The Love Knot: A Ladies of Harper's Station Novella

by Karen Witemeyer

  Weaving through the drummers and departing passengers who milled about on the platform, Claire made her way to the train. Steam hissed. The conductor shouted instructions. Porters jumped to obey. And amid the chaos, people trickled out of the front railcar.

  One stranger after another exited to clutter the platform. Claire inched forward, determined not to miss whomever her sister had sent.

  The top of a man’s hat protruded from the doorway. A hand reached for the bar alongside the opening to steady his descent. Claire stilled. Her mouth turned to cotton wool, and her heart thumped in her chest. As if time had been mired in molasses, a chin gradually appeared. A strong, square chin. A clean-shaven chin. An impossibly familiar chin. The rest of the man’s face remained blocked by the brim of his hat as he ducked.

  It couldn’t be. Saints preserve her. Polly could never be so cruel.

  Her knees weakened, and Claire staggered, but there was nothing to grip for support. Only her own hand. So she clasped her fingers together and willed her spine and legs to straighten.

  The man’s foot reached the first step, and finally, his hat lifted.

  Instinct might have warned her what was coming, but nothing could stop the burning jolt that seared her soul when Pieter van Duren’s honey-brown eyes locked on hers.

  Chapter

  2

  Claire stared at the man who had broken her heart. Why? Why had Polly sent him of all people? The van Durens had been neighbors, fellow immigrants, though from Holland instead of Ireland. While most of the Nevins’ non-Irish neighbors looked down their noses at them and others of their kind, the van Durens had been different, inviting them to church services and sharing food during the harsh winters. It was their kindness that had drawn Claire’s mam to accept Mrs. van Duren’s invitation to worship, but it had been the warm fellowship of the small congregation and the simple, practical teachings of biblical truth that kept them coming back. It was in their Sunday school that Claire had come to know Jesus and to believe in his love for all mankind, even the despised Irish.

  As the two families grew closer, the elder Nevin girls played with the two van Duren boys. Went to school with them. Fell in love with them. Polly with the younger of the two, Diederick, who could wrap the world around his finger with nothing more than some blarney and a smile, and she with the older, more serious Pieter.

  Four years had separated Claire and Pieter in age, but she had adored him, following him around the schoolyard, the neighborhood, pretty much everywhere. He’d treated her kindly, never teasing her or poking fun at her freckles or calling her carrot head as the other boys had. In fact, he’d looked out for her like an older brother, even going so far as to meet her after work at Miss Fester’s shop in order to walk her home. But the winter she turned sixteen, something had changed between them. Deepened. Brotherly affection transformed into manly interest. Girlish fancy matured into deep-seated love.

  Until his betrayal ripped apart the seam binding them together, leaving her edges ragged and threadbare.

  And now he was here. In Seymour. Less than ten feet from where she stood. Holding some kind of small bundle firmly against his chest, his left arm cradling it like a . . . a . . . babe. The heart fractures Claire thought long healed cracked open and bled inside her chest.

  She tore her gaze from his and stared at the ground to center herself. This wasn’t about her. It was about Polly. Claire need only speak to him for the briefest of moments. Glean what she needed to know, then send him on his way.

  When she lifted her eyes again, he had turned to face the railcar and held his hand out expectantly. Claire’s chest throbbed, the ache nearly unbearable as she braced herself for the wife he was no doubt preparing to hand down. But instead of a beautiful, willowy blonde with sparkling green eyes and a dowry to make any man salivate, even a sensible Dutchman who’d sworn he preferred freckly redheads, all that emerged was the handle of a well-worn carpetbag—one that bore a remarkable resemblance to the one Polly used to tote around her quilting supplies.

  Claire couldn’t seem to move. She barely breathed as Pieter collected the bag, then made his way toward her. One solid stride came after another, his sensible work boots even more scuffed than she remembered, the heels worn down in back. His tan trousers were creased from the long journey with a few dark spots of undecipherable origin around the knees. Probably the babe’s doing.

