Stay a Little Longer

Stay A Little Longer



Chapter One

Carlson, Minnesota--October 1926

RACHEL WATKINS wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand while absently moving a strand of her coal-black hair from her green-flecked brown eyes. Though the early October day carried the crisp chill of autumn, the inside of Will and Clara Wicker’s small home blazed as if it were the hottest day of July; water boiled in a cast-iron pot on top of the wood-burning stove and

candles flickered in every corner, their meager light sending faint shadows dancing across the walls.

“Oh, Rachel . . . it hurts . . .”

Clara Wicker lay on her back in the bed, one thinboned hand spread across her enormous pregnant belly. All of the color had drained from her thin face except for the dark purple circles under her eyes and her bitten, red lips. Her blonde hair, slick with sweat, was drawn back

from her face. Beads of moisture stood out on her forehead. Her eyes were closed tightly and her breathing was shallow. Not particularly pretty, Clara’s face was now a mask of agony.

“It’s to be expected,” Rachel comforted her.

“Ohhh!” Clara answered, her cry almost a moan.

“It’ll be over soon.”

Gently, Rachel wiped the sweat from Clara’s painchiseled face. Looking around her, she took inventory of all that she would need to bring the young woman’s first child into the world; the extra sheets that had been prepared for the birthing, a nightdress, towels, clean rags, and a dented bucket for water. Everything was as ready as it could be.

“You sure you know what you’re doin’ . . . ’bout birthin’ and all?” Will Wicker asked from where he meekly stood at the head of his wife’s bed, his voice little louder than a whisper. He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the next, his small, dark eyes flickering back and forth

from Clara to Rachel, never lingering for long. His filthy fingers, the fingernails caked with dirt, twitched uneasily as he rubbed one thin hand over the stubble of his bony jaw. His clothes hung loosely on his small frame, just as sweaty and soiled as the body they covered.

How did Clara allow this man to lie between her legs?

“I do,” Rachel answered simply.

“Wouldn’t it be better if your mother was here?” Will followed.

“I’ve already told you that she couldn’t make it.”

“But don’t you think . . . that . . .” he stammered. “You know . . . given that . . .”

“There isn’t time for this.” Rachel took a deep breath, trying to settle her growing dislike for the man. From the moment she’d been summoned to the Wickers’ ramshackle house at the far outskirts of town, she’d hoped that Will would simply accept that she was every bit as capable as Eliza Watkins of bringing a newborn child into the world.

This is an excerpt from STAY A LITTLE LONGER by Dorothy Garlock. Copyright © 2010 by Dorothy Garlock. Reprinted with permission from Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved.