The Christmas Candle (7 page)

Edward saw the reverend splash and stopped in the abrupt darkness.

“I'm fine, Edward. I'm fine,” he heard the reverend assure. Through the inky night Edward made out the form of Richmond struggling to his feet and back to the shore.

“We have no light,” the reverend bemoaned. They heard the water rushing, leaves rustling, and then . . . from downstream, a call for help.

“Edward! Did you hear that?”

“I did.”

The call came again. This time Edward responded. “We're coming!”

“But I can't see one step ahead of me!”

“Feel your way forward.”

Richmond didn't budge. “I can't move. This is too familiar. The cold. The darkness. The water. Oh, God,” he pleaded, “not again.”

Edward placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don't give up on God, son.”

Richmond folded his arms and shivered. As he did he felt something in his coat. A candle. The candle Edward had given him earlier.

“Do you have a match, Edward?”

“A match?”

“I found a candle in my pocket.”

“It will do no good,” he told Richmond. “The flame can't withstand the wind.”

“It may for a moment. And a moment of light is better than none!”

Edward reached for the matches he kept to light his pipe. “Let's lean together and block the wind!”

The two stood side by side as Edward struck the match. It flared, then disappeared.

“Closer! Stand closer to me!” the candle maker instructed.

Both men bent at the waist. Richmond held the candle as still as his shaking hands allowed. The match flame touched the wick, then expired.

“It's wet,” Edward explained.

“One more time,” Richmond urged.

Edward took another match, struck it, and held it toward the candle. Richmond cupped his hand around the wick. The flame held, dancing for a moment. “I think it's going to light.”

It did more, much more. Before the two men could straighten, radiance exploded. The light of a dozen torches pushed back the darkness. A bonfire couldn't have been brighter. Edward could see the wide eyes and dropped jaw of the reverend. “What is happening?” Richmond asked.

“A miracle is happening, son. Hurry, these lights tend to pass quickly.”

Richmond reached the girl first. She was on the ground, huddled against a tree, clutching a bundle to her breast. “Looks like she was trying to find her way out,” Richmond suggested. He squatted and placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. “Are you all right?”

No response.

“Is she alive?” Edward asked.

Richmond removed his glove, lifted her chin, and placed two fingers beneath her scarf. He scarcely breathed as he felt for a pulse. He never got one, but didn't need one. The girl groaned.

“She's alive, Edward.”

Richmond turned his attention to the child. He lifted the blanket and placed a hand beneath the small nose. “This one is fine too. Sound asleep, likely better off than the mother.”

Noises emerged from behind them.

“What is this light?” Barstow asked as he and four others hurried to help.

“An answered prayer, Charles,” Edward smiled. “Let's get these two out of the cold.”

Richmond rode in the back of the wagon with Mr. Chumley, the mother, and the child. They covered the two with blankets. Edward sat in front with Adam. The rest of the men hurried along behind.

True to her word, Sarah had a blazing fire with which to welcome them. “She's drifting in and out of consciousness,” Chumley told her. “Must have hit her head.”

“Let me have the baby.”

Chumley handed his wife the child, and he and Richmond carried the mother into the small parlor and seated her near the fire. Edward and Adam quickly followed. Within moments, all of Gladstone, it seemed, was in the room or on the porch.

Bea placed a warmed blanket on the girl's shoulders. “We'll let you rest a bit, then get you out of those wet clothes.” As of yet, no one had seen the young mother's face. It was completely scarf-wrapped, leaving room only for a set of eyes that, Edward noticed, seemed to grow wider by the moment.

“There, there,” motherly Bea comforted, offering a cup of tea. “This will help. Let me take your wrap.”

Bea undraped the scarf as one unwraps a gift, and what Bea saw was the finest gift she could have imagined.

“Abigail!”

Edward leaned forward from the fire.

Sarah gasped.

Mr. Chumley shook his head, “It's Abigail.”

“Abigail?” Richmond asked everyone.

“My granddaughter,” Edward explained as he knelt by the chair and embraced his prodigal child. Bea joined him and, for the first time in too long, the three held each other and wept.

Abigail finally pushed back. “Papa, Grandmother . . . where is my baby?”

Sara handed her the child. Abigail slipped the blanket away from the baby's face. “I named him Edward.”

Whispers of the news and name rippled across the room and out the door to the men on the porch.

Edward looked up and searched out the eyes of Reverend Richmond. “Looks like God still gives babies at Christmas,” he winked.

“And light,” the minister agreed. “He still gives light when we need it the most.”

EPILOGUE

“I know it's dark. I should be home within an hour,” the store owner assured his wife over the phone. He stared out the window at the snow-covered cars. “But tomorrow is Sunday, and I want to take the day off. Put the baby to bed. I'll be home soon, and we'll finish decorating the tree. Besides, I only have four more boxes to empty.”

“Okay, dear. I'll take care.”

He hung up and returned to the task. He cut open the cardboard and placed the candles side by side on the shelf. Each box contained different shapes, and each shape went to a different section of the store. By the time he finished, the shelves were full, and the time was well past the hour he had promised to be home.

Rather than hurry out, however, he sat at the desk to pay a few bills. “I'll feel better getting these ready,” he justified. But he made it only halfway through the stack when he leaned over the desk and fell sound asleep on his arm.

