Rock Hard Lumberjack: A Lumberjack And A City Girl Romance Page 23
“Don’t worry about me darling,” he grunted, walking away from the firework display.
I gasped and cried out. “I’m not going to make it,” I whispered. “We’ll have to just…AH!”
An older woman ran over to us, holding an armful of towels. “Rebecca!” she called.
I turned my head and whimpered. It was the midwife and she seemed to realize exactly what was happening. “Kristine,” I whispered, reaching out to her. “I think the baby is coming.”
“How long have you been having pains?” she asked me quickly, urging Jacob to set me on the towel she was laying out.
“She can’t have the baby here!” Jacob said quickly. “We have to get her home!”
Kristine held her hand up, her eyes sharp and focused. This was her element and she knew exactly what she was doing. “This is not a coal mine, Jacob,” she said quickly. “I need you to let me do what I’m trained to do and hold her hand.
I always appreciated Kristine’s sense of urgency and her ability to control those around her. She was an intense woman and few were able to ignore her orders; Jacob was no exception. He kneeled and put my head in is lap, stroking my hair away from my face. The pain was unbearable at this point and a wetness was starting to spread underneath me.
“Her water has broken. The baby is coming,” she said quickly. “How long have you been in pain?” she urged again.
“I started having strange pains this morning but I did think-“
“Shhh child,” she whispered, pressing a finger to my lips “That’s enough. I understand,” she said simply.
A few other women began to gather round, holding up their blankets to make make-shift curtains that hid me from view. Luckily most people had enough respect to not crowd around, though I’d seen a few people glancing over at me curiously.
I looked up at Jacob, panting softly. “You should not be here,” I whispered, my eyes fluttering closed.
Most of the time men weren’t interested in witnessing the birth. It was a moment that was considered private and to have your husband with you while you gave birth was considered taboo. Then again, we did not seem to be a family that did things the way they were meant to be done.
“I’m not letting you do this alone,” he said gently, taking my hand.
My heart fluttered at the kind words but it quickly gave way to another wrenching pain. I gasped and curled up as the pain radiated down into my thighs. The world was spinning and the only thing keeping me grounded was Jacob.
Everything happened in a blur after that. Jacob held me as the midwife gave me as much instruction as possible. At the end of the day it did not really matter what she said because my body was telling me what to do. I was trapped somewhere between excruciating pain and bliss. Every moment that passed was a moment getting me closer to meeting my precious children.
The whole birthing process gave me time to think about myself as a mother. I had been so afraid of becoming a mother before I met Jacob. In my mind, motherhood seemed like a death sentence. I would have to give up all my dreams of adventure in order to take care of this tiny creature that depended on me. The entire concept was terrifying.
Now that I was face to face with mother hood, I found myself excited. Instead of it being a death sentence, I saw it as its own adventure. One that I would embark on with Jacob. He loved me and I wasn’t going to be alone.
As the fireworks went off around me, my head was turned skyward, my eyes taking in the brilliant light show. Between the fireworks, I heard a loud cry echo through the field. A soft heavy weight was placed into my arms and moments later I was handed my second child. The infants squirmed and wiggled in my arms, cooing in the most beautiful way.
I was panting and covered in sweat, looking up at Jacob with tears in my eyes. “Our babies,” I whispered.
His own eyes were wide and he reached out to touch the tuft of silvery blonde hair that stuck to the babies’ damp foreheads. “Those are my daughters,” he whispered. “I have daughters.” A grin spread across his face and he took his hat off, throwing it in the air in his excitement. “I have two beautiful baby daughters!” he called out.
From the other side of the curtain I could hear people hoot and holler, congratulating us. Another loud pop echoed through the field as the fireworks lit up the sky. Jacob looked down at me and grinned wildly.
“What should we name them?” he asked, brushing his finger over their pale, soft skin.
I smiled a little, gazing into their bright blue eyes. “Faith and Adore,” I whispered, touching their little palms.
Their tiny hands curled around my finger and in that moment I fell in love.
Chapter Nine
Before my mother passed away, she always told me to trust in God’s plan. I had always tried my best to follow that advice, though it wasn’t always easy, especially when you felt like your world was being ripped out from under you. As time went on, I’d started to question the idea that God had a plan for me at all. I tried to keep my faith, but as I started to lose more and more control, I found myself wondering why. Why would God let this happen?
I understand now. The road that led me to Jacob was rough and broken. The rivers were wide and hard to cross, but now that I was here, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My children and my husband were my entire world and I couldn’t have wanted more.
Shortly after the girls were born, Jacob became very interested in their education. He didn’t want them to be simply married off. He didn’t see his daughters as commodities and he certainly didn’t want them to marry the first man who proposed to them. He wanted them to be scientists and lawyers. He wanted the world for his baby girls and it made my heart swell with pride.
He used his influence and money to bring in teachers from Chicago and ended up building Boulder’s first real school. Up until the school opened, children were taught by their parents and received no formal education. Once the school opened up, people began flocking to our beautiful city.
