A Cherished Gift Read online

  A CHERISHED GIFT

  Vicki Hunt Budge

  EASTWOOD PRESS

  Copyright © 2020 by Vicki Budge

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  For Lou Ella,

  a dear friend

  and an inspiration

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Also by Vicki Hunt Budge

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Introduction

  When Alice Gardner’s long-time beau moves away from Clover Creek, Alice is left pining away for him. It doesn’t help when Jake’s letter arrives, telling her about the dances and fun activities he’s enjoying in the big city. Soon new admirers for Alice make an appearance, and between the new admirers, more letters, and sweet gifts from Jake; Alice finds herself happily occupied.

  Jake Weston enjoys working with his father in the newspaper business. When his father sends him off to apprentice with a large daily paper, Jake finds the big city fascinating. He’s soon engulfed in all kinds of new activities and learning experiences. But Jake misses Alice with an intense passion, and reports of her new admirers alarm him. With the help of a new friend, Jake scrambles to keep Alice’s affections focused solely on him, but at what cost?

  When Jake returns home to Clover Creek for a visit, Alice is dumbfounded by the well-dressed debonair man before her. Where does the money come from for his fancy new clothes and the gifts he lavishes on her? Something ominous is going on, and Alice is stunned when she finds out what it is. Will Jake’s covert activities tear them apart, or will their intense yearning for each other draw them closer and help define who they really are?

  1

  A CHERISHED GIFT

  By Vicki Hunt Budge

  Alice Gardner rolled to her side, snuggling her quilt around her. She longed to drift off in a daydream and avoid the cold lonely day. Jake Weston, the boy she loved so dearly, had recently traipsed off to Boise to apprentice with his uncle at a big city newspaper. It didn’t help that Jake had written once during the past three weeks, telling her how much he loved her and was thinking about her. He had also written about all the fun and exciting things he was doing in the city.

  Just as Alice’s memory conjured up an image of dancing with Jake on Saturday nights, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted up the stairs.

  “Alice Marie Gardner, I need your help down here!”

  Mrs. Gardner stood at the foot of the stairs and called again. “I want you to take the carriage into town and pick up flour and a few other things. Your father’s coming back from his survey for the weekend and I’d like to bake pies today.”

  “Coming!” Alice sniffed as her FINALimage of dancing with Jake faded. It might be weeks before he returned home for a visit. She scrambled out of bed, grimacing the instant her feet hit the freezing cold floor. Grabbing her clothes and shoes, she hurried down the stairs. On mornings like this when the windows were frosted over, she liked to dress by the warmth of the cookstove.

  “You’d better hurry,” Mrs. Gardner said as Alice peeled off her nightclothes next to the cookstove. “Charlie will finish milking the cow in no time and come through that door.”

  Alice tried to clear her mind of Jake and focus on getting dressed, but her thoughts slipped back to that day she watched him board the train for the city. He certainly wasn’t a boy anymore. He had already turned twenty, a year older than her, and passed the tall and lanky look he’d had for years. His shoulders had filled out beautifully, and so had his muscles.

  The very thought of him almost made her weep.

  Alice finished dressing minutes before Charlie walked into the kitchen, carrying a bucket of milk and a basket of eggs. Charlie, Alice’s only brother, didn’t help with survey work like he used to. He preferred to stay home and take care of the farm and family. That worked out well; Charlie had the farm thriving and Evan Howell, Alice’s brother-in-law, loved survey work and was now a partner with Mr. Gardner. Currently, they were part of a government survey to build a new dam in the Snake River Plain of Idaho. The first phase of the project would convert thousands of more semi-arid acres into productive farmland.

  Charlie stomped the snow and straw from his boots onto a rag rug. “Look who finally rolled out of bed,” he said, grinning and setting the bucket on a chair and the eggs on the table. He rubbed his hands together rapidly and blew on them. “I’ve been working for over an hour and I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving,” Alice groaned, but her eyes twinkled as she spoke, and she quickly pulled the ingredients for flapjacks out of the cupboard. She was thankful her father’s current survey was for the government. If the survey had been a private job as they usually were, Alice and one of her sisters would have been out in the freezing cold desert somewhere cooking for the survey crew. But, with the government survey, the government fed them.

  Alice tried to push a wish that she and Jake could have married out of her mind as she stirred the flapjack batter. They had talked about having a future together, but only after Jake finished his internship and earned enough money to support a family. Jake hadn’t come right out and asked her to marry him. He hadn’t even properly kissed her yet, only a few sweet kisses on her cheek. He was a fun-loving boy, but he was dedicated to helping his father in the newspaper business.

  Alice’s biggest fear was that city life might change Jake from the sweet, considerate, and hard-working country boy she admired. He might love the city and some of the people so much, he wouldn’t want to move back to Clover Creek and marry Alice. And for some reason that Alice could not understand, she had recently had an annoying feeling in her heart that she and Jake weren’t ready to marry yet. She didn’t like that feeling and had no idea why the thought pestered her so.

