Her weak smile turned to a frown when her eyes roamed from his tall gaze down to the infant in his arms. “I told the woman we don’t have no crib space for another infant. The babies are packed like sardines in cribs, cradles and drawers as it is.”
“What woman?” Leif couldn’t figure out what she was talking about.
“The one who brought this baby here an hour ago. Are you the father, and now you’re trying to get rid of it, too?”
“Ma’am, I found this baby in the back of my wagon after I been through town and stopped for supplies. I swear I have no idea who it belongs to.”
She stared long and hard at him, while automatically bouncing the baby on her hip.
“You not trying to foster your whore’s baby on us?”
Leif’s jaw dropped at her words and suggestion.
“Ma’am,” Leif growled out after he recovered from her blow, “I’m a widower and believe me—if this was my child—I would NOT be standing on your doorstep trying to find a home for it.”
Her face turned pink but she didn’t drop her gaze at his words.
“I’m sorry, but we’ve taken in more than one ‘mishap’ from the brothels around here. And the woman who was here before you looked like she worked in such an establishment.”
“She have on a red dress, by chance?” Leif queried.
“Yes, she did. Bright red.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “And why would you know that?”
“Someone in a red skirt was behind my wagon for a second when I was at the general store. I didn’t see the person’s face, and didn’t see nor hear the baby until I stopped…down the road.” Leif didn’t want to share he stopped to visit his wife in the cemetery.
The infant rubbed his face against Leif’s chest again before whimpering. Leif tightened his grip, trying to give it comfort.
“This baby needs food, ma’am. Now.”
“Then I suggest you find his mother so he can nurse.”
“You can’t take it?”
“Sir. Do you see all the children in this doorway and outside? Besides the normal number of orphans we take in, the train wreck brought another two dozen injured children into this home. We’re stretched too thin as it is….”
“What shall I do then?”
“Find the mother.”
“What if she’s dead?” Leif had a hard time asking that, but there was a good possibility it was why the baby was left in his wagon.
“Find a wet nurse or milk. You have more time to take care of the infant than I do.”
With that last comment she shooed the children away from the door and shut it in his face.
Leif was steamed. He and Britta wanted a child and he was still morning the loss of their son—and nobody wanted this baby he was getting comfortable carrying around in his arms.
Leif had confronted every brothel owner in the two blocks around the mercantile where his wagon had been parked, but it was always the same answer. “No woman here gave birth recently. Try the next place.”
He held the baby protectively when the last brothel owner said they got rid of the women’s babies anyway so even if it came from one of his “workers” she couldn’t have it back. Got rid of?
Now he was waiting for the owner of the seediest looking house on the block. Time to change his tactic. He pulled a table next to the front door, and laid the baby on it, being sure the shirt was tucked around it to keep centered. The infant wasn’t old enough to move and roll off, but he didn’t want to chance it. Leif’s right hand was resting on his hip right above his revolver, ready to defend the baby and himself in this filthy place.
An older man came from a side door and stopped when he saw Leif. His eyes shifted to the baby, then back to Leif’s right hand before meeting his eye.
“I’ve seen a woman with child around here. She available?”
“You can’t check in your kid like you can your gun when you’re going upstairs.”
Leif’s nose flared at what this man’s words meant. If the woman was here and just gave birth…did the man mean she was already available for a man’s use?
Two women, neither one wearing a red dress, sat across the room with three men playing cards. One woman looked like she was ready to come over to him, but the other woman put a hand on her arm and shook her head not to get up.
Leif held his breath. Was she the mother? No, she looked too slim to have just given birth today, but by the look on her face, she knew who had.
“Why her?”
Leif whipped his head back, realizing the man had asked him a question.
“Why what?”
“Why you need this particular woman, when other women here are more in shape to handle your needs?”
Leif tried to keep his voice under control and his clinched fist at his side. “I…lost my wife; died in childbirth; and I need a wet nurse, not…for anything else.”
He didn’t usually lie, or talk about his loss, but he needed to unite the mother with her child. But then what? They couldn’t stay here.
“Not sure I want to let Tina go, if that’s the woman you saw. I’m hoping she can start working here after she gives birth. She owes me for taking her in after the wreck.”
Leif gave an inner sigh. So the mother wasn’t a worker here, but another victim from the recent train accident?
“Bring her down here. If I like her, we’ll make a deal.”
The man’s smile widened, probably thinking of how much money he could ask to cover his expenses for taking her in. Leif had no idea what the price would be, but he’d find a way to get this woman named Tina out of here. No way was he going to let this child die under his watch.
The concerned woman from the table came over after hearing the conversation. “Boss, Tina’s…done…but she’s not strong enough to…” but stopped talking when the man raised his hand.
“Amy take it to the orphanage?”
The young woman dropped her eyes and nodded as if to confirm the deliveries, of both mother and infant.
Leif picked up the infant and cradled it in his left arm, leaving his right handy for whatever might come next. “Let’s go upstairs and get her. My boy’s hungry.”
