Cliff smiled. “Pregnancy is amazing, isn’t it? I can’t pretend to know what a woman experiences, but as a man I can tell you that we feel utter astonishment and pride—and a kind of humbling, too.”

“I think David might’ve felt like that in the beginning,” Mary Jo whispered. He really had seemed happy. Very quickly, however, that happiness seemed to be compromised. By fear, perhaps, or resentment. She wanted to believe he’d loved her as much as he was capable of loving anyone. She now realized that his capacity for feeling, for empathy, was limited. Severely limited. Barely a month after she learned she was pregnant with his baby, David had become emotionally absent. He continued to call and to see her when he was in town but those calls and visits came less and less frequently, and the instant she started asking questions about their future, he closed himself off.

“It’s not all that different with my horses,” Cliff was saying.

His words broke into her reverie. “I beg your pardon?” What did he mean? They hadn’t been talking about horses, had they?

“I’ve bred a number of horses through the years and with every pregnancy I feel such a sense of hopefulness. Which is foolish, perhaps, since even the best breeding prospects don’t always turn out the way you expect. Still…”

“I met Funny Face today.”

Cliff’s eyes brightened when she mentioned the mare. “She’s my sweetheart,” he said.

“She seems very special.” Mary Jo remembered the moment of connection she’d felt with this horse.

“She is,” Cliff agreed. “She’s gentle and affectionate—a dream with the grandchildren. But as far as breeding prospects go, she was a disappointment.”

“No.” Mary Jo found that hard to believe.

“She’s smaller than we thought she’d be and she doesn’t have the heart of a show horse.”

“But you kept her.”

“I wouldn’t dream of selling Funny Face. Even though she didn’t turn out like Cal and I expected, we still considered her a gift.”

Mary Jo released a long sigh. “That’s how I feel about my baby. I didn’t plan to get pregnant and I know David certainly didn’t want it, yet despite all the problems and the heartache, I’ve come to see this child as a gift.”

“He definitely is.”

“He?” She grinned. “Now you’re beginning to sound like my brothers. They’re convinced the baby’s a boy.”

“I was using he in a generic way,” Cliff said. “I imagine you’d prefer a girl?”

“I…I don’t know.” She shrugged lightly. “There’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll just leave it up to God.” She was somewhat surprised by her own response. It wasn’t something she would’ve said as little as six months ago.

During her pregnancy, she’d begun to reconsider her relationship with God. When she was involved with David, she’d avoided thinking about anything spiritual. In fact, she’d avoided thinking, period. The spiritual dimension of her life had shrunk, become almost nonexistent after her parents’ death.

That had changed in the past few months. She thought often of the night she’d knelt by her bed, weeping and desperate, and poured out her despair, her fears and her hopes. It was nothing less than a conversation with God. That was probably as good a definition of prayer as any, she mused. Afterward, she’d experienced a feeling of peace. She liked to imagine her mother had been in the room that night, too.

“You’ve got everything you need?”

She realized Cliff had spoken. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” She hated to keep asking Cliff to repeat himself, but her mind refused to stay focused.

“I was asking if you have everything you need for the baby.”

“Oh, yes…Thanks to my friends and my brothers.” Mary Jo was grateful for her brothers’ generosity to her and the baby. Their excitement at the idea of a nephew—or niece, as she kept telling them—had heartened her, even as their overzealous interference dismayed her.

Linc, who tended to be the practical one, had immediately gone up to the attic and brought down the crib that had once belonged to Mary Jo. He’d decided it wasn’t good enough for her baby and purchased a new one.

Mary Jo had been overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness. She’d tried to thank him but Linc had brushed aside her gratitude as though it embarrassed him.

Mel was looking forward to having a young boy around—or a girl, as she’d reminded him, too—to coach in sports. She’d returned from work one day recently to find a tiny pair of running shoes and knew instantly they’d come from Mel.

And Ned. Her wonderful brother, Ned, had insisted on getting her a car seat and high chair.

Mary Jo had knitted various blankets and booties, and her friends from the office had seen to her layette in what might have been one of the largest baby showers ever organized at the insurance company. Other than her best friend, Casey, no one had any inkling who the father was, and if they speculated, they certainly never asked. Regardless, their affection for Mary Jo was obvious and it made a difference in her life.

Grace returned just then and Mary Jo heard the sound of a car door closing. The front door opened a moment later and a girl of about five ran inside. “Grandma! Grandma!” she cried. “I’m an angel tonight! I’m an angel tonight!”

Grace knelt down, clasping the child’s hands. “You’re going to be an angel in the Christmas pageant?”

