Becca's Baby

They weren’t the only ones. She could barely sit still.

Glancing down at her, Will placed her hand on his thigh. He could feel her warmth through the thin cotton of his shorts. She’d redone her hair, too, drawn it back on both sides with small silver combs.

This entire production rested on her shoulders. If it was a bomb, not only would she face tonight’s disappointment, it wouldn’t bode well for her Save the Youth program, either. Yet she didn’t seem fazed by that.

There was no tenseness around her mouth. No strain in her eyes, worry lines around her brows. She was just plain excited.

Which was exactly what he would have expected of her. If the play was a bomb, Becca would find a way for the bomb to explode with dollar bills.

And yet—despite her strength, her resourcefulness—she was terrified to have a baby. Terrified to the point of almost robbing herself of something she needed more than anything else in life. Becca the powerful, Becca the weak; he could hardly believe the two women were one.

“I wish we could’ve gotten hold of Sam Montford IV,” she whispered to Will. “Dammit, he should’ve been here.”

“When’s he ever done what he should?” Will whispered back. The man had been unfaithful to his young wife, then abandoned her to face the tragedy he’d left behind. Why, after almost ten years, did Becca think they needed him here? He’d not only betrayed his wife, he’d deserted Shelter Valley. Although he hadn’t told Becca, Will had been rather glad she hadn’t been able to track the man down.

AS THE CURTAIN ROSE on the portable stage they’d built beside Samuel’s statue, Will put his arm around Becca and pulled her close.

Thanks to the outdoor misting system the town had had set up around the temporary seating, Becca could snuggle into Will’s side without getting too hot. Or making him too hot, either. Sari and Bob were sitting on her other side, and they were doing the same thing, with Bob’s arm around Sari, her head on his shoulder.

Becca envied them their happiness.

She’d seen Randi in the audience as she hurried in. Will’s younger sister was sitting with a group of her friends from the college. Janice and Betty were there, too, with their husbands and kids. And Rose and her friends. They all waved at her, giving her a thumbs-up for luck.

Becca and Sari both cried when Samuel’s Clara and baby boy were murdered.

“I’m sure glad we don’t live in a time that would condone such behavior,” Will leaned over to whisper. And in spite of the sad story, Becca felt a little smile inside as he confirmed what she would automatically have assumed six months ago—that her husband was compassionate. Not just judgmental.

Becca tensed as Samuel began his dangerous trek across the plains.

Will rubbed her shoulder. “You okay?” he whispered for at least the tenth time that day.

“Fine,” she whispered back. And for that moment, her answer was true. She was completely absorbed in the play, its characters as real to her as people she knew.

Even Will was sitting rigidly when gold fever hit Shelter Valley, bringing violence and greed into Samuel’s little town. And then in the late 1880s another tragedy struck. The second-born child of Samuel and Lizzie—a daughter, Elizabeth—disappeared. At fourteen, she’d been spending a lot of that summer off wandering on her own, according to her mother’s diary. And one day she just didn’t come home. Samuel spent the rest of his life searching for his beloved little girl, but she’d vanished without a trace.

The town—even Lizzie—eventually accepted the fact that she’d had some kind of accident and eventually been consumed by unforgiving desert life.

“What do you think it could have been?” the teenager up on stage whispered, conveying the stark terror and grief Lizzie must have felt back then.

The old sheriff shrugged sorrowfully. “A mountain lion perhaps, coming down for water,” he told the girl’s distraught mother.

Lizzie nodded in resignation, and Becca could hardly stand to watch.

“Or maybe a javelina,” the sheriff said.

Thinking of the 450-pound wild pigs that roamed the desert—even now—Becca shivered, tears streaming down her face. Will squeezed her hand with his free one, pulling her more snugly into his side.

“Want to go?” he whispered.

Yes. But she couldn’t. Becca shook her head.

Samuel Montford went to his grave believing that his little Elizabeth was still alive.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WITH THE FOURTH OF JULY behind them and her Save the Youth program such a rousing success, Becca had more time on her hands. Time to worry. To think. To rest.