Leif’s skin crawled as he treaded up the narrow staircase, praying there was a live woman upstairs instead of an ambush. The air was stale and smelled like unwashed bodies. Didn’t the windows open upstairs? The temperature in the stairwell rose with each step he took.
“She’s in Bella’s room at the moment. Thought it better than lying on the pallet in the storeroom while she…”
“She better be out of Bella’s room before customers arrive tonight.” The boss interrupted the woman.
Leif let out his held breath when the three of them got to the top of the landing and moved to a doorway ten feet from the stairs. He looked around to see if there was another way off the hall except down the stairs they just came up, but didn’t see any.
The woman, Amy, in the much talked about red dress, sat in a wooden chair beside a bed and the woman lying in it. Her eyes widened and flicked between her boss, and then at the baby in Leif’s arms.
“Got a man looking for a wet nurse. Think Tina could do this?” At least the man looked concerned when he asked the woman in the room.
The woman moved back so Leif could see the person in question in the bed. She was breathing, but wasn’t awake—or maybe not conscious. Her face and black matted hair were wet with sweat. There was a red puckered scratch running from her chin past her temple into her hairline. Her right wrist was bandaged with a rag.
“Uh, what’s all wrong with her?” Leif hesitated to ask, but she didn’t look strong enough to hold a baby, let alone talk.
“Tina Martin was in that train wreck last week. No place to go, so hoped she’d recover enough to work here,” Osbourne said matter-of-factly.
“She was already a widow, then lost her two children in the accident. Tina’s back was hurt so she has problems walking, besides her sprained wrist,” Amy added.
<
br /> “That scratch on her face is the worst on her body. Kind of ruins her looks, but wouldn’t matter when she’s in the dark working on her back.” Both women rolled their eyes, but didn’t comment on their boss’s remark.
Leif hesitated. Would the woman heal if taken out of here? Remain an invalid the rest of her life? Die before he carried her downstairs?
The infant whaled in desperate frustration and Tina’s head jerked toward the sound. She opened her eyes, but they weren’t focused as she searched for the baby.
Leif held the baby out to the woman in the red dress. “See if she can feed it.”
The woman took the baby, but gave him an incredulous look at the same time. “You think she’s a cow and you wonder if she’ll take an orphaned calf?!”
Leif didn’t know if she really meant that, or was trying to cover up the fact that this was Tina’s baby and she didn’t want the boss to know the truth. Instead of leaving the infant at the orphanage like she was told to do, she’d left it in his wagon when the baby was turned away.
Leif turned his face when Amy adjusted Tina’s clothing to nurse. As soon as she laid the infant on Tina’s chest and the infant figured out what to do, his crying changed to hungry sucking noises. It hurt deep to think that sound could have been his baby nursing Britta, but at least this baby and mother had been reunited.
Chapter 2
Tina slowly awoke as she swayed, the uneven motion hurting her back. And the cramping in her abdomen was almost unbearable…like when she’d given birth to her children.
She felt the returning river of tears dripping down her cheeks, wincing when the wetness dripped into the slow-to-heal scratch on her face. Her children were dead. She must have been having another nightmare, causing her to think of her children’s birthing.
But the pallet she’d spent most of the past week on was moving. She tried to focus on the ceiling and realized it was canvas, not plaster. And there was a breeze blowing across her which she’d sorely missed being confined for so long.
Trying to move her eyes instead of her neck, she searched for the answer of where she was. Apparently in a moving wagon, lying on a blanket or bedroll. She heard horses, harnesses, and the rumble of the wheels going through…grass, not on a dirt road.
“Whoa, horses. Slow down, easy.” A man said above her, apparently in the wagon seat in front of her. Tina winced in pain as the horses stopped to a jerk instead.
The man said something she couldn’t understand making her think he was cursing in a foreign language. Then Tina felt the dip of the wagon as the man moved in the seat.
“Mrs. Martin, you awake now?”
She sucked in her breath at the sight of a big man with long blonde hair and a dirty hat looking down at her from her upside down view.
“Guess so. I wanted to stop by the cemetery before we go on. Figured you’d need the break from the motion, too.”
“Cemetery?” She knew the word came out weak, but he heard it.
“Uh, yeah. My…wife and son are buried here…”
“Are the…train wreck victims buried in this cemetery?” It was hard to make her voice work, but she got out the words.
“Sounds like you need some water. Let me get the canteen and help you get a shallow or two in you.”
Did he hear her question, or ignore it on purpose?
“Are they here?” Tina asked again.
“Who?”
“My children?” His face blurred as the tears welled in her eyes.
He had crawled into the wagon beside her and held the open canteen up to her lips, while easing her head up with his other hand to help her. Two sips. Then another. That was the freshest water she’d had in a while.
“I suppose they are if you lost your family in the train wreck you were in. Unfortunately, not many of the graves are marked.”
Nausea filled Tina’s throat and she swallowed hard to keep the water down.
“Would anyone in town or on the train have known them to identify them?”
