The Baby Gift. Bethany Campbell
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magazine. Before that he had been in Oaxaca, Mexico, taking pictures of Olmec ruins. Before that he’d been photographing moths in Belize and a live volcano in Java.
Briana had married Josh seven years ago, when he’d come to Missouri for a piece on farmers specializing in saving endangered fruits and vegetables. It should have been a tame assignment for him, mere routine, but when he and Briana met, routine flew away, and all tameness vanished.
Theirs was a heedless, passionate affair that swept them into a marriage barely three weeks after they’d met. Everyone who knew Briana had warned her. She’d ignored them.
Everybody who knew Josh had warned him, too, and he, too, had paid no attention. He was crazy in love, so was she, and nothing could stop them.
The marriage could not last, and everyone but them had seemed to know it. Josh was a man born with a hunger to roam. She was a woman tied strongly to one place. They stayed together only long enough to produce Nealie.
Josh had already been gone by the time Nealie was born—Albania, where he’d nearly gotten himself killed more than once. But he’d flown to Missouri as soon as he’d heard that the child was premature and fighting to survive.
Josh Morris loved his daughter. Nobody, not even Briana’s disapproving brother, could deny that. Josh kept in touch with Nealie as much as possible, he sent funny cards and silly presents, he came to see her whenever he could. But he was always on the move, often far away, and his schedule was erratic.
“I wish he’d come home to stay,” Nealie said with a wistfulness she seldom showed.
Briana stroked the child’s brown hair. “He has to make a living.”
Nealie wasn’t consoled. “He could do something else.”
Briana touch softened. “No. He’s like Grandpa. This is what he does. He educates people. He helps tell important stories. A picture is worth a thousand words.
“It isn’t worth one daddy.”
For this Briana had no answer. She turned away and said, “I’m sorry.”
“I wish you’d marry him again and he’d stay here, and we’d all be together,” Nealie said in a burst of emotion. “Why won’t he stay with us? Is there something wrong with us? With me?”
Coldness gripped Briana. She wheeled to face her daughter. “Don’t talk like that. He loves you. He thinks you’re the most wonderful daughter in the world.”
“But why—” Nealie began.
“It’s time for school. Go change your clothes.”
Nealie tossed her head defiantly, but she turned and stalked to her room. Her big robe trailed behind her, and her bear paws made clumsy thumps on the floor.
Briana tried not to notice the limp in the child’s determined step. She turned and began to clear the breakfast dishes.
I won’t cry. I won’t, she told herself fiercely. Nobody’s going to know how I feel. Nobody.
But she knew this could not remain true. She could no longer keep things to herself.
The time had come. She must act.
FRANKLIN HINKS was the postmaster of Illyria, Missouri. His father had been postmaster before him, and Franklin could clearly remember Victory Mail, the three-cent letter stamp and the penny postcard.
He had vivid recollections of many things—including Briana Morris as a child, back when she’d been little Briana Hanlon. He’d seen her every day she’d gone to Illyria Elementary School, right across the street from the post office.
This morning he’d seen her stop her aging pickup truck in front of that same red brick schoolhouse. He’d seen her kiss her daughter goodbye and the child run up the snowy walk to the building.
He had watched Briana signal for a turn, then pull into his parking lot. She got out of the truck and came up the walk, her arms full of seed catalogs and her breath feathering behind her, a silver plume on the gray air.
She had been a pretty child, Briana had, and now she was a pretty woman—tall but not too tall, slim but not too slim. She had long dark hair with the hint of a wave and dark eyes that had something exotic in them.
She looked nothing at all like her father or brother, big Scottish-Irishmen with pale eyes and square faces. No, Briana looked like her mother, a quiet brunette with a slightly Mediterranean air.
Briana came in the door of the post office. She wore an old plaid jacket and a black knit hat and gloves. The wind had tossed her hair and burnished her cheeks to the color of fiery gold.
She smiled at him. She had a good smile, but lately—for the past two months or so—he’d discerned something troubled in it, deeply troubled. But he could tell she didn’t want people to know. Franklin was discreet. He pretended he noticed nothing.
“Morning, Franklin,” she said with a fine imitation of blitheness.
“Morning, Briana,” he said and nodded at her stack of catalogs. “Folks must be dreaming of spring.”
“They must be,” she said. “We got thirty-two orders by the Internet this weekend.”
Franklin made a tsking noise. “That Internet’s going to put me out of business.”
She set the catalogs on the counter. “Nope—look at all this. It’s bringing you business. And next week, I’ll start sending seeds out. I’ve got a huge pile of orders to fill.”
“Hmm,” Franklin said, stamping the catalogs. “Well, don’t send every seed away. Save me some for those tomatoes I like. What are the kinds I like?”
“Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter,” Briana said with a grin. “You’ll have ’em. I’ll even start them for you.”
He knew she’d keep her word and that she wouldn’t take any money from him, either. That was Briana.
“You’d save yourself some postage if you’d bulk mail,” Franklin advised, “Keep a mailing list and send out two hundred or more at a time.”
“Someday,” she said. “I have to talk Poppa into it. Getting the farm into the computer age was tough enough.”
Franklin nodded but said nothing. Leo Hanlon was a good man, a kindly man, but set in his ways. Didn’t he realize the greatest asset he had on his farm was his pretty, brainy daughter, a woman who wasn’t afraid of new ideas?
“Well, guess I’ll check the mail and be out of here,” Briana said. “It’s Larry’s birthday. Got lots to do to get ready.”
“Oh, you got mail, all right,” Franklin said. “One package too big to fit into the box. For Nealie. Maybe from the neighborhood of—oh, from the stamps, I’d say Russia.”
Briana was always careful to guard her expression, but a light came into her eyes. He thought what he’d thought so many times in the last years—she still had strong feelings for Josh Morris, more than she’d ever admit.
“I’ll get it for you,” he said. “It’s in the back.”
The glow faded from her face, and the trouble crept into her dark gaze. “I’ll check our box.”
He moved toward the back room, knowing, of course, what was in her post office box. It included a letter for Nealie, also from Russia.
Franklin had got a card from Josh in the morning’s mail. Josh knew the older man saved stamps, and he always remembered to send him colorful ones from his travels. Such a man could not be bad, Franklin thought, no matter what some people liked to say.
When he returned to the counter, Briana was there, her mail tucked under her arm. She made no comment about Nealie’s letter from Josh. She showed no emotion when Franklin set down the tattered package.
“It looks