She nodded. That would mean more for dinner than she had planned, but if Gar asked it, she would do it.
* * *
The men filled the kitchen, dragging in extra chairs from the big dining room to settle upon. Their praise was profuse, and Leah wallowed in the attention her food garnered. Gar touched her shoulder with his big hand as he stood behind her at the stove, and then slid his arm around her waist when she poured his coffee at the table. It warmed her heart, and that was an altogether satisfactory condition, she decided.
The talk was of the three-year-old fillies that Sten had shod that morning and the training they would undergo now that Gar considered them old enough to ride. Leah listened avidly, wishing for long moments that she were able to climb upon the back of one of those beautiful creatures and ride like the wind across the pasture and down the road.
She tended to the dishes, watching and listening as the men finished their meal, her gaze drawn by the handsome man who kept a watchful eye on her. He rose finally and stepped to the door, waiting as the three hired hands trailed outside to the porch, Sten bringing up the rear.
“I’m going to follow Sten into town, Leah. I need new hinges for the big door. The ones I used when the barn was built are not sturdy enough. And I must arrange for a new harness to be made for the black mare.”
“May I go with you?” she asked. “I just need to punch down my bread and set it to rise again. And I’d better wash Karen a bit.”
“I can wait for you. I’ll tell Sten to go on ahead.” He paused at the door. “I’d better tell Kris. He’ll likely want to go, too.”
But Kris refused the offer, and Leah was strangely pleased by his reply. He was busy with Benny and Lars, and Banjo had promised him a ride later on to inspect the far pasture where young bullocks had been penned. They would be grass-fed with extra hay brought to them, to fatten them up for market.
Perched high on the padded wagon seat, Leah waited for Gar. She bounced Karen on her lap, keeping time with the song she sang to the baby.
“That’s a new one on me,” Gar said, swinging up beside her. “Where did you hear the songs you come up with?”
Leah laughed, her mood more than joyous. “My mother sang to me once in a while. And our neighbors always sang while they worked in their houses and yards. It seems that I spent about as much time with the ladies who lived near us as I did at home when I was small.”
“Your mother was not with you?”
Leah hurried to correct his notion. “Only when she had to go out on a case and I was still too small to tag along.”
“You did not have an easy life, did you?” He nudged his team into a quick trot, and the wagon jostled along the road. His arm slid to enclose Leah and the baby in its grasp, and he pulled them closer to him on the seat.
“It was hard for her, especially at first. I got a taste of that when I came back to Kirby Falls. People were so used to Dr. Swenson they were afraid to trust someone new. It took awhile before they realized I could help them.”
“And in the meantime?”
Her laugh was rueful as she cast him a sidelong glance. “In the meantime, I got along as best I could. I took in laundry and lived very frugally. I almost changed my mind a few months after I arrived in town, and decided to go back to the city. I had even begun to pack my things, when Hobart Dunbar called on me to help an ailing hotel guest. Dr. Swenson was gone on a long house call and a man staying at the hotel had fallen down the stairs and cut his head open.”
“So you stayed.” Gar’s arm tightened its grip on Leah’s waist. “I wonder when that was…if it was before I knew you existed.”
“Perhaps.” She felt her heart race at the idea of having left before Gar came into her life. “It must have been meant to be, Gar, that I stay on here. Things picked up for me. Some of the bachelors from the mill came to me with their baskets of dirty clothes. Then Dr. Swenson sent me cases he didn’t want to bother with—cuts and a few broken bones.”
Gar snorted at her words. “I think some days he bothers too much with his whiskey bottle, Leah. He is getting old, and sometimes he isn’t fit to go out on house calls.”
“Doesn’t he have a family?”
“Yah, but they are all grown and gone. His wife is dead…maybe six or eight years now.”
They rode in silence for several minutes before Gar cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “I’m glad the doctor would not come when Hulda needed him.”
“You said he wasn’t available,” Leah reminded him quietly.