  He wore a blue shirt . . . nay, he wore the blue shirt. The one she’d sewn for his twenty-first birthday. The one she’d pieced together from remnants purchased at a discount from the seamstress whose shop stood two doors down from Miss Fester’s. Durable denim, since he tended to wear clothes until they fell off him, his father’s thrifty nature deeply embedded in Pieter’s character. Yet this shirt, nearly two years old now, looked new. As if he’d not worn it since they separated. As if he’d saved it. For today.

  Her mind too numb with shock to process the ramifications of that observation, Claire focused on keeping her legs beneath her as Pieter halted in front of her. She tilted her head slightly upward—he stood a good five inches taller—and stared into eyes she never thought she’d see again.

  He smiled, the subtle movement barely curving his mouth, yet the expression was so quintessentially Pieter that a wave of homesickness broke over Claire, nearly drowning her in memories of what had once existed between them.

  He had no right coming here. Stirring up feelings. Looking so steady and sure when he was nothing but a philandering ne’er-do-well.

  Pieter bent sideways to lower Polly’s bag to the ground, then lifted his hand to remove his hat. The circular crease in his blond hair tempted her to brush it out with her fingers. She fisted her hands against the impulse. There’d be no touching. Her nerves were too raw just from the sight of him. Touching him would be catastrophic.

  “Claire.” He dipped his chin in greeting, his voice soft and velvety, just as she remembered.

  She said nothing in return. Mostly because her tongue was stuck to the roof of her cottony mouth. Yet she also remained quiet out of fear that once she started talking, all the anger and pain she’d clamped off for the last year would gush out of her like blood from a freshly opened wound.

  So they stared at each other. Pieter never had been one for stringing words together. Then a train whistle pierced the air. The baby twitched, one tiny leg kicking out of the blanket. Fussing quickly followed.

  Pieter jammed his hat back onto his head and shifted his grip on the babe, making little hushing sounds that turned her heart to mush. She’d always known Pieter would make a wonderful father, and now the proof stood right before her eyes. It hurt. Saints above, it hurt. He was supposed to father her children, not some other woman’s.

  After he settled the little one, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out an envelope. He met her gaze, his eyes seeming to stare into her soul, communicating support, steadfastness, and . . . sorrow? Claire gave her head the tiniest of shakes. No, that couldn’t be right. She was reading old dreams into nothing more than a stare. He didn’t care about her. Not like that. Perhaps as an old friend who shared companionable memories, but nothing more. Nothing deeper.

  He held out the envelope to her. “From your sister.”

  Those three words burst through her brain like gunshots. Polly. Yes. That was why she was here. The messenger didn’t matter. Only the message.

  With shaking fingers, Claire accepted the letter from him, careful to touch only the paper. Looking around for a place that would afford a bit of privacy, she spotted a bench on the west side of the depot, away from the bustle surrounding the train. “Perhaps we can sit?” Thankful that her voice sounded nearly normal, she nodded toward the bench. But then she glanced back at him. “Unless you need to wait for your wife. Was she delayed on board?”

  Pieter’s brow furrowed. “Wife?” He looked behind him as if he feared some woman was about to sneak up on him and slip a yoke around his neck. “I have no wife.”

  “Th
en where did . . .” The babe come from? Claire shook the thought away with a wag of her head. “Never mind. It’s none of my concern. I’ll just . . .”

  He has no wife. The insidious little thought drove all other words from her mind. She gave up on speaking and marched toward the depot. Let him follow or not. She had a letter to read.

  Taking a seat on the bench, she dropped her reticule onto her lap, then broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the letter from her sister. The ink had run in a few places thanks to round droplets that marred the paper. Tears? Claire’s stomach dropped. What had happened to her beloved Polly?

  Claire,

  Please forgive me for my secrecy, but I feared if you knew what I planned to send to you, you would not accept it. But I’m sure that the instant you look into little Liam’s eyes, my son will win you over. Yes, he’s my son. I didn’t realize I was carrying him until a few weeks after you’d left. At first I was elated, sure his father would do right by me, but after I told him about the babe, Dirk left town. Left me. Left our child.