“No. And I…didn’t know what had happened for a few days…”
Tina watched the man hang his head and nod. His sadness gave her comfort.
“I don’t suppose you’ve been out here in your condition?”
“Time has stood still for me since…”
“What were their names so I can check the few markers I see?”
Robby and Emma…” She could hardly say her children’s names out loud. It hurt to think of those last seconds as she screamed their names in panic as the train car lurched and flipped sideways.
“Here, try to take another drink and I’ll go check for you.”
She must have dozed off again before he touched her shoulder when he returned to the wagon.
“Sorry, very few graves are marked, and none have the name ‘Martin’ on them.”
“So where did they bury my baby today?”
He looked confused, not catching on to the question. She slowly lowered her hand to her stomach, knowing the last connection to her family was gone, too.
“Ah, no, ma’am, your infant is sleeping in the box in the front of the wagon.”
“Amy said it was…stillborn…”
“No, she lied, probably because she had to. She put it in my wagon while I was in a nearby store, and I tracked her down.”
She couldn’t understand what he was saying, and he didn’t repeat himself, just reached for something in front of her head.
An infant whimpered. Tina awkwardly turned her body toward the sound. The man swung his arms around carefully holding an infant and laid in against her chest.
“Your son is fine,” he choked out. She glanced up a second at his words and saw his face screwed up as if in pain.
“But...how…” was all she asked as she stared at the squirming baby. It was so tiny, but the dark hair reminded her so much of Emma when she was born. Was it possible her baby had been born alive? Tina clutched the baby with her left arm, soaking in the scent of the newborn, before everything went black again.
“Mrs. Martin, I’m going to get you out of the wagon and carry you inside the cabin now. Hang on.”
Tina jolted awake at his voice and the feel of the bedroll being slowly pulled to the end of the wagon. Where was she again? Tina looked up to the see the canvas above her and remembered the wagon she’d been riding in. The boxes and crates which had been situated around her had been removed.
“I already moved your baby inside, so now it’s your turn,” he said slowly reaching his arms around her knees and back and carefully lifted her against his chest.
He was so big, but yet so gentle. “I don’t remember your name, sir,” Tina whispered. But she wasn’t afraid of him, she felt more protected and safe than she had in a long time.
“Leif Hamner. I’m a widower. Couldn’t bear to leave you in that place so I took you with me. We’ll figure out what to do once you gather your strength back.”
“But…”
“I swear I won’t do anything but take care of you and your son. I felt obliged to help you…so I will.”
“Why?”
“…Lost my wife and infant last year in childbirth. That’s all you need to know, so quit asking questions.”
Tina looked around the cabin as he laid her on the bed on the far wall. Simple, one room. Nothing hanging on the white-washed walls, not even curtains. Sparse except for the items he’d carried in from the wagon and stacked by the table and two chairs. There was a small cook stove and three feet from it, a stack of wooden boxes placed on their sides so the area could hold a variety of items handy and in sight.
A little stuffy like the cabin had been closed up, but the windows and door were all wide open, like he was airing it out. Was this his home, or were they somewhere else?
Tina had dozens of questions swirling through her mind now that it seemed to have cleared a bit. She went into labor early this morning. It was hard because of her injuries, but her body said it was time even though the baby was coming
a few weeks early. Why didn’t she remember the baby’s first wail if it was born alive?
She tried to roll over on her side when she heard the baby whimper, but he stopped her.
“Here you go,” he said gently laying the baby against her shoulder so she could cradle it. He stared at her for a long second before turning away.
“I’ll get the stove going so I can heat some water. You both need cleaning up badly. You’d think the women would have taken better care of the two of you.” He muttered, and Tina wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself.
“Food. I can fry bacon and eggs I just bought…” Tina listened to his words trail out the door as he left with two buckets, probably to fill from a nearby well.
Tina stared at the tiny face as it scrounged and wiggled its skin, as if trying to figure out how it worked. What a miracle after the disaster her body had been through, that this tiny life had survived. How she wished she could share this moment and new life with her husband. The loss of her family had drained all emotion out of her mind except grief. She hadn’t expected this baby to survive either.
Robert had been a good husband and parent. They married five years ago when she turned twenty and he was twenty-five. If only he hadn’t been murdered this spring, he’d be taking care of her and their baby instead of a stranger.
Tears drained down Tina’s face thinking of how quickly life had changed for all of them. How did she have any tears left to spill? Was the pain ever going to end?
The infant nuzzled against her and lifted a tiny corner of her grief. She wasn’t alone anymore. Part of her family was still with her. Maybe she could start to get some sleep without the constant nightmare which she hadn’t been able to escape.
Tina jerked awake when the baby was lifted from her arms. “It’s okay, just moving him so you can eat.”
Mr. Hamner had woken her out of her stupor again. Had she said anything like “thank you” yet?
“Mr. Hamner, I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am that you…”
“Stop.”
Tina Tracks a Trail Boss: A Historical Western Romance (Brides with Grit Book 8) Page 2