“He had been drinking, Leah, and he told me he had vowed not to deliver another dead child from Hulda’s body and refused to come with me. He said he had warned her not to get in the family way again, and it was her fault if she was having a hard delivery.”
“How did you ever walk away from him and leave him standing?”
“I wanted to kill him. Right then I wished for a gun and the courage to pull the trigger. But I didn’t have the time to go to all the trouble. I just came to you instead.”
“What made you think I would do it?”
He looked at her squarely, his eyes dark and discerning, as if he were searching for something within her gaze. “You have a kind heart, Leah. People said you were good with the art of healing. Then, too, you never looked back when the men made eyes at you, and I liked that about you. You have always been a lady, spoken well of in town.”
His praise brought a thrill of delight to her heart. Her own words were diffident, her eyes slanting a wondering look in his direction. “I thought you never noticed me before that day.”
“I noticed you,” he muttered, further answering her with a look that encompassed her face and hair, then focused on her lips. “But I did not carry it further. You were not my woman, Leah, and I had no right to pay you any attention. I had to watch the young bucks eye you up and down, and mind my mouth. I had to listen to that scallywag Brian Havelock make his big boasts, even though I knew he was not the man for you.”
“I thought you hated me, Gar, the night Hulda died, and for a long time after that.”
“I hated myself. I blamed you so I would not have to accept all the guilt myself.” His frown was dark and he spoke slowly, as if the words were torn from him. “I still hold a lot of anger, deep inside. It comes on me sometimes, and I don’t know what to do with it. Perhaps now I feel guilty for another reason.”
She concentrated on the gleaming horses that pulled the wagon. Their tails swished, almost in tandem, and their feet picked up quickly, holding a fast clip. Beside her, she could sense Gar’s attention upon her and she knew he waited for her to speak.
“I will sleep with Karen before I cause you guilt, Gar Lundstrom,” she said quietly. “And I will deny forever after that you have cause to suffer one minute of blame.”
“Hush! There will be no talk of sleeping with the baby. Maybe my problem is that my need for you is far greater than any I ever knew before.”
Karen interrupted his words with a babbling monologue, reaching for the reins he held. Her shriek of anger was long and loud when Gar rescued the leather straps from her grasp. It was an interruption Leah welcomed. He’d revealed more than she wanted to hear. Poor Hulda had suffered from more than the pain of childbirth, for surely she knew her marriage lacked much.
The wagon rolled past the hotel and Hobart Dunbar waved a greeting. Gar nodded and tipped his hat. Leah wisely concentrated on holding Karen immobile, the baby squealing at the activity around her and wiggling to get down. She had best ignore the friendly gestures of the men in this town, Leah thought, if there was to be peace in her household.
The store was crowded, and, as usual, Karen received attention in abundance—even the men around the stove tweaking her toes and poking at her round cheeks.
Leah made her way through the store, finally reaching the counter where Bonnie took her list. “Let me see your hand,” Leah said, reaching for the ailing member. Bonnie removed the small bandage, allowing Leah first to ins
pect the cut, and smiling as she pronounced it well healed.
The womenfolk surrounded Leah, the friendly circle noisy with women’s talk. Lula Dunbar was one of the curious, casting her bait with agility. “So, how does marriage agree with the Widow Gunderson? Do you find a farmer preferable to the big-city man you had the first time around?”
As insulted as Leah tended to feel at the bold inquiry, she was obliged to answer sweetly. “I’m an old married lady, for months now. Do I look like I’m suffering from Gar Lundstrom’s cruelty?”
She flirted her eyelashes as she spoke, bouncing Karen in her arms. Her cheeks pinkened; the attention showered on her bringing confusion and embarrassment to the fore.
“I’d trade all of your old customers for one day with Gar Lundstrom,” Mrs. Pringle said in a loud whisper, bringing gales of laughter from the women who bent close to hear her words.
“You can have Hobart,” Lula Dunbar offered. “I’ll spend some time over the washboard if you want to take him off my hands tonight.”
