Betting on Hope by Debra Clopton Read Free Book Online

she didn’t have a hopeful heart about kids, though. Maggie wanted kids. A whole houseful of the little darlings so she could love on them and be loved by them. Nothing in this world was sweeter to Maggie than that dream. Only problem was, she was going to have to find a man who could give them to her, and that was the hard part. First she had to find one she could let herself trust. And trust didn’t come easy for Maggie.
    Even with her runaway thoughts and in her rush up the sidewalk, Maggie noticed the red geraniums filling pots beside the door, welcoming visitors to Over the Rainbow. This appeared to be a welcoming place. She pushed the doorbell and glanced back at the car. Jenna had gotten out and was standing beside the door holding onto the doorframe as she bent slightly, obviously in pain. Maggie feared she should have rushed the kid to the hospital. Now no one was going to be here and Maggie could just see herself having to deliver a baby right there in the grass.
    “Come on. Open. Pleas—” the door opened and there was a woman standing there. “Yes. Thank you. I have a friend, a girl I picked up on the road, and she was coming here and—” Maggie pointed toward Jenna. The woman moved forward and stared out the door. “She’s in pain and insisted I bring her here.”
    “ Mother,” the woman, not more than thirty, called over her shoulder as she wasted no time and jogged down the sidewalk to Jenna.
    Maggie felt totally and completely useless as she watched the woman put her arm around Jenna and help her up the path. Another woman, older, yet still small and brisk, rushed from the house and jumped on the other side of Jenna, asking medical questions. Jenna answered her, meeting Maggie’s gaze as she shuffled by. Maggie stood in the doorway, not certain what to do, feeling like an intruder now. After all, she’d only driven Jenna here.
    “Don’t go,” Jenna called, looking over her shoulder.
    Maggie’s heart lurched in her chest and she fought back tears. “I’m stickin’ like glue,” she said, giving a shaky smile and stepping inside the doorway. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
    Jenna smiled weakly as she disappeared through another doorway, and that tight smile touched Maggie all the way to the darkest corner of her heart. To the spot where the little girl inside of her hid—the scared little girl who had longed to hear someone say those words to her so long ago.
    But no one ever had.

4
    The knowledge that she might have dumped her career down the drain made for a sleepless night, that and thinking about Jenna. The girl hadn’t had the baby and she was in good hands. Peg and Lana Garwood, a wonderful mother and daughter team, ran Over the Rainbow.
    Peg looked like she was in her late forties. She was a nurse practitioner/midwife and reminded Maggie of Sally Fields, a pretty brunette, trim and obviously feisty—she took charge of the situation immediately. Lana, her daughter, was a counselor and looked to be in her early thirties—which, if Maggie’s age assumptions were correct, meant that Peg had been a teenage mother herself. They ran the shelter/home with love and a mission. By the time Maggie had driven away with a promise to call back and check on Jenna, she’d felt good about the girl’s situation. Of course she didn’t know much more about Jenna than she had upon picking her up off the side of the road, but she still sensed a kindred spirit. She’d felt good and hopeful for the girl as she’d headed back to Houston.
    But as the miles had ticked away, the reality of her situation came racing back to Maggie—she’d done a terrible interview and really had no idea what this meant for her career.
    By morning, if she could have, she would have hidden in her apartment for the rest of her life. Instead, she was standing in line at the coffee shop around the corner from the Tribune office getting a cup of courage before heading in.
    She’d been summoned.
    It was going to take a