The next thing he knew, light exploded in the room. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Ed Haddington gulped as the figure within the flame extended a finger toward one of the fat candles on the lower shelf . . .

Thanks to many friends for helping out on this book:

Art and Karen Hill, Casey Fast and Liz Heaney—Everyone should have such research trips, right? Thank you for everything!

The gracious folks at the Lord of the Manor Inn, Upper Slaughter, England—You embody the the charm of the Cotswold's.

Brian Bird and Michael Landon, Jr.—thanks for your creative input into this story.

And Andrea Lucado, more than a daughter this time, a co-writer. You've done for this book what you've done for my life—sweetened it with grace.

An Excerpt from
Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe
by Max Lucado

Chapter 1

With one cup of coffee, Chelsea Chambers could rule the world. And by six a.m. she'd had several. Four, to be precise. The morning demanded it. Today was the grand reopening of her family's café. The quaint two-story structure had welcomed patrons in one of San Antonio's oldest neighborhoods, the King William District, for decades. As skyscrapers erupted a mile north and east, the neighborhood quietly maintained its distinctive old-world charm. Dormer windows. Pecan trees. Shingled houses with wooden porches. The homes sat in the shadows of bank buildings and hotels thirty stories tall.

Chelsea had grown up here. Her enterprising grandmother Sophia had converted the lower level of her Victorian home to a coffee shop just in time for the 1968 world's fair. The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas was the fair's theme, and Sophia Grayson had made good on its offer, flinging her doors wide open for coffee-loving patrons from around the world. Even Lady Bird Johnson paid a visit to the café, or so Grandmother Sophia had boasted. “The First Lady sat right on this very sofa, sipping cappuccino!”

Chelsea glanced at the floral Queen Anne sofa, still sitting in the corner after all these years. Every nook and cranny held a memory. When Sophia passed, Chelsea's mother, Virginia, took ownership of the café and its legacy of hospitality. Like Sophia before her, Virginia delighted in serving her guests a soothing cup of coffee, a slice of cake, and, when the occasion called for it, a prayer of encouragement.

And now it was Chelsea's turn. The plan was simple: occupy the twelve hundred square feet on the second floor and run the shop on the lower one. At least that was her mother's expectation when she willed the café to Chelsea. But times had changed. People were busier, coffee shops trendier. The antique lamps, sunken cushions, wooden floors, and delicate tea tables of the café were a far cry from the modern aesthetic of popular barista bars, but Chelsea hoped her patrons could appreciate the suggestion of simpler times.

The grandfather clock in the corner chimed six thirty, and Chelsea stopped to take one last look around the store. A chalkboard menu—painstakingly lettered—hung above the counter, and a glass-front case displayed the pride of her pantry: secret-recipe croissants and cupcakes. The blue swinging doors behind the counter concealed a gleaming kitchen. She should know—she'd wiped it down ten times that morning. There was nothing left to do.

Chelsea turned the lock and flipped the switch on the retro neon sign. “The Higher Grounds Café is officially open for business!” she announced.

The café's moniker echoed her grandmother's aspirations to see her customers leave with their spirits raised. Chelsea appreciated the lofty ideals. She only hoped she would live up to them.

“Isn't this exciting?” she asked her lone employee.

Tim nodded his head and fiddled with his handlebar mustache. The action hardly seemed sanitary, much less celebratory. Per résumé, Tim was the perfect employee. A recent graduate from the University of Texas, he had learned to pull a shot of espresso during a semester abroad in Rome. He spoke Italian and Spanish and claimed to be a morning person. Chelsea shuddered at the thought of what he might look like by noon.

“This is a historic moment!” she said, begging for a little enthusiasm.

Still nothing. Nothing but the pained expression Chelsea had come to know as Tim's face. Never mind. She was not about to let the faux lumberjack put a damper on her day.

Twelve-year-old Hancock bounded down the stairs wearing an oversized Dallas Cowboys jersey with
Chambers
emblazoned on the back. He surveyed the café. “What time do you open?”

“We are open,” Chelsea said.

“So . . . where are all the people?” Hancock had a knack for making Chelsea feel self-conscious.

“They'll come,” she said. “Where's your sister?”

Emily burst into the café just then, a six-year-old version of her mother. Except where Chelsea liked to blend in, Emily sparkled. Her glittery Mary Janes added to the effect. “Hancock helped me pick out my outfit,” she boasted.

Chelsea took in her daughter's ensemble of sequins and stripes, and smiled. Yesterday's Chelsea would have made both children change before leaving the house. But today's Chelsea served her kids chocolate chip muffins and walked them to the bus stop, leaving a trail of glitter and crumbs.

“I hope you can manage the morning rush without me,” Chelsea called to Tim.

Tim gave his boss a thumbs-up.

As the trio hurried down the front sidewalk, they felt the bite of cold air. The January sky was impossibly blue, but the temperature was surprisingly chilly.

“Let's zip up your jacket.” Chelsea knelt to help Emily, venturing one more glance at the café front. Dormer windows protruded from the black-shingled roof. Vines crawled up a trellis on the side of the porch, where two worn wooden rockers sat side by side. A sidewalk bisected the neatly trimmed front lawn. Apart from the sign that hung from the porch, this could be someone's home.