Bonnie Nielsen lifted an eyebrow at Lula’s words. “Don’t be so quick to give him away, Lula. You might find a taker. A good man is hard to find these days.”
“Leah didn’t even have to go looking,” Eva Landers said, stepping up to the group of ladies.
“She had men falling all over her before Gar Lundstrom came along,” Bonnie said cheerfully. “Leah’s always had her pick.”
“Stop all this nonsense,” Leah protested. “You’d think I was a new bride, the way you all talk. And as to having a beau, I never made it my business to dally with anyone before I married Mr. Lundstrom.”
“Not for lack of men trying, though,” Mrs. Pringle said. “They don’t linger nearly as long around my porch as they did yours.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Mrs. Thorwald said, hearing only the final words as she neared the counter. “Leah Gunderson is a good woman. She never played backdoor games with anybody. I should know, living right next door for all that time.”
She turned to Leah and squeezed her arm. “How are you, Leah? I’ve missed your homemade soup, you know. And I didn’t know what to do for the carbuncle I had last month.”
Leah bent to hug the woman. “You should have called on me, or sent word to the farm that you needed my help, Mrs. Thorwald. I’d have come to you.”
“Well, I soaked it good and put on a bread-and-milk poultice. Seemed like you had told me about that some time ago.”
Leah nodded. “It usually works well. But next time, get hold of me if you need me.”
“Heard tell Eric Magnor had reason to appreciate your healing skills, Leah,” Lula Dunbar said, her face losing its smile. “We’d be in a bad sort of way in Kirby Falls if anything happened to him, what with the sawmill keeping so many of our men working.”
“He’s a good man,” Leah said, unwilling to elaborate further.
She turned to Bonnie Nielsen, remembering an idea she’d been considering during this trip to town. “I thought I’d bring in some butter for you to sell over the counter, Bonnie. I’m churning more these days. I hate to give the pigs the milk when they do just as well with the buttermilk after I churn.”
“I can always use fresh butter for sale,” Bonnie answered. “Bring in all you like. Are your chickens laying good? I always need more eggs, too. These town ladies don’t like to feed chickens. They’d rather buy them from a crock on the counter.”
Lula shuddered delicately. “I cannot abide the odor of a henhouse. I vowed the day I married Hobart I’d never again shovel chicken poop.”
Everyone laughed aloud. “I never thought I’d hear you say such a thing,” Eva said after a moment. “You always look so dignified, Lula.”
The hotel owner’s wife leaned closer to the circle of ladies. “I came up the hard way. Marrying Hobart was the smartest thing I ever did, but don’t anybody dare tell him I said so. I’ve got him thinking he’s lucky to have me.”
Behind them, the door opened again, admitting a tall figure, and Bonnie held up a silencing hand. “Leah, your husband is here, probably looking for you.”
Leah turned around and met Gar’s gaze. His face was sober, his finger beckoning her with a familiar gesture. “I must go, ladies. Bonnie, do you have all my things together?”
Bonnie nodded. “Let me have a minute to figure this up, and I’ll bundle it for you.”
Leah walked to where Gar waited and offered him the weight of the baby she carried on her hip. “She’s heavy, Gar. Will you take her for a few minutes?”
He nodded, lifting the plump child into his arms. “The sheriff wants to talk to you, Leah. He’s outside. Do you want me to come with you?”
Leah felt the color leave her cheeks, as if a wave of cold water had splashed all the warmth from her flesh. She shook her head, slipping through the door to the sidewalk, looking in either direction to locate the lawman.
Morgan Anderson was a quiet man, his presence seldom made known to the townspeople, since crime was not an issue in Kirby Falls. The occasional drunkard might spend the night in his jail, and once in a while the sawmill workers got into a set-to at the saloon on payday, but that was the extent of it.
He was a stranger to Leah, and only the fact that he wore a badge pinned to his gray shirt identified him as the town sheriff. She walked to where he stood, leaning against a post near the barbershop next door.
