Waiting for Yesterday Read online

  WAITING FOR YESTERDAY

  By Jenny Massie Lykins

  Previously published 1997 Jenny Lykins by Berkley/Jove

  Copyright 2013 Jenny Massie Lykins Smashwords Edition

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  For Linda Massie Hay

  My sister, my friend

  PROLOGUE

  January, 1887

  “Wes has gone to fetch the doctor, Elizabeth. Are the pains coming closer?”

  Chase Alston knew before asking. The pains were far too close. Even as he asked, a fine sheen of sweat appeared on his wife’s face, dampening the few dark hairs that had somehow managed to escape the tight knot that perpetually sat on the crown of her head. Her lips tightened into a hard line as the pain increased, color drained from her face, but not so much as a whimper escaped into the quiet, chilly room.

  Wes could never fetch the doctor in time to deliver the baby. Chase would have to deliver it himself. How ironic.

  “May I have a sip of water, Chase?” His wife’s voice, though strained with pain, still held that ever-meek tone he’d learned to hate.

  Color returned to Elizabeth’s face as the labor pain subsided. Chase rose from his seat by the fire and made his way to the kitchen without a backward glance. He jerked the pump handle three times, snatched a glass from the sideboard, then shoved it under the spewing water. He stared out the frosted window, past his dark reflection and into the inky blackness. He wouldn’t allow his jumbled thoughts to focus. He wouldn’t think about delivering a baby - this baby. He’d raise it, he’d be a good father to it, he’d love it as best he could. But, dear God, don’t ask him to deliver it.

  It wasn’t until the icy water poured over his hand that he snapped back to attention.

  When he returned to the parlor he found his wife grimacing through the throes of another labor pain. Watching her face silently contort, watching her huge belly contract into a tight, hard ball, he could almost feel his heart soften toward her, could almost want to touch her.

  Almost.

  When her body again relaxed against the pillows, he gave her the glass of water. She took a tiny sip and looked up at him.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly.

  He ignored her gratitude. It was the last thing he wanted.

  “The doctor won’t get here in time. Hopefully Wes will stop at the Parker’s long enough to send Alice here.” He threw another log on the fire, party to vent his frustration, partly in an effort to warm the room. Since the bedroom had no fireplace, he’d set up the bed in the parlor for Elizabeth’s lying-in.

  “Everything you’ll need,” she gasped with the onset of another pain, “is on the chair in our room.”

  Of course, she would have everything prepared. He marched the few steps to the bedroom and instantly found the neat stack of linens, tiny blankets, a tiny gown, twine, a knife. Everything perfectly laid out. Perfectly embroidered, perfectly folded, perfectly stacked, all by his perfect wife.

  Perfect.

  He grabbed the pile of necessities and returned to the parlor. Laying things out as he might need them, forcing his mind not to think, the tiniest hint of a moan grabbed his attention.

  She had to be in unbearable pain to have allowed the low moan to escape. His wife never gave in to pain. In the time they’d been married he had never once heard her complain. Not even the time she’d sliced her hand wide open on that canning jar. Not even when it got infected.

  He turned up the wick in the kerosene lamp and studied her face. She didn’t look good. The lack of color in her face couldn’t bode well. Dark circles smudged the pale skin beneath her eyes and he knew he needed to check her, but he had no idea what to look for.

  He’d delivered his share of colts and calves before, even a lamb or two. There’d been one delivery where he’d had to pull a colt from it’s mother because it was coming feet first and the mare was dying. He knew the head should come first.

  “Elizabeth,” he forced a tone more gentle than any he’d used since their wedding night, “do you know if this is normal?”

  She rode out the rest of the pain, lips pressed in a firm, white line, beads of sweat dotting her forehead and upper lip. When the rock hard, pointed bulge of her stomach finally rounded out she gasped for breath and shook her head no.

  “No? Do you mean you don’t know, or it’s not normal?”

  But he was talking to himself. Elizabeth had fainted.

  From what he could tell, she was better off unconscious. But he was worried now. This couldn’t be a normal labor.

  Damn her! If she’d only told him when the pains had begun this morning he could have sent for the doctor in plenty of time. But she’d kept that minor detail to herself, cleaning an already sanitary house until she could no longer stand. And now she was left with no one to deliver this baby except for a husband who hadn’t laid a hand on her since their wedding night.

  Chase paced a few steps in the spotless parlor, then stopped to study her face again. She looked even paler than before, if that was possible. Still unconscious, she almost seemed to be sleeping. Now would be the best time to check her, when he wouldn’t offend her…delicate sensibilities. For the life of him, he didn’t know why he should care.

  He pulled back the covers and lifted her heavy flannel gown. For a moment he stood stock still and gaped at the first pregnant belly he’d ever seen.

  He hadn’t let himself imagine what her stomach might look like. He hadn’t wanted to know. The large bulge forever covered by layers of cotton or wool looked nothing like this huge, ivory mound with the skin stretched so painfully taut. As he watched, the bulge changed shape, coming to a point, signaling the onset of another contraction. He lowered the gown, not certain if Elizabeth would rouse from her faint.