  If she wasn’t supposed to spend her life with Jake, why did she sit home pining away for him week after week?

  “Are you going to beat that batter to death?” Charlie asked.

  Alice looked at him like she didn’t know what he was talking about. Finally she broke into the biggest grin and laughed. “Sorry, I’m just woolgathering.”

  “Yes, and we know who you’re thinking about.

  Bacon sizzled on top of the cookstove while Alice turned away from her brother’s teasing eyes and ladled flapjack batter into a pan. She didn’t make as much batter as usual. Zina, her next younger sister, was staying with their oldest sister and her three children while Mr. Gardner and Evan were off on the survey.

  Fern and Beth, the youngest girls in the family, bounded down the stairs before Alice had all the flapjacks cooked and in the warming pan.

  “I love the smell of bacon!” Fern cried.

  “I’m starving,” Beth said. Both girls quickly set about placing plates, forks, and cups on the table.

  “Eat all you want,” Mrs. Gardner said. “There’s plenty of work waiting for both of you girls today.”

  Everyone sat together at the kitchen table while Charlie offered a prayer of thankfulness for the f
ood and for the safety of the entire family. While everyone ate, the conversation centered around Charlie’s plans for his workday, Alice’s assignment to travel into town for supplies, and the younger girls’ assignment to clean the kitchen, the floors, and the laundry. Mrs. Gardner expected all the girls to help with pie baking later in the day.

  As soon as breakfast was over, Alice ran upstairs to make herself more presentable for a morning in town. The first rays of sunshine rose over the mountains to the east and glistened through her lace curtains as Alice sat at her dressing table and brushed her toffee brown hair until it shone. Then pulled it into a chignon and pinned it in place. She had no sooner finished her hair than Fern and Beth came charging up the stairs, calling to her.

  “Can we go to town with you?” Fern yelled before she cleared the last step. “Please! We already finished cleaning the kitchen and the floors!”

  “And we won’t cause any trouble this time,” Beth added. “Ma said we could go if you helped us with the laundry first!”

  “I don’t know if it’s possible for you two to stay out of trouble,” Alice said, scowling. “Besides, it will take too long to strip the beds and wash everything. Ma needs her supplies back here soon so we can start baking.”

  “Please take us,” Fern begged, clasping her hands together, and pleading with her eyes. “Water’s already heating on the stove and there’s not very many clothes to wash this week with Pa and Zina gone. If you help us, we can have everything washed and hanging in no time.”

  “I’ll work really hard,” Beth added. “Please . . .”

  Alice tucked her brush into the dressing table drawer and stood. “You two are so spoiled,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. But she grinned. “I’ll take you, but only if you both work hard and fast right now.”

  “We will!” Beth cried, bouncing excitedly.

  Alice placed a finger to her lips. “Hmm,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “how about I time us, and see if we can have the laundry done in one hour?”

  “Yes!” Fern and Beth yelled at the same time.

  Mr. Gardner often timed his family when they worked together on family projects, and his method of making work more enjoyable and go faster had trickled on down to his children. Alice made assignments, and in no time, there was a flurry of stripped bedsheets on the kitchen floor next to two piles of clothing and the wash tubs. Alice grated soap into the hand-cranked drum washer and swished it around with a stick. Beth fed two sheets into the hot water while Fern cranked the handle to swish them around. Using the stick, Alice separated and moved the sheets around. She used the same stick to lift them and run them through a hand wringer into a tub of cold water.

  Both younger girls stirred the sheets in the rinse water with their hands and then ran them through the wringer once again to drop into a large basket. While the girls lugged the sheets down to the cellar to hang them on the clothesline, Mrs. Gardner helped Alice wash the remaining sheets followed by the white clothing. After the last pair of coveralls hung on the clothesline stretched across the kitchen, Alice and Fern wheeled the wash tubs to the back porch and emptied them. Beth mopped the kitchen floor.

  “Whew!” Alice said as she and her sisters walked into the parlor and stood in front of the ticking clock. “One hour and twenty minutes,” she announced. “I think we set a record for washing clothes in the wintertime. How about you girls see if Ma needs anything else done while I get the horses and carriage ready.”

  Alice donned her coat and winter hat and opened the kitchen door, letting in another blast of cold air. To her surprise, Charlie already had Sage and Venus hitched to the carriage and ready to move out. He stood next to the horses, feeding them shriveled carrots from last summer’s harvest.

  “I thought I’d help you out since you sometimes fix my breakfast and wash my clothes,” Charlie said, grinning and offering Alice one of the shriveled carrots. Sage and Venus snorted and blew warm breath out of their nostrils as though they were excited to get down the road on a sunny crisp morning.

  Alice lifted an eyebrow at the carrot Charlie offered and gave each horse a quick pat on the nose. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, passing on the carrot. “I guess you’re worth keeping around, Charlie, even though you’d make someone a fine husband.” After nudging an elbow into Charlie’s arm, Alice laughed and ran back into the house to change into something presentable for a morning in town.