  Vision blurring, fingers trembling, Claire lifted her gaze to the man standing in front of her, the one gently rubbing the back of a sleeping infant. Her nephew. Claire sucked in a breath. The child was Pieter’s nephew, as well. No wonder Polly had chosen him to carry out this task.

  Pieter’s eyes met hers, his warm brown gaze full of the same heartbreak and disappointment that threatened to swallow her.

  Clearing the thickness from her throat, Claire turned back to the letter.

  I hid the fact that I was carrying from Da by staying out of his sight and wearing baggy clothes, but as much as I hoped to finish the birthing before he came home from the pub that evening, first babes are never much in a hurry. Da tried to toss me out that very night, but Mam threatened to clobber him over the head with her rolling pin if he so much as touched me or the babe. But I knew she couldn’t hold him off forever.

  I tried everything I could think of to keep Liam, to find someone to watch him while I looked for work. But you know what it’s like here. All the families in our area are too poor to feed their own children. I can’t ask them to take in mine. Yet I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him as a foundling. Growing up in an overcrowded orphanage with no mother to love him.

  Please, Claire. Take Liam into your heart. Into your home. Love him as I do. Be the mother he needs. I trust you as I trust no other.

  And maybe . . . you might tell him stories about me. Stories to make him smile. Maybe someday, if the Lord sees fit to bless me, I can come for a visit and feast my soul on the lovely young man he is sure to become under your guidance. Aunt Polly will dote on him and spoil him terribly, ensuring I will be his favorite of all the aunts. For he is to be your son from this day forward, not mine. Don’t hold back any love from him in fear that he will be taken away from you. Give him everything in your heart, Claire. As I have.

  Polly

  A child. Her sister had sent her a child.

  A thousand practicalities flooded Claire’s mind, as they always did when a predicament arose unexpectedly. She could handle any problem if she broke it down piece by piece and made a plan. A goat for milk. Diapers. A bed. She’d have to rig some way to keep him occupied and safe while she worked at the clinic. Maybelle shouldn’t mind having a child about. The old midwife was always complaining about how Harper’s Station needed more babies. All those single women and no men. Although Maybelle had been eyeing Emma Shaw’s midsection rather closely lately. Their banker and colony founder had married the town marshal last fall. Perhaps little Liam would have a playmate before the end of the year.

  Liam. Named for their grandfather. The kindly man who had wept when his daughter told him her husband had decided to emigrate to America. It was the only memory Claire had of Ireland. The small cottage with a thatched roof. Grandfather in the rocker, holding baby Eileen, Polly standing at his knee, sucking on her fingers, while Claire rubbed his arm in a childish attempt at comfort as tear after tear rolled down the old man’s weathered cheeks at the impending loss of his faery girls.

  Liam.

  Polly’s son.

  Her son.

  Claire lifted her gaze once again to Pieter, then shifted it to encompass the bundle he cradled against his chest. Practical concerns dissolved. Sentimentality faded. A single thought radiated with the brightness of the sun, shoving all else into shadow.

  “May I hold him?”

  Chapter

  3

  Pieter stepped forward and gently transferred his nephew to Claire’s arms. The instant her eyes met Liam’s dark blue gaze, her face transformed. Heartbreak gave way to wonder as she dug his little fist out of the blankets and gave him her finger to hold. That was all it took. The two fell instantly, madly in love.

  Pieter recognized the look on her face. It used to be aimed at him. And oh, how he wanted it back. Wanted her back. She was the only girl he’d ever loved, and he wasn’t about to let her slip away from him again. God had given him a second chance. He wouldn’t waste it.

  His chest ached, full of all the things he wanted to tell her, to explain to her, but he’d probably be better served by letting Liam soften her up first. He moved the bag of infant supplies close to the bench, then mumbled an excuse about needing to fetch the rest of the luggage.

