LITMIR.BIZ

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accusingly.

      “I’ll get you some,” she offered, snatching the small pitcher from the dresser. The cream was rich, yellow and thick, and she poured the china container full to brimming.

      “Thank you,” Gar said, his voice more subdued, watching her intently through narrowed eyes as she added a dollop to the black coffee, where it swirled and changed color.

      He picked up the soupspoon she had provided and ate with automatic movements, chewing and swallowing in silence. Leah watched from across the room, nursing her own cup of coffee.

      And then the baby stirred, snuffling softly. In seconds the faint sounds became a wail, and Leah put her coffee cup down to hasten to the makeshift bed beside the stove. She bent to pick up the small bundle and held it against her shoulder, murmuring soft words of comfort.

      “Give her to me.” Gar’s face was a mask, a forbidding frown furrowing his brow, his mouth taut. His arms outstretched for his daughter, he repeated his demand. “Give her to me.”

      Kristofer gaped at his father, his glance sliding to Leah and then back.

      “Go to the barn, son, and help Benny feed the stock,” Gar told him. “I did not do it well this morning.”

      The boy nodded, donning his coat and leaving the house quickly.

      “I will take my child now, Mrs. Gunderson.” Before she could voice any words of agreement, he lifted the baby from Leah’s arms and stepped back. “I watched my wife bleed to death, right before my eyes. I cannot find it in myself to excuse what you did.”

      Leah’s legs trembled as she heard his accusation and she sat down in the chair across the table from where he stood.

      “I told you when I came here that I was not a doctor. I did the best I could, sir. The doctor had told you and your wife that she should not have any more babies. Her organs were damaged so badly that the child could not have been born had I not drawn her out forcibly.”

      The vision of gushing blood and mucus flowing onto Hulda’s bed was still vivid in Leah’s mind, and she closed her eyes against the horror. “Hulda could not have lived through the birth, no matter who attended her.”

      She looked up, her mouth trembling, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “You are the one who must take the blame for this, Gar Lundstrom. You got her with child, after the doctor told you she should not bear another baby. Don’t lay your guilt at my feet.”

      His skin changed from the ruddy complexion of an outdoorsman to the ashen gray of a man with a grave illness. “I know what guilt I must bear,” he said harshly.

      “Be ready to leave in ten minutes,” Gar told her. Then, snatching up a quilt to bundle around the tiny infant, he left the house.

      Where he took the child, she did not know. His steps were purposeful as he went toward the barn, then on to a small house at the edge of the meadow. When she could bear to watch no longer, she turned from the window.

      He took her home, both riding atop the wagon in silence, as if they could not abide each other’s company. He drove his team to the front of her house, and waited only long enough for her to slide from the seat before heading on his way.

      “My bag! You have my bag, Mr. Lundstrom!” she cried, running behind the wagon.

      He bent to lift it from the floor near his feet and tossed it in her direction, his eyes filled with an anger and a depth of despair she knew only too well. It had been her companion for many a long night.

      

      The wet clothing was hung, draped over lines that crisscrossed the kitchen. Her task finally completed, Leah ducked beneath Orville Hunsicker’s second-best white shirt as she escaped from the sea of laundry. The house closed up for the night, she left the kitchen for her bedroom.

      She was bone weary and though she had thought sleep would not come, the pillow was barely beneath her head when she sank deeply into oblivion.

      

       The woman suffered without sound, her dark eyes holding only hatred for the child she bore. Then, in a twinkling, that sweet, healthy infant, suddenly unmoving, lay beside his mother, his neck at an awkward, unnatural angle.

       Shrieking, the mother pointed at Leah, her accusation resounding in the eerie light. “Murderer! Murderer!” Waving angry fists, the vengeful father roared his fury and Leah backed from the room, then turned to run; fleeing, always fleeing.

       She breathed harshly, running blindly through a maze, only to enter another room, where Hulda Lundstrom rose up in the midst of a bloody bed to point her finger accusingly, her voice hoarse. “Murderer! Murderer!”

      Leah awoke to a dark room, gasping for breath, as if she had been running for a very long time and her accusers were fast on her heels. The window held a full moon within its grasp, and it was there she focused her sight.

      Beyond the white curtains she caught a glimpse of the hotel on the town’s main street. Next to it the grocery store and the bank lined up neatly, their rooftops visible from her viewpoint. No longer was she running through the streets of Chicago, escaping the vengeance of a distraught father.

      Leah bowed her head into her hands. How long? For how many years would she be haunted by the memory of that tiny baby boy, by the cold eyes of the mother who wanted nothing of the man she had married, least of all his child?

      And now, as if that were not enough, she was to be tormented by the death of Hulda, who had sought only to please the man she had married.

      

      The week passed more slowly than any she could remember, each day longer than the last. She walked to the store once, but the gossip was rife, with word of Hulda Lundstrom’s death on every tongue. Leah was relieved to receive sympathetic glances and words of encouragement from the ladies who knew her best.

      Yet even that was not salve enough for the wounds she bore within her soul. The thought that she must do something for the tragic little family struggling alone without a wife and mother in their midst filled her mind.

      And yet at the end of that long, dreary week, when Gar Lundstrom appeared on her doorstep with a tiny bundle in his arms, her kind thoughts disappeared as he glared at her through her screen door.

      “I have brought you my child,” he said bluntly, his fingers gripping the door handle, forcing her to step aside as he entered her small parlor.

      “Whatever for, Mr. Lundstrom?” she said, her gaze intent on the wiggling form of the child he carried.

      “I have found that it is not possible for me to care for the baby at the farm. I left her with Ruth Warshem, my Benny’s wife, but she had to bring her back to me at night. I cannot do my work when I am up with a crying baby for all hours.”

      “And you want me to take care of her?” Leah was flabbergasted. The very nerve of the man, to intrude in such a way, with his demands.

      “I can do it no more. I have stock to tend to and chores to keep me from the house all day, and I am weary at night. It is all I can do to keep Kristofer with me and care for him.”

      “What makes you think I’m the one to take on the job?” Leah asked, anger vying with astonishment at his edict.

      His head tilted at an imperious angle. “There is no one else.”

      Leah laughed, the sound harsh and grating. “Well, you can forget it, Mr. Lundstrom. I am not available.”

      His mouth tightened and his eyes snapped with an icy flame, the pale blue depths piercing her. “I will pay you well,” he growled, a penitent without a scrap of humility in his bones.

      Leah’s mouth opened and words of denial begged to be spoken, yet in her mind fluttered a small flag of caution. She could salvage her pride while lending a helping hand to this family if she accepted a token amount and gave the man a respite from his overwhelming responsibility.

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