A STITCH IN TIME Barbour Publishing ISBN: 1-59310-143-0 June 2004 ORDER NOW!

A STITCH IN TIME

"Double Running"
by Carol Cox


1887, No Man’s Land
 

"What can I get for you today, Sam?” Wally Foster’s genial face creased in a smile of goodwill.

“Some more of those eight-penny nails. Lou and Trent’s boys decided to build themselves a fort and used up the last of the ones I needed for the pulpit.”

“It’s going to be good to have a church building all our own. Nice of your family to put up the land for it.” Wally measured out a pound of nails into a sack and thunked it on the counter of Foster’s Food and Feed. “A fort, eh? Good boys, those two. Lou and Trent are doing a fine job with them. I never thought I’d see the day Lou Stafford would settle down and act like a lady. Those boys have been good for her, too.”

“Mm-hm,” Sam grunted and tried to ignore the knot in his stomach. Maybe Wally was just making conversation. Then again, maybe he was leading into the topic that seemed to be on the minds of everyone in Petunia these days.

“Anything else?”

“Alum. You have any?”

“Sure thing.” Wally turned to root through the assortment of goods on the shelves behind him.

Sam spotted the alum a moment before Wally came to it. Right next to the arsenic. He watched to make sure Wally picked up the right container. A man couldn’t be too careful with some things.

“Alum,” Wally said thoughtfully. “You fixing to tan a hide?”

Sam massaged his stomach, trying to soothe the knot away. “Grandma needs it. She wants to make pickles. Right away.”

Wally lowered his left eyelid in a knowing wink. “Deborah go through that last batch already?”

Sam forced a grin. “Remember in the Bible when Rachel says to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or else I die?’ Well, that’s pretty close to what Deborah told Micah this morning. Only it was pickles, not children. And it sounded a lot more like Micah’s life was the one in jeopardy.”

Wally offered a sympathetic smile and shook his head. “Womenfolk can get right testy when they’re expecting. But I guess you’re finding that out, aren’t you?” His face took on an expression of angelic innocence. “Maybe it’ll help you when it comes your time to be a daddy.”

The lump evaded Sam’s fingers and moved up into his throat. He swallowed. Hard. “I’d best be moving along. What do I owe you?”

“‘Course, you’d have to find you a wife before you go having a young ’un,” Wally went on, as though Sam hadn’t spoken.

Sam scooped up the nails and alum. “Put it on our tab, will you? I’ve got to get this alum home before Micah gets skinned.” He bolted from the store before Wally could get in another word and stowed the purchases in his saddlebags. He tightened the cinch and patted Buck on the neck before swinging into the saddle. He hadn’t gotten out a moment too soon.

Ever since the marriage bug bit his oldest brother nearly a year ago, he’d watched his family succumb to the same malady, one by one. It swept through the Stafford clan like some medieval plague, first striking Micah, then Lou, and last of all Josh. Only Sam and Grandma had escaped. And some days he wondered about Grandma. He’d caught some glances between her and Rachel’s grandpa lately that made him downright uneasy.

Sam had no objection to seeing his brothers and sister find their mates, none at all. But they weren’t content just being deliriously in love. To hear them tell it, life didn’t take on true purpose until you met that special someone. Meaning that Sam had no purpose in his life. And being loving siblings, all three of them were determined to find him some.

They called it tying the knot. To Sam, it sounded more like having a noose tighten around his neck.

He had plenty of purpose in his life, thank you very much. How did they think they would have come by the new furniture their growing family needed if he weren’t around to do the carpentry work? Who else had time to play uncle to Timmy and Davy, now that Micah and Josh spent their nonworking hours mooning over Deborah and Rachel? And who else consistently kept his feet on the ground while the rest of them floated about on clouds of rapture, he’d like to know?

He played a significant role in the Stafford family’s lives, a fact they could see if they would just lift their heads out of their fog of wedded bliss long enough to look.

As for a special someone, well, there was always Buck. He watched the gelding’s bobbing ears with approval. Buck knew all his deepest secrets and had never broken a confidence. All he asked for was a good rubdown and an occasional bucket of oats. And he minded his own business, which was more than Sam could say for most of the people he knew.

If his family’s determination to see one more Stafford wedding weren’t bad enough, the whole community had decided to get into the act. A nudge here, a wink there, a sly allusion to an unmarried daughter or niece. It was enough to make a man sick.

Maybe he should have let Wally give him the arsenic,
after all.

Excerpted from:
A STITCH IN TIME
by Tracey V. Bateman, Carol Cox, Cathy Marie Hake, and Vickie McDonough
Copyright ©2004
ISBN: 1-59310-143-0
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.