  Not that Claire paid him any heed. She was too caught up in the kleintje. Understandable, Pieter acknowledged as he strode across the platform to where the porter was unloading trunks and cases from the train. Even at three months, Liam had all the charm of his father and the winsome smile of his mother. Pieter had fallen hard for the little man himself over the course of the train ride. Liam was blood. Family. No matter what happened with Claire, this boy would not grow up without a van Duren in his life. Since Pieter’s wastrel brother was too focused on his own pursuits to fill the role, Pieter would volunteer.

  “All this belongs to you?” A uniformed porter raised a brow at Pieter when he began separating and stacking his trunks and crates into a neat pile to the left of the rest of the luggage.

  Pieter nodded. “Ja.” A man making a new life for himself needed to be prepared. One crate held his grandmother’s wooden cheese molds, which his moeder had brought over from Holland. Another held churns, paddle spoons, bowls, and a set of decorative butter molds.

  Texans might prefer beef cattle, but Pieter had come from generations of Dutch dairymen and had apprenticed with a cheese maker in Rochester. He had a plan, and after five years of working and scrimping, he had the money and skill to make it a reality. Yet the victory would be hollow without Claire by his side.

  He glanced back toward the bench where she sat, her head bent close to Liam’s, her smile soft and sweet. Longing speared Pieter through the chest. He had a steep climb before him. Yet standing at the base of a cliff and wishing to be at the top wouldn’t get him there. He needed to dig in his toes, grab a handhold, and start the ascent.

  He faced the porter. “Is there somewhere I can store these for a time?” He gestured to the crates and his trunk of personal belongings. The smaller steamer trunk Polly had sent would go to Claire.

  “We have a storage room in the depot, sir. We can put your things there, if you like. I’d be happy to cart them for you.” The porter’s eyes brightened, no doubt anticipating a healthy tip.

  But Pieter had been scrimping too long to start tossing money around now. He hefted the first crate up to his shoulder. “I’ll see to them.”

  Once the luggage was settled, Pieter collected his small satchel of personal items, slung the strap over his head to lie across his body, then grabbed Polly’s steamer trunk. The poor thing had been battered when his journey began, but after a few days in a baggage car, it barely held together. As much as Pieter appreciated the thrift in continuing to use such an item, if it failed to hold its contents, it wasn’t serving the purpose for which it was intended. He’d have to get Claire a new one.

  If she chose to join him in Snyder. Pieter frowned
a bit as he walked back to the bench. He probably shouldn’t get ahead of himself.

  “Oh good, ye’re back. I think Liam needs a change of his napkin.” Claire ceased digging in the bag he’d left with her and eyed the trunk he carried. She pushed to her feet in expectation and shifted the babe to lie on her shoulder.

  Pieter set the trunk on the bench beside her, but he knew she wouldn’t find what she was looking for. “It only holds linens and trinkets. No diapers. I checked at the last stop.”

  Claire lifted her hand from the trunk lid and turned to look at him, her blue eyes luminous. His heart thumped. Heavens, but he loved her eyes. So bright. So full of life. Open and honest. And at the moment, flummoxed.

  “What d’ye mean, there’s no diapers in the trunk? There be none in the bag, neither. I know me sister can be a bit irresponsible, but surely she did not send ye all this way without a change of underthings for the baby.”

  “Nee. She sent just enough. I put the last one on him this morning.” And seeing as how before this trip he’d never diapered a babe on his own, he thought he’d done a pretty fair job of it.

  Claire stared at him, and not in the way he would have wished. “So where be the soiled ones?”

  “I disposed of them.” The foul-smelling cloths had made him gag. He hadn’t wanted to subject the other passengers to such a vile odor. Especially not in the stuffy, enclosed space of a railcar.

  Her eyebrows arched upward. “Ye disposed of them.”

  Why did she make it sound like a crime?

  “And here I always thought ye the thrifty sort. Should’ve known all that hobnobbin’ you’ve been doin’ with the fancy folk over in Rochester would change that about ye, too.”

  “What fancy folk? I worked at a dairy, Claire. Shoveling manure and making cheese.” And learning every inch of the business so he could duplicate Mr. Ellmore’s success when he started his own enterprise. What did she think he’d been doing the past three years? Wining and dining with the social elite? That was his brother’s angle, not his.