  She came to with a great gasp for air, her fists wadding the bedsheets into twisted knots. She held her breath, her body absolutely motionless until, finally, her stomach once again softened.

  “Elizabeth,” Chase dipped a cloth in a bowl of cool water, wrung it out, then wiped the beads of sweat from her face, “I have to check you. I need to see what’s wrong.”

  Panic filled her soft gray eyes, and she grabbed for the sheet that no longer covered her.

  “No, Chase. I’ll be fine. You have no need to check me.”

  The old, familiar irritation boiled up in him, a far more comfortable feeling than the moments of tenderdess he’d allowed himself to feel.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Someone has to deliver this baby. I am the only option. Unless you think I can do this with a blindfold over my eyes, I suggest you get over your belated prudishness and let me see where the baby is.”

  “No!” She shook her head back and forth and held her gown tight against her body. She continued to deny him until another pain overtook her. He watched every muscle in her body tense against the contraction, fighting it instead of allowing it to happen. A startled, pain-filled gasp coincided with a gush of clear fluid that spread across her gown and soaked both her and the bed linens. She fainted again.

  This tim
e Chase wasted no time. He struggled to remove the heavy, clinging flannel, but after just a few seconds impatience got the best of him. He grabbed the neck of the gown and ripped it down the middle. As the fabric separated, deep in the depths of his mind a resentful thought occurred to him that this was only the second time he’d ever seen his wife naked.

  Another contraction hardened her stomach, but this time Elizabeth failed to come out of her swoon. Alarmed, Chase waited a full minute until her stomach rounded, a sign he’d already come to learn meant the pain had subsided. Without wasting a second, he slid his hand into the birth canal, hoping to feel the baby’s head.

  Nausea turned his stomach and sweat ran in runnels from his temples when he reached into the birth canal, searching for signs of a head, and came in contact with a tiny, perfectly formed foot.

  “Dear God! Help me!” he prayed heavenward. “Send someone to help me!”

  CHAPTER ONE

  January, 1997

  Barrett Overbrook stood across the street from the church, the icy, driving rain already soaking through her red cashmere sweater and short black skirt, stinging her face like hundreds of tiny needles, carving frigid trails down her back. She’d left her coat in the rental car, as well as her umbrella. She didn’t really feel the rain, anyway. She didn’t feel anything at all.

  Through the cold downpour, in the early evening gloom, the warm, yellow light glowing from the church windows looked like incandescent bars of gold. Barrett walked a few feet farther, unconcerned about the puddles she trudged through or her favorite pair of suede heels.

  The huge, glass front of the church revealed six elaborate floral arrangements, two of which flanked the center aisle. She positioned herself on the sidewalk until she had a clear view down the aisle, all the way to the front of the sanctuary.

  Even with his back to her, Barrett recognized the tall, well-built figure of her ex-boyfriend standing beneath the floral arch on the dais. Andrew, handsome as always in his black tux, stood beside the chic, perfectly dressed bride in her designer ivory satin. The name of the designer escaped Barrett. She wasn’t into snob appeal. But she knew exactly what the gown looked like, even through the blur of the downpour.

  She should. She’d helped her twin sister pick it out.

  Elizabeth, of course, had gained permission from Barrett to date Andrew after she’d broken off with him. Within just a few months there’d been an engagement announcement, then Elizabeth had properly requested that her identical twin be maid of honor at the wedding. When Barrett told her she would be in Europe with her job from October through December and would be unable to make the wedding, Elizabeth had managed to appear convincingly disappointed.

  But here Barrett was, back a month early because she’d finished the overseas project in record time. She’d flown into Chicago, stopped at her apartment long enough to dump her dirty clothes and re-pack, book another flight out, then catch a cab back to the airport. She’d arrived at Cincinnati’s airport in plenty of time to go to the wedding, even with the traffic jam on the bridge into town. But instead of going to her parents’ home to get dressed, she’d driven around for hours, trying to collect her thoughts and make sense of all the emotions bombarding her.

  And now here she stood, in a freezing, torrential downpour, watching her sister marry her old boyfriend.

  That could have been me.

  Are you kidding? When you broke it off, it took him all of thirty seconds to fall in love with Elizabeth.

  That was a rebound thing. I could have married him. I just didn’t want to. After all, I broke up with him.

  As she watched, her sister turned, then Andrew lifted the wispy veil. Barrett’s stomach muscles tightened. Their first kiss as man and wife. Could she watch?

  She did.

  Her reaction surprised her. Even though her brain couldn’t have cared less, her stomach wanted to go somewhere and throw up. What in the world did that mean?

  Icy runnels of water ran down her face and neck, sculpting her hair into inky spikes over her eyes and against her cheeks. An unfamiliar, unexpected burning behind her eyelids jolted her into action before hot, salty streaks of tears could mingle with frigid rivulets of rain. While the downpour continued to fall, while the rain sucked every ounce of warmth from her skin, setting chillbumps to dancing and teeth to chattering, she shoved a handful of clinging, black chin-length hair out of her eyes and spun around to leave.