“My husband said you wanted to see me.” She waited as he straightened and slid his hands into the back pockets of his trousers. His look was appraising but respectful as he scanned her quickly, his dark eyes meeting hers with questions alive in their depths.
“I had a visitor yesterday, Mrs. Lundstrom. He asked about you. I wasn’t sure what I should tell him, but when he threatened to scout around town, offering a reward for information about you, I thought I’d better pay him some attention.”
“Who was he?” What if it was Sylvester Taylor, finally locating her after three years? His vindictive words still haunted her dreams. Taunting her with threats of prison, he had followed her from his house that fateful night. “Murderer” and “liar” were only two of the names he’d hurled after her as she fled his presence.
And who would believe a woman accused by a rich man, an influential man who could hire lawyers, and probably judges, if it came to that?
“Who?” she asked again, her lips dry, throat closing around the word she uttered.
“A detective from Chicago,” Sheriff Anderson said quietly. “Let’s take a walk, ma’am.” He turned and waited for her reply, and Leah nodded, stepping to his side and keeping pace as he strolled down the sidewalk.
“I’d rather hear what you have to say, Mrs. Lundstrom, but the fact is, the man seems pretty sure of his client. Said you had delivered a child to a Mrs. Mabelle Taylor and were careless, killing the boy at birth.”
“I won’t bother to defend myself to you, Sheriff,” Leah answered. “I’ll only say that it’s not true. What did the detective say? Am I to be taken back to the city in shackles?”
A grin twisted the corners of Morgan Anderson’s lips. “No, I don’t think we’ll have to go that far, ma’am. I told him I knew where you were, and once, we hear from the courts, we’ll go on from there.”
“So I live in limbo for now?”
“Unless you want to set about proving your innocence before we hear from Chicago, that’s about it.”
Leah shook her head. “I have no way to prove what happened. It will be my word against Mr. Taylor’s. I can only tell you that his wife is a demented woman. Any creature who can kill her own child is not worthy of being called a woman. And Mabelle Taylor did just that.”
“That’s a nasty accusation to make, ma’am.”
“That’s the truth, nevertheless, Sheriff.”
He halted before the hotel. “Shall we walk back? I see your husband out in front of the mercantile looking for you.”
“Yes, certainly.” Her heart was beating rapidly, and panic was quickly
overtaking her. She had to get to Gar. He’d know what to do.
And yet…would he believe her? Given the circumstances under which they’d met, given the death of his first wife to consider, would he be willing to accept her story without hesitation?
Or would Garlan Lundstrom look at her askance? Would their fragile relationship shatter before it had even begun to flourish?
Chapter Eleven
“Will you tell me what Morgan Anderson wanted, Leah? Or am I not to know?” Gar’s silence had lasted for the full half hour it took to travel home from town. Not until he helped Leah from the wagon seat did he ask his question.
She met his gaze and nodded. “Yes, of course I’ll tell you. I’m just confused right now, and my thoughts are all in a jumble, Gar.” She stepped back from him and his hands dropped from their grip on her waist. Karen clung to her neck, whining at the sudden awakening, and Leah shushed her, jiggling her in her arms.
“I’ll be in later on,” Gar said, grasping the harness of his lead gelding and walking toward the barn. The back of the wagon still held the results of their shopping.
“Bring in my things when you come,” Leah called after him, and he nodded.
She trudged to the porch and up the steps, the sounds of Kristofer’s excited voice from the barn barely penetrating her fog. What to do? How could she talk to Gar about the detective? She settled Karen in her lap and rocked the baby back to sleep, her lips silent. There was no song in her heart, no melody in her soul. Only the heavy weight of fear.
By now, the detective was back in Chicago, had probably already spoken to Sylvester Taylor. How long would it take for the man to arrive in Kirby Falls with his accusations? She cuddled the child against her breast and rose from the chair. A quilt on the parlor floor supplied a resting place, and Leah placed pillows from the sofa on either side of Karen to give comfort, lest she feel abandoned and alone should she waken.
The Midwife Page 15