If I Had You Read online

  © 2004 by Deborah Bedford.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Scriptures are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Faith

  Hachette Book Group, USA

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

  First eBook Edition: August 2004

  ISBN: 978-0-446-50681-6

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Two

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Healing Hearts Ministries

  Directions for making Nora Crabtree’s baby blankets

  Reading Guide

  About the Autor

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF DEBORAH BEDFORD

  WHEN YOU BELIEVE

  “The joy of this contemporary novel of faith lies in Bedford’s calm, competent voice. . . . This is a well-told tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This story of trust and forgiveness will appeal to many, especially those who live with hidden pain.”

  —CBA Marketplace

  “When You Believe gently explores the hearts of two women—one younger, one older—and the desperate secrets they keep hidden inside. . . . Deborah Bedford takes us on a journey inside those hurting hearts, plumbing their depths, seeking answers to questions we’ve all asked.”

  —Liz Curtis Higgs, author of Thorn in My Heart

  “Deborah Bedford spins another stirring tale. . . . Give this one to any person who has lived in silence with secret pain.”

  —Patricia Hickman, author of Fallen Angels and Sandpebbles

  “Faith and love gleam like twin jewels in When You Believe. A heartrending story of redemption and hope.”

  —Angela E. Hunt, author of The Shadow Women

  “Compelling. . . . With realistic characters and problems, this finely woven tale reminds us to put our trust in the One with the real answers.”

  —Melody Carlson, author of Looking for Cassandra Jane

  A MORNING LIKE THIS

  “The writing is solid, the pacing steady, and the description satisfying.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A compelling read that will appeal to readers of all kinds, but particularly of Christian books.”

  —Southern Pines Pilot (NC)

  “I finished A Morning Like This with tears in my eyes and hope in my heart. Deborah Bedford reminds us that nothing is too hard for God, no heartache is beyond the reach of His comforting, healing hand.”

  —Deborah Raney, author of Beneath a Southern Sky

  “Real problems . . . real faith . . . and a God who gives songs in the night. A Morning Like This reminds us all that we can do more than just ‘grin and bear it.’ We can overwhelmingly conquer.”

  —Stephanie Grace Whitson, author of Heart of the Sandhills

  A ROSE BY THE DOOR

  “A story of relinquishment, reconciliation, and grace . . . grabs the reader by the heart and doesn’t let go.”

  —Debbie Macomber, author of Ready for Love

  “A compelling page-turner and a surefire winner from Deborah Bedford.”

  —Karen Kingsbury, author of Sarah’s Song

  To those of us who thought we could forget,

  who thought that it might not really matter.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Jack and Bonnie West and Tad and Judy Fyock for arranging a safe writing haven when I needed it most, Sherrie Lord for standing behind my work in prayer and friendship, and Louise Kiessling for her beautiful stories about her boys, her prayers, her flowers for Mollie, and so much more.

  I thank Janet Wood, OB-GYN nurse at St. John’s Hospital, for all her enthusiasm and her patient help with research. I thank Ted Tilbury for his help with the Grumman Ag-Cat scenes. I thank Kathryn Helmers, Agent 007, for her wisdom, her passion, her belief, her friendship, and her faith.

  Much gratitude to my talented editor and friend, Leslie Peterson, whose guidance and partnership meant so much during this project. A salute and laughter to Claire and Nanny, too, for being willing to let me use the Chuck E. Cheese’s scene. The entire Warner Faith team has encouraged me in the name of the Father and it means so much to serve the Lord with them, side by side.

  I thank my family at Jackson Hole Christian Center, and Kate Halsey for allowing the Father’s love and ministry to work through her, in my life, and in so many others. I know that what the Father has called you to do has been frightening. Yet with every phone call you’ve made and every hug you’ve given, you are being faithful. The thankfulness I offer goes to the Father, because He orchestrated everything. This book has been written because of your obedience, Kate. Press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you (Phil. 3:12)!

  Finally, words of gratitude are not enough to Pam Micca, who agreed to one last reading of this manuscript to make sure everything was in its proper place. May the Father bless your life the same way that your friendship has blessed mine.

  And so they argued before the king.

  The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”

  Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

  The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”

  But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”

  Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

  1 KINGS 3:22-27

  A mother who is really a mother is never free.

  HONORE’ DE BALZAC

  PROLOGUE

  She had that crawly bad feeling—the one you get when you know you’re being followed.

  Seven-year-old Tansy Crabtree scuffed her way along the sidewalk between the school-bus stop and home, sending black pill bugs and chunks of cement skittering with her footsteps, her backpack bouncing a pleasant rhythm against her back.