The little girl’s head bobbed up and down. “In church tonight.”

Grace hugged her granddaughter. “Oh, Katie, you’ll be the best angel ever.”

The girl beamed with pride. Noticing Mary Jo, she immediately walked over. “Hi, I’m Katie.”

“Hi, Katie. I’m Mary Jo.”

“You’re going to have a baby, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

The door opened again and a young couple came in. The man carried a toddler, while the woman held a large, quilted diaper bag.

“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Grace’s daughter said, kissing her mother’s cheek. She turned to Mary Jo.

“Hello, I’m Maryellen. And I’m so glad you’re going to be joining us,” she said, smiling broadly.

Mary Jo smiled back. She’d never expected this kind of welcome, this genuine acceptance. Tonight would be one of the most memorable Christmas Eves of her life.

Now, if only her back would stop aching….

13

“Officer, let me explain,” Linc said, doing his best to stay calm. His brothers stood on either side of him, arms raised high in the air. The deputy, whose badge identified him as Deputy Pierpont, appeared to have a nervous trigger finger.

The second officer was in his car, talking into the radio.

“Step away from the vehicle,” Pierpont instructed, keeping his weapon trained on them.

The three brothers could’ve been playing the children’s game, Mother, May I as they each moved forward one giant step.

“What were you doing on private property?” Pierpont bellowed as if he’d caught them red-handed inside the bank vault at Fort Knox.

“We’re looking for our sister,” Mel blurted out. “She ran away this morning. We’ve got to find her.”

“She’s about to have a baby,” Linc said, feeling some clarification was required.

“Then why are you here?” the deputy asked, his tone none too friendly.

“Because,” Linc said, fast losing patience, “this is where we thought she’d be.”

The second officer approached them. His badge said he was Deputy Rogers. “We had two separate phone calls from neighbors who claimed three men were breaking into this house.”

“We weren’t breaking in,” Mel insisted, turning to his brothers to confirm the truth.

“I looked in the window,” Linc confessed, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize that was a crime.”

Pierpont snickered. “So we got a Peeping Tom on our hands.”

“There’s no one at home!” Linc shouted. “There was nothing to peep at except a crazed cat.”

“I tried to open the back door,” Mel said in a low voice.

“Why’d you do that?” Rogers asked.

“Well, because…” Mel glanced at Linc.

As far as Linc was concerned, Mel was the one who’d opened his big mouth; he could talk his own way out of this.

“Go on,” Rogers prodded. “I’d be interested to know why you tried to get into this house when your brother just told us you were searching for your sister and that you knew there was no one here.”

“Okay, okay,” Mel said hurriedly. “I probably shouldn’t have tried the door, but I suspected Mary Jo was inside and I wanted to see if that elderly couple was at home or just hiding from us.”

“I’d hide if the three of you came pounding on my door.” Again this was from Deputy Rogers.

“What did I tell you, Jim?” Pierpont said. Mel’s comment seemed to verify everything the officers already believed. “Why don’t we all go down to the sheriff’s office so we can sort this out.”

“Not without my attorney,” Linc said in a firm voice. He wasn’t going to let some deputy fresh out of the academy railroad him. “We didn’t break any law. We came to the Rhodes residence in good faith. All we want…all we care about is locating our little sister, who’s pregnant and alone and in a strange town.”

Just then another car pulled up to the curb, and a middle-aged man stepped out, dressed in street clothes.

“Now you’re really in for it,” Pierpont announced.

“This is Sheriff Troy Davis.”

As soon as Sheriff Davis approached, Linc felt relieved. Troy Davis was obviously a seasoned officer and looked like a man he could reason with.

The sheriff frowned at the young deputies. “What’s the problem here?”

They both started talking at once.

“We got a call from dispatch,” Pierpont began.

“Two calls,” Rogers amended.

“From neighbors, reporting suspicious behavior,” Pierpont continued.

“The middle one here admits he was trying to open the back door.”

Mel leaned forward. “Just checking to see if it was locked.”

Linc groaned and turned to his brother. “Why don’t you keep your trap shut before we end up spending Christmas in jail.”

To his credit, Mel did seem chagrined. “Sorry, Linc. I wanted to help.”

Linc appealed directly to the sheriff. “I understand we might have looked suspicious, peeking in windows, Sheriff Davis, but I assure you we were merely trying to figure out if the Rhodes family was at home.”

“Are you family or friends of Ben and Charlotte’s?” the man asked, studying them through narrowed eyes.

“Not exactly friends.”

“Our sister knows Ben’s son,” Ned told them.