Free [Troublesome Creek 01] - Troublesome Creek by Jan Watson Page B

sort of agreement, the men joined Granny and Emilee on the porch.
    “You’re right, Daniel,” Will said. “I’ve been thoughtless. I can’t raise Laura Grace inside my shirt. I’ll go back to my house. I’ll make myself go in, and I’ll start taking care of the baby the way I should.” He took Emilee’s hand. “I hope you can forgive me, for I’ll need a heap of learning about babies from you and Granny.”
    “It’s all right, Will.” Emilee kissed his cheek. “You know I’d do anything for you and for Julie’s baby.”

     
    Over the next few weeks, Will’s odd behavior was on everyone’s minds up and down Troublesome. This or that one would stop by Daniel’s front porch and puzzle over Will’s attachment to his daughter.
    Daniel wouldn’t talk about it, but Emilee agreed with the others. It was much more common to see a man turn against a child if his wife died during or soon after childbirth. Why Sam Heller, over in Quicksand, left his twins with his sister not two days after his wife died of childbed fever. Not only that, Emilee told Daniel, but Lucinda Mark had told her that his other three were farmed out to anyone who would take them. Talk was that he had moved a sixteen-year-old in to take poor Anna’s place. Sam, with that sneaking look on his face, like a sheep-killing dog.
    Of course, Will couldn’t have taken care of Laura Grace if Granny hadn’t moved in with him; that’s what turned the trick—that and Emilee’s milk. You had to hand it to Will, though. He sure wasn’t like other men.
    The first night the baby was gone, Daniel found Emilee sobbing when he came in from the fields with a fat, young rabbit for their supper. He couldn’t bear to see her cry, so he pulled her onto his lap and kissed the tears from her round face. “Sweetheart,” he said, “we’ll have more young’uns.”
    Emilee laughed through her tears. “Chances are they’ll all be boys. Matthew, Mark, and Luke to go with little John.”

     
    What no one could have predicted was Will’s long-term solution to his dilemma. He rode off that summer, in the year of Julie’s death, and came back with a new mother for the baby he’d dubbed Copper because her hair shone in the sunlight like a newly minted penny. Nobody could have figured that Will would bring a stranger into their midst. But he did. He went all the way to Lexington and fetched Julie’s sister, Grace.

CHAPTER 7
     
    Years of memories came and went for Will Brown this stormy August afternoon. Days long gone were still as clear as yesterday in his mind. He struck out blindly with the willow switch he’d cut just hours before and called his dead wife’s name as if he were still on the banks of the flooding Troublesome, not in his barn more than fifteen years later. His heart seized violently, and emotion as raw as the night Julie had been swept away threatened to overwhelm him.
    He couldn’t help but blame himself. What if I had encouraged Granny to stay longer? What if I’d listened to my own intuition and taken the wagon instead of that flimsy buggy? What if I hadn’t forced Samson into that raging creek? Even his horse had had more sense than he did that awful night.
    “Will!” He heard a call from far away. Grace, he thought. Another reason to feel guilty. He’d practically forced her to leave the place she loved to come and help him raise Copper. Every time he looked in her eyes he could see that she hadn’t forgiven him for that. It didn’t matter that he had fallen in love with her.
    “What are you doing?” Grace asked as she stepped into the barn.
    “Nothing,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.
    “Who are you talking to?”
    “No one,” he said, his back a barrier to her worried voice.
    “You missed your dinner,” she said as if it mattered.
    “Save it for supper.” He was suddenly weary. It was all too much.
    “Will . . .” She touched his arm.
    “Leave me be, Grace!” He shrugged off her hand and fled. He