Just as he promised, Jacob let me do as I pleased. My garden got bigger and bigger and soon enough it was one of the main food sources of the town. I had to hire several people to help me care for it, all women who’d come out to Boulder for the same reason I had.
When my garden became too large for me to manage on my own, I knew I would need something to busy myself with. Jacob was the one to suggest that I become a teacher at the school. He was always impressed with my knowledge of literature. I’d always been an avid reader and the idea of teaching my children and the children of my beloved town was something that warmed me to the depths of my soul. I took him up on his offer and soon became the first female school teacher in Boulder.
At first, people looked at us strangely. They asked Jacob how he could let his wife be a teacher. How was it affecting the children? We got many questions like this, but the best answer we could give them was to show how successful I was. The children loved my class and soon adults even came in to read the classics. I taught them to love words and love stories and in the process, I found my place in the world, something I never thought possible.
When one of the old churches was damaged in a tornado, we’d salvaged the bell and used it to ring in the beginning and end of school. The school bells rang and I looked up from the little wooden desk Jacob had made for me. Children ran down the hill toward home.
I packed up my worn copy of Dante’s Inferno and sighed, tucking it away as I started towards the door, rubbing my round belly. I was pregnant with our third child and Jacob was always harping on me to leave the school house behind until after the baby was born. He was just as worried about this pregnancy as he was the first. It was rather funny to me. Now that I’d had the twins, the idea of having one baby seemed like a breeze.
Like always, the girls and Jacob were waiting at the bottom of the hill. Adore and Faith were five years old now and growing every day. They’d only just begun attending classes, but that were sharp as tacks and picking everything up faster than their peer
s. I couldn’t help but be proud of my little geniuses.
The girls were munching on candy and Jacob stood between them, a hand on each shoulder. He smiled a little and caught my eye. Jacob had been a hard man once. He’d rarely smiled and saw emotions as a weakness. He’d always been about business and making the best deal. Now that his daughters were in the picture, he’d softened quite a bit and had a tendency to smile more often and shower his family with gifts.
“The girls thought it would be nice to come meet you and walk you home.”
I chuckled and offered each of them a kiss on the cheek before catching Jacob’s lips for a brief kiss. “Don’t play your little games. I know it was your idea. You haven’t let me walk home since we found out I was pregnant,” I teased.
He offered a crooked little grin and just shrugged. We tangled our fingers together, hanging onto one of the girls with each of our free hands and as we walked through the little town together I felt a swell of joy in my chest.
“I never thought my life would turn out like this,” I admitted, turning to look at my husband.
He raised a brow and turned to look straight ahead, clearing his throat. “Are you unhappy? Do you have regrets?”
I smiled and shook my head. “I’m glad things got a bit out of control,” I admitted. “This isn’t a fate I would have chosen for myself and if it had been up to me, I never would have known this happiness.”
Jacob smiled and picked Adore up with ease, still hanging onto me with his other hand. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
I smiled and looked towards the sky as my mother’s words echoed in my mind.
‘Always trust in God’s plan.’
The End
Corine
Chapter One
My name is Corine and my life hasn’t always been this difficult, but the last few years have really thrown me for a loop. I was a small town girl and I had planned on staying on my parent’s farm until I married a local boy that my parents would pick for me. I didn’t have much of a choice when it came to my future; mot many women did in 1886. We were just along for the ride.
It was heart-breaking to consider the fact that my life wasn’t really my own. But as much as it tore me up inside, I tried not to dwell. The only way I was going to be happy was if I accepted my fate without a fight. It was enough for me to marry a man with farm land and to have a few children. I knew the world was bigger, but I was content to stay in Georgia.
Maybe my resignation came from ignorance. I didn’t know what was beyond the boundaries of my small town, so it didn’t interest me. I would occasionally find a pamphlet or book that talked about the big cities like Chicago and New York. They were bustling with activity and many of the women in Beaumont had left their families to travel to the cities in search of more exciting lives.
At first, it didn’t seem to matter that a few of the girls were leaving, but then it became difficult to find a family who was still intact. The men traveled west and the women traveled north. Families were split and fractured. Our once happy city was falling into a state of distress.
Soon there weren’t enough women to marry the men, and there weren’t enough men to run the farms. The land around my home began to wither and die. It was disheartening to watch everything I’d ever known slowly fade into nothing. I’d cried so many nights over what I knew was going to happen. Soon enough our little town wouldn’t be able to sustain itself and we would be forced to move somewhere else.
I could see the fear and uncertainty in my parents’ eyes as well, and this was cause for great alarm. We’d weathered hard times before, but nothing like this. I tried to trust that my father would know what to do so we could survive, but I could tell that even he faltered.
Our fears were realized soon enough and before long, we were leaving our family home behind in order to find work in one of the bigger cities. My father knew everyone was going to New York so he opted for Chicago, thinking there would be more opportunities for our family there.