  Her thoughts had been sailing off in as many directions as the bugs and stones she sent flying with her feet. She’d been thinking how she might get to go out and play after she finished her reading-packet worksheet. She’d been think
ing how she liked it best when her nana used these purple hair ties to fasten the top and bottom of her braided pigtail, because then it stayed tight and felt like thick rope. She’d been thinking how Dennis Lund had kept slurping from the water fountain the whole time they’d counted one-Mississippi two-Mississippi, and they’d gotten all the way to nineteen before he stopped to breathe.

  Tansy had gotten off the bus the way she always did, her arms swinging loose and wide with her steps, walking heavy on her heels, slapping the pavement happily with her white-and-pink Payless sneakers. She plopped a crumpled baseball cap sideways on her head, flicked her pigtail over her shoulder, and headed toward the corner.

  The bus had driven away and Erin Hamm, her best friend of years, had turned the corner on Meriweather Road four houses back.

  Then, a few steps later, Tansy noticed the car and began to feel afraid. The person driving seemed to be going slow now that Tansy was alone. Tansy hurried a little, and the car sped up. She walked slower, and the car didn’t pass. Out of the corner of her eye, even though she didn’t dare turn and look, she could see a tire and a gray fender with rusty dents the shape of fingernail moons.

  Her mouth had a taste in it like dry straw. She didn’t know if she should run away or scream or hide. So she kept going forward without stopping, fighting to breathe, her book pack growing heavier each time it slapped her taut spine.

  At the edge of the street, the car came so close behind her that she could hear its wheels crackling over gravel. Someone started turning down a window.

  “Hello.”

  And, for one fearful moment, Tansy allowed herself to glance up across the seat at the man’s pointed features, his scraggly brown hair, his shiny forehead. He bent over the passenger seat to look at her.

  “What’s your name?”

  Not telling.

  Up ahead, she could see that Mr. and Mrs. Lester had left their green trash barrel sitting square in the middle of the sidewalk beside their driveway. Today was trash day, and the Lesters had their bin sitting out. The lawn had just been mown; she could tell by the sweet, grassy smell, the paperlace wheel-tracks along the pavement.

  “You do have a name, don’t you?”

  She didn’t like the man’s tangled hair pulled back in a ponytail, his dark beard that pointed down from his chin like an arrow. His lips were very red, and wet.

  He swigged some water out of a bottle. She could see the white pearl snaps on his Western cuffs. “Tansy. That’s your name, isn’t it? Purple Tansy, like the weed.”

  She missed a step.

  “You are Tansy, aren’t you?”

  She shook her head, no. She kept going, walking straight toward the trash bin, until she reached it. She put the bin between herself and the curb and felt a moment of safety for it.

  “Will you talk to me?”

  Tansy twisted her wrinkled ball cap from the side to front-and-center. This time, she said it aloud. “No.”

  “You won’t talk? But you just did.”

  The turn-off to her street was just ahead. A tall cedar that poked into the sky like an exclamation point marked the jutting corner of the pink brick house that belonged to the Simms. If she could just make it that far, she could drop everything and run to the back window where Lavinia Simms was always sitting this time of day, working on her crossword puzzles. Tansy knew she could make it that far for help before someone jumped out and grabbed her.

  Then again, she hadn’t realized there was anyone else in the car. The woman must have been leaning over or rummaging on the floor or stooping down to hide. Suddenly there she was in the frame of the open window, white-faced and large-eyed, clutching at the chrome from inside the car. Her yellow-white hair was cut in sharp, thin layers, and her violet eyes, smudged with mascara, were as big around as teacups.

  “Tansy, honey. Wait a minute. I got you a present.”

  “I don’t know who you are.”

  “Look here.” The woman plucked something out of a blue-and-yellow bag from Wal-Mart. And up into view popped a stuffed purple bunny, loose limbed and huge, with visionless eyes that gave it a cartoonish look. The woman held it by the neck and made it move its head. “Hi, Tansy. I’m your mommy. Do you want to come with me?”

  Tansy stutter-stepped, the rubber toe of her sneaker catching the pavement. Her pack slipped off her arm and thudded into the grass. She didn’t even realize she’d let it go.

  “Now, see. I didn’t mean to make you drop that. Is it heavy? Do you get a lot of homework?”

  She shook her head. No.

  “You didn’t know you had a mommy?”

  That made her stop walking altogether. Yes, but I’ve never seen her.

  The bunny pushed farther out the window. “Do you like this? Here. You can have it. I bought it for you.”

  Tansy reached out tentatively to touch one long, fuzzy paw.

  “Go ahead. Take it.”

  Tansy pointed toward the driver. “Who’s he?”