  In a matter of minutes, Alice, Fern, and Beth, all sporting their warmest hats and cloaks were driving down the lane headed for the short drive into Clover Creek. The growth in the community during the last few years was eating up the choice land between town and the Gardner homestead.

  “I like having your company,” Alice said, turning from one sister to the other as they squished together in the carriage seat, “as long you don’t take off with any boys.” The last time Alice took her twelve and fourteen-year-old sisters to town, they disappeared while Alice was in the mercantile. It took an hour to find them down by the creek chatting with two boys who were fishing.

  Once Fern and Beth promised to stay close to Alice, all reference to that last trip into town ceased, and the time was taken up with fun banter and laughing. When they reached Clover Creek, Alice stopped Sage and Venus a short distance from the mercantile. The girls all climbed down from the carriage and entered the store, Fern and Beth walking straight to the ready-made clothing section while Alice presented her mother’s shopping list to Mrs. Jepson, one of the proprietors of the mercantile. Mrs. Jepson set to work gathering the needed supplies, and Alice joined her sisters to look through the clothing line.

  “These dresses are not nearly as attractive as the Howell sisters’ clothing line.” Alice kept her voice to a whisper, not wanting to offend Mrs. Jepson. But it was true that the dresses looked rather plain compared to the dresses that their brother-in-law’s sisters created.

  “Alice Gardner! I heard you were in town!” Frank Baldwin’s voice boomed as he entered the mercantile and walked straight to where Alice stood with her sisters. “I was going to ride out to your place, but you’ve saved me the trip.” He lowered his voice and after inquiring about the Gardner family, he added, “I wondered if I could escort you to the motion picture show and dance this Saturday night?”

  Alice’s eyes widened in surprise. Frank Baldwin, who worked with his father in the new bakery in town, had dark good looks and a handlebar moustache. Alice had no idea that Frank might be interested in spending time with her. After all, he was probably ten years older than her. Perhaps because his family was fairly new in town, he didn’t realize that she and Jake were sweethearts.

  Of course, nothing was formally declared between Alice and Jake. And it might be fun to attend the motion picture show and dance with the swarthy young baker. Wasn’t Jake going to dance clubs in Boise? And accepting Frank’s offer would certainly be more fun than staying home Saturday night feeling sorry for herself like she had done for the past three weeks.

  Besides, Frank might bring her a sweet from the bakery if she accepted his invitation. She smiled just thinking about the possibility.

  “I’d love to attend the picture show and the dance with you,” Alice heard herself say. Her eyes looked skyward for a quick moment as she thought of Jake.

  “Swell!” Frank said. “I’ll drive out to pick you up a little before six. Does that work for you?”

  “Oh, yes!” Alice said, a little more enthusiastically than she intended. “I miss the dances!” She regretted adding that last bit of information the moment she said it, even though it was true. Frank didn’t need to know she’d been sitting home bored and lonely because she didn’t want to go to the dances when Jake wasn’t around.

  As soon as Frank left the mercantile, Alice turned and saw two sets of angry eyes glaring at her, shock and disappointment written all over her sisters’ faces.

  “How could you?” Fern groused.

  “I don’t like that man,” Beth added. “I like Jake!”
r />   For several moments, Alice felt terrible about accepting Frank’s invitation. But then the thought of dancing instead of sitting home caused her to sniff, and she chose to ignore her sisters. They were both crazy about Jake, but surely they didn’t expect her to sit home on Saturday nights pining away for him like she had been doing. It was none of her sisters’ business if she chose to have a little innocent fun with a friend. And that’s all Frank Baldwin was. A friend—a good looking older friend.

  Mrs. Jepson called out to Alice. “Your order is ready,” she said, smiling more than she did for a lot of her customers. “Reed is loading the order into the back of your carriage.”

  Reed Browning had gone to school with Alice and Jake. He had recently started working for the mercantile as the community grew and the business increased. The Jepson’s only son was in Utah practicing medicine while his wife, the former Belle Gardner, attended the university. Alice wondered why Mrs. Jepson’s eyes danced as she handed Alice the family mail. Then she realized why. On the very top of the stack of her father’s newspapers and survey periodicals was a letter from Jake.

  Mrs. Jepson and Jake’s mother were close friends and in a sewing group with other ladies in the community. Sometimes it seemed like they conspired to ensure a union between Alice and Jake. Usually Alice didn’t mind because that was what she hoped for too. But today, because of her encounter with Frank Baldwin, she felt anxious to get away. She hoped the woman hadn’t overhead Frank’s invitation.

  “Thank you,” Alice said and then turned to Fern and Beth. “Let’s go!” She purposely snugged the mail up to her chest, not wanting her sisters to see Jake’s letter. They might use the occasion to scold her in front of Mrs. Jepson for accepting Frank’s invitation to the dance.