  “Whoa there!”

  A little old man in a blue and green plaid felt hat, navy overcoat, carrying a huge golf umbrella did a sidestep to avoid being bowled over by Barrett’s escape.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Barrett grabbed both of his arms to keep him from toppling over. She hadn’t even heard him approach.

  “My fault entirely, little lady. But I can never resist stopping and peeping in at a wedding. Warms my heart to see new couples in love starting out in life.” He offered a fragile hand to Barrett. “The name’s Gideon.”

  “Barrett Overbrook,” Barrett said as she took his hand, surprised at the strength squeezing her fingers.

  “You married?” he queried in a conversational tone.

  Barrett snorted. “Not hardly.” She grimaced at her rudeness and shot the old guy an apologetic look.

  “Here now,” he shoved the umbrella over her head, “you’re soaked to the skin. Why, you’ll catch your death. Where’s your umbrella, child?”

  Barrett waved vaguely down the street. “In the car. I was just going.”

  “Well let me walk you to it. Not that you could get much wetter.”

  “This is so nice of you,” Barrett told him as they headed back down the street. “Do you have far to go?”

  The old gentleman placed his hand on her forearm and patted. She suddenly felt all warm and cozy, like she used to when Nana was alive.

  “No. I came into town to meet someone. And I walk everyday. Rain or shine, through snow or sleet. Sort of like the Post Office.” He laughed at his predictable joke. Barrett smiled while she dug through her purse for the car keys.

  “Well,” she said when they arrived at the car, “I’m sorry I tried to mow you down.” She opened the door, slid into the seat and fired up the engine. “Thanks for walking me to the car. It’s raining awfully…” Barrett never finished her sentence. She actually forgot what she was saying when she turned and found the sweet old man had disappeared without a trace. “Gee,” she said as she glanced up and down the street, “wish I was in that good a shape.”

  She yanked the car into drive and had to turn the wipers on high when she pulled out into the street. Dread kept her from turning the wheel when she should have circled the block and headed toward the family home. She didn’t want to explain to her parents why she hadn’t gone to the wedding, didn’t want to hear its description in minute detail. She didn’t want to see the pride the Drs. Overbrook had in their surgeon son and med student daughter. Not only had those children followed in their parents’ footsteps, but now they were both respectably married and in a position to start producing tiny little doctors of their own.

  Barrett, on the other hand, had finished college in three and a half years, then landed an entry level job with Futuretech Software. Within two and a half years she’d achieved her Masters in computer science. This last trip to Europe got her promoted to Senior Director. None of which the medically-minded Overbrooks could bring themselves to identify with. She could still hear her father’s comment on her degree. “For God’s sake, Barrett. Computers?” Like he’d just said a four letter word.

  On the spur of the moment Barrett swerved left at the fork in the road and took the on ramp to Interstate 71.

  She had no idea where she was headed; she’d drive all night if the mood struck her. All that mattered was how liberating it felt to be so close to her family and to be driving away from them. Her censuring parents, condescending older brother and perfect twin sister would never know she’d been within criticizing distance.

  She drove north
east toward Columbus, plowing on through the driving rain. During a brilliant flash of rare January lightning, she saw a sign that read “Serenity - A Bed and Breakfast - 2.5 mi.”

  Suddenly the storm, jet lag, the unexpected emotions stirred by her sister’s wedding all converged to drain her of her last bit of energy. She whipped the car onto the Western Row Road exit and followed the signs to the inn with the inviting name. Serenity. Just what her troubled thoughts needed. The place sounded like heaven.

  It took her at least ten minutes to squint her way down the narrow, winding road. The windshield wipers hammered at top speed, and still she could barely see the pavement between swipes. Finally the high beam of headlights swung onto a quaint little sign in the shape of a house with matching turrets that announced she’d arrived at her destination.

  And not a moment too soon. Her eyes burned, her tense shoulders nearly touched her earlobes and her hands hurt from gripping the wheel. The welcome light in the sconces flanking the front door beckoned her to come in and relax. Barrett turned into the drive, noticing as she pulled around to the front door that the sign had been a replica of the house. She yanked her tote bag from the back seat. The rest of her bags could wait until the rain let up. Just as she was about to make a dash for the porch, the front door opened. A huge, striped umbrella blossomed to its full size, and a pair of galoshes-covered feet carried it to the car.

  “I saw you pull up the drive. Thought you might need some help.”

  “Thanks.” Barrett slammed the car door and ducked her head to keep from hitting it on the umbrella as they hustled to the porch.

  “Thanks. I was just starting to dry…You!” Barrett’s gratitude turned to surprise when the same little old man she’d nearly bowled over in front of the church peered up at her as he shook out the umbrella.

  “Well, well. Didn’t think we’d meet again so soon,” he said, pushing open the front door and waving her through. He had a certain tranquility about him that made him seem not at all surprised to see her again, let alone in this out of the way place.