  “He’s Jimmy Ray. My . . . friend.”

  “There’s a code word.” Tansy eyed Jimmy Ray with distrust. “I’m not supposed to go with anybody I don’t know unless they know the code word.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Nana Nora.” A pause. “My grandma.”

  “My my. You have a very smart grandma. But it’s okay, can’t you see? I just want to get to know you a little better.”

  “Do you know the code word? It’s Nana’s rule.”

  The rabbit pulled out of Tansy’s grasp, and its head started moving again. This time, the lady made it speak with a stupid, childish voice that Tansy didn’t like. The stuffed animal’s head moved back and forth with the voice. “Nope, I don’t know the password. But that’s okay, isn’t it? For someone that’s your mom?”

  “Tess.” Jimmy Ray smacked the wheel of the car. “Mira. Quit fooling around. Just grab the kid and let’s go.”

  “Shut up, Jimmy,” The woman said crossly. “I don’t want to scare her.” Then, back out the window, “Your nana hasn’t showed you pictures of me, or anything?”

  Tansy shook her head. No.

  “She didn’t tell you anything about me?”

  She shook her head again. No. But this time it was a big lie. Her nana had told her some things about her mother. She’d answered a lot of questions, but it hadn’t been anything Tansy liked or had been able to understand.

  The Simmses’ outdoor gaslight had a rudely twisted fork of coat-hanger wire on top of it, put there to dissuade any bird from alighting. This is my mockingbird discourager, Mr. Simms had announced once when he’d seen Tansy walking by and staring at it. Just let any mockingbird try to terrorize my Sullivan. He’d lifted his cat from the ground and made a croaking motion with his hand against his throat. But a mockingbird stood atop Mr. Simms’s discourager just now, oblivious to the twisted wire it perched on, its head lifted high toward its song.

  “Are you scared?”

  This time, a nod. Yes.

  “You don’t have to be, you know. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  That didn’t convince Tansy at all.

  What happened next came almost too fast to understand. First, the bunny fell. It tumbled out of the window in a mad purple flurry of arms and legs and ears. It smacked against the curb, facedown.

  Tansy dove to grab it. Smudge-eye Girl glanced around briefly at the same time Tansy moved. No one was watching. No one.

  The car door flew open. With just one stumbling step, two, the woman raked Tansy onto the front seat. The door slammed and locked.

  Jimmy Ray reached across their laps to crank up the window. Tansy stared at the dusty dashboard in terror.

  “There, baby. There, baby,” the large-eyed lady was crooning to Tansy. “Everything’s going to be okay now, can’t you see?”

  “I want to go home,” Tansy begged. “Please, take me home.”

  “Your home’s gonna be with us. Me and Jimmy Ray. That’ll be okay, won’t it? The way it was meant to be.”
>
  Even though the lady was clutching her around the belly, Tansy squirmed until she could see into the lady’s eyes. Those eyes—they were the same violet blue as her own, with brighter flecks of gold in their centers. As her heart thudded, Tansy tried hard but couldn’t understand what she was seeing. She felt as if she were staring into a mirror, staring into those other eyes.

  The bunny had gotten stuck in the car door. They had to tug and yank to rescue its arm. As the car started to roll forward, Tansy began to wail.

  The lady named Tess didn’t even take the hair ribbons out or unfasten her plait before she pulled out scissors and began to cut Tansy’s hair.

  Tansy’s last view of her own street was of the Simmses’ house . . . and she could see her backpack lying in a heap in the yard.

  NORA SNIPPED THE PYRACANTHA SHRUBS with her shears, hoping to end up with the shape of a turkey’s tail.

  Tansy ought to be home by now.

  Bus must be late again.

  She stepped away, surveyed her handiwork from the opposite angle, and moved in to snip-snip-snip when she saw Lavinia Simms strolling up along the sidewalk.

  “Hallooo.” Lavinia waved.

  “What do you think?” Nora pointed to the shrub. “Is it even? Or do you think I ought to take some off the left side?”

  Lavinia stopped and squinted through her bifocals. “Oh, heavens. Don’t ask me. You ought to see what I did to Claude’s hair last week.”

  Nora held the shears toward her.

  “He wanted me to shave a little off the neckline. Now I catch him every morning, checking to see if it’s growing out.”

  Nora pushed her bangs out of her face with a garden-gloved hand. “I’ll ask Tansy when she gets home. She likes giving her opinion.”

  “Oh. Here you go.” Lavinia held out Tansy’s backpack. “That’s why I came over.”

  “Why?”

  “Thought I’d better bring this back. Tansy left it in our yard.”

  Nora didn’t take it right away. She stared at it as if she’d never seen it before.