When we arrived, we were met with the smell of strange machines we’d never seen before. The sounds were overwhelming and the sheer amount of people was terrifying. We didn’t know what to do so we just held onto each other and tried to make the best of the situation.
We moved into a small flat that was above a general store. The man charged us money every month which was a rather strange concept to us. We’d never really heard of rent before. Our homes had been built by and were passed down from family members.. Sometimes neighbors would build houses on new plots of land, but houses were rarely let out of family hands.
At first, it was just father who went out in search of a job. He was a farmer by trade and hadn’t really learned to do much else. In rural Georgia there wasn’t much of a need for another occupation. He knew a little bit about construction and eventually managed to get a job with a contracting company, though it didn’t last long. He was older and couldn’t move as fast as the company wanted him to.
The stress eventually became too much for my parents and they got sick thanks to the awful smog that filled the air. It weakened their bodies and soon enough they passed on and I was left young and alone.
No one was interested in marrying me. They saw me as a bumpkin from the fields of Georgia and wanted nothing to do with me. The men in Chicago were looking for women who had no morals. ‘Modern’ women who didn’t mind breaking the contracts of marriage. They wanted women who would go to work for them and share their beds at night. I refused to do either of those things. I’d already given up so much of my heritage and I just wasn’t ready to give up my beliefs too.
I decided to leave the crowded city and head out west where things were quiet and more like home. I was too scared to go back to Georgia, knowing that no matter where I went in the south, things were changing like they were in Beaumont. I didn’t have the heart to face it.
I’d heard a few of the women talking about mail order brides. You answered an ad and went out west where a husband was waiting for you. It seemed like my only way out, so I did exactly that. I answered an ad and took the money my future husband sent and used it to join a caravan.
Traveling through the nothingness of the expanding territories was torture. It would get very cold very quickly and danger seemed to be lurking around every corner. There were Indians everywhere, their eyes watching us through brush.
I’d never dealt with these people before, but their watchful eyes scared me. I would spend most of my days and nights huddled in one of the wagons, trying to avoid being seen. I would learn soon enough, that it wouldn’t protect me. The thin canvas wasn’t enough to keep me hidden from the watchful eyes of the Indians.
Our camp was raided one night, and everyone but me was killed in their sleep, slaughtered without a second thought. For some reason when the savages pulled back the flap of the wagon I was in and found me cowering in the corner, they decided to show me mercy, though I use that word loosely.
I was bound by the wrists and ankles and put on a horse that carried me away into the night, unsure of what they intended on doing with me.
Chapter Two
I’m not sure how many days have passed since I’ve been captured. I spend my days and nights in a single teepee with a guard. I’ve managed to learn a few words in the Indian’s native tongue, but not enough to communicate with them beyond telling them I’m thirsty or need to relieve myself.
It’s strange to me how normal their life seems. What little I knew about these people came from stories told by travelers. I wouldn’t have considered them kind, considering the fact that they slaughtered my entire traveling company, but they were just like us. There were children in the camp that ran around and played with the wild dogs, and there were mothers and fathers who sat around, cooking and laughing. Their lives were very similar to the rest of us; their ways weren’t completely alien.
The guards switched on and off and there didn’t seem to be a designated person who was tasked with watching me. The entire tribe s
eemed to be taking turns, rotating and keeping an eye on me. Sometimes it was older teenagers, and sometimes women. None of them were very worried about me escaping or causing any trouble. I was weak and tired, and I didn’t have it in me to fight my way out.
I winced and brought a hand up to my neck where a damp cloth had been placed. During my first days here, an older man with ornate head pieces carved an intricate design into the side of my neck. He’d used a bone that had been shaped into a needle and dipped it in colored water. It was a thick ink that burrowed into my skin.
I’d screamed aloud for the first few pricks but then my skin became almost numb to the sensation. I just stared across the vast plains as this man marked me. Each time he pressed the needle into me, I became acutely aware that no man would want a wife who had been marked by Indians.
It was part of the reason I hadn’t tried to escape. I felt as if my life in the normal world was over. I’d heard of people who’d been captured by Indian’s trying to integrate themselves back into society. No one trusted them. They assumed that the person had gone rogue and was now working with the Indians. There was no sense of forgiveness and nobody cared about these people. They were all but tossed to the wolves and left to live out their days alone. It was more than a little upsetting and I didn’t want to go back to a world like that. At least here, I was fed and warm.
I curled up a little, drawing my knees to my chest as the woman who sat across from me watched me with a steady gaze. She had just changed the animal skin bandage that was resting against the strange scar the elderly man had marked me with.
Her eyes were dark and intense, though she seemed more curious than ready to hurt me. With the exception if the initial scare of my capture, no one here seemed to harbor any ill intent toward me.. It was rather strange, since I had been sure that I was going to be killed as soon as I was brought to their camp.