“Because I just took the test today.”

“The test?”

“I’ve got to go. I want to be early, just in case Worth is.”

Jody followed Faith out the door and onto the front porch that ran the length of the old house, which had been built in the thirties and later divided into two apartments.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Jody grabbed Faith’s shoulder just as Faith opened the big tan umbrella.

Faith jerked away, went down the steps and out onto the sidewalk, then began skipping and humming “Singing In the Rain.”

“Don’t you dare leave here without telling me,” Jody called after her.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Faith sang out loud and clear. “I’m going to have Worth’s baby and we’re going to get married and live happily ever after.”

Faith skipped away, the cold evening rain drizzling down all around her as she made her way up Somerset Avenue. She’d never been this happy in her entire life. Very soon she would have what she wanted most—a family of her own. She and Worth and their baby would be that family.

If anyone understood the way she felt, Jody did. They’d met when they were kids, both residents of the Whitewood Girls’ Ranch for orphans outside of town. Faith had very little memory of her mother, who’d died in a car crash when Faith was three, but she had lots of wonderful memories of her father. Alfred Sheridan had been a college professor. A shy, quiet man who’d been a gentle, loving parent. But her dad had been nearly fifty when she was born and suffered with heart problems that took his life when Faith was twelve. Without any close relatives, Faith had become an unwanted orphan. She wasn’t particularly pretty and she’d always been shy. And not many people wanted to adopt a twelve-year-old.

Decked in holiday finery, with festive lights twined around roof lines, shrubbery and fences, the homes near downtown Whitewood proclaimed the season. When she passed the Dawsons’ house, Horace barked at her from his dry perch on a footstool in front of the white wooden rockers on the front porch. Horace was a spoiled rotten, fourteen-year-old beagle. Lindsey Dawson opened the front door, lifted Horace off the stool, then threw up her hand to wave at Faith.

“Horace won’t go out in the yard to do his business when it’s raining like this.” Lindsey shrugged. “What on earth are you doing out on a night like this? Don’t you know it’s suppose to start snowing any time now?”

Faith was in the church choir with Lindsey and they had become very friendly acquaintances since Faith’s return to Whitewood a month ago. The Dawsons, Lindsey and George, were in their midfifties with three adult children who were spread out across the country; and none of them had given the couple grandchildren, much to Lindsey’s consternation.

“I’m meeting Worth in the town square tonight,” Faith said.

“Oh, dear me, I’d forgotten that your young man was coming to Whitewood on Christmas Eve. Such a romantic rendevous for the two of you.”

Faith beamed with her happiness, feeling it through and through, as if this joyous feeling had taken over her body from the inside out. She wanted to shout from the rooftops that she was in love.

Within five minutes, she had made her way to Main Street. Last minute shoppers were scurrying about, rushing in and out of stores as they purchased Christmas presents. Whitewood, South Carolina—population 6,587—had seen its downtown area almost die out when a lot of businesses moved out near the four-lane highway back in the seventies. But in the late eighties, the townspeople had banded together to revitalize the buildings and the square between Main and Cherry Streets.