Page 4 of The Love Knot

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.”

“Then 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.