Page 8 of The Heart’s Charge

When she pulled herself away from memory lane, the impact of what he’d said finally sank in. I didn’t mess anything up too badly.

Katherine halted, diaper in hand, and crooked a glance his way. “Did you deliver this baby?”

He shrugged. “Fern did all the work. I just caught the little one once she made her entrance.”

Hearing another woman’s name on his lips grated like scratchy wool against her skin, but she shoved the feeling aside. She hadn’t seen him in ten years. He likely had a wife and a half dozen children by now. “Did the mother survive?”

Mark’s smile dimmed, and Katherine turned her attention back to the child.

“Yes, despite her best efforts to the contrary.” He sighed. “Dr. Hampton and some folks from town will be tending to her. Unfortunately, she refuses to have anything to do with her baby. Seems determined to join her dead husband in the great beyond.”

A grieving widow. Katherine could only imagine the woman’s emotional pain. She must have loved her husband a great deal if she was unable to imagine life without him. Yet a mother’s life was not hers alone. She had a duty to her children. To love them and protect them and train them in the way they should go. Turning her back was not an option. Not to Katherine’s way of thinking, anyway. She knew the sour taste of a mother’s rejection. Oh, her mother hadn’t kicked her out of the house or refused to feed and clothe her. But she had withdrawn her support. Abandoned Katherine emotionally. No child deserved such treatment.

Katherine’s heart ached for the babe as she fit the clean diaper to her tiny body and pinned it in place. Working at Harmony House these last few years had brought her more joy than she could have ever imagined, but her heart broke over the tragic stories behind each child’s arrival. When she and Eliza had started Harmony House, they’d pledged that no child in their care would ever feel unloved or unwanted. They would accept all who came through their doors with open arms, no matter their background or situation. And that would be the case with this little one, as well.

Katherine fit the gown over the baby’s head, then carefully slipped one arm at a time into the sleeves. “Does she have a name?”

Mark shook his head. “I’ve just been calling her Little Lady. It didn’t seem right for a stranger to name her. Besides, the doc is hopeful that Fern will eventually emerge from her grief and want her daughter back.”

Katherine lifted the baby, carefully supporting her head as she snuggled her close. “Well, if the mother decides to claim her, she can name her whatever she likes, but in the meantime, this baby needs a name. Every child that comes through our doors is special, created in our Lord’s image, and deserving of a name.” She met Mark’s gaze. “You helped bring her into the world. You should name her.”

His eyes widened. “Me?” He darted a nervous look toward his friend, the man standing so quietly in the corner behind them that she’d forgotten he was even in the room. Mr. Brooks offered no words of wisdom, however. Just a shrug.

Mark turned back to her, his usual confidence adorably absent. “I don’t know. I . . .” He shook his head. “Something as important as a name shouldn’t be doled out on the spur of the moment. She deserves something meaningful. Something . . .”

“Name or not,” Eliza said as she swept into the room, instantly commanding both men’s attention, “what the girl needs most right now is food.” She strode up to Katherine and handed her a bit of moistened, tied-off cloth. “Here, I made her a sugar-tit. She can suck on this until we get her to a wet nurse. It should pacify her for a bit.”

Katherine had never heard of a sugar-tit, but she trusted Eliza’s judgment and offered the substitute nipple to the unhappy baby. Curling the babe near her own breast in order to mimic the instinctual position of mother and child, she rubbed the cloth bulb against the baby’s lips until she latched on.

She smiled up at the woman who had become a big sister to her in the last five years. “It’s working.”

Eliza nodded. “Of course it is. There’s not a babe been born that doesn’t like sugar water.”

Katherine longed for the self-assurance that came so naturally to Eliza. She was four years older than Katherine but seemed decades wiser. Katherine’s sheltered upbringing hadn’t prepared her for the challenges of raising outcast children in a world that would rather throw them away, but with Eliza’s help, she’d come into her own. Taking care of the least of these was Katherine’s God-given mission. In it, she’d found a sense of purpose. As a young girl who’d been raised to believe her value centered solely on being a godly wife and mother, she’d floundered after the fiasco with Mark left her reputation in tatters and her chances of securing a good match too low to bother calculating. But God had redeemed her future. Given her important work—work she never would have found if she’d accepted Mark Wallace’s proposal all those years ago.

She stole a glance at the man she still thought about in her weaker moments. She told herself she was glad she’d rejected his offer of marriage. She never would have met Eliza otherwise. Never would have found the children. Found her purpose. It had been the right choice.

So why did her heart pound in her chest when she looked at him? And why couldn’t she stop herself from hoping he didn’t have a wife and a passel of kids tucked away somewhere?

Thankfully, Eliza cut into her thoughts with a healthy dose of pragmatism, just the medicine Katherine needed to get her mind back where it belonged.

“Abner will be down soon. I told him to dump out one of his dresser drawers and line it with a blanket. I’ll hitch up the wagon and take the babe to Georgia. She’ll know who can nurse the child.”

Katherine caught Eliza’s arm and dragged her a few steps away from the men. “We can’t afford much compensation,” she murmured softly. “Donations have dropped off this last year. We’ve run through nearly all our discretionary funds.”

Eliza frowned. “We’re not just asking for feeding. With the constant attention a newborn requires, we’re asking someone to sacrifice sleep and time and energy. For four months. Once the baby can take solid food and tolerate goat’s milk, we can take over her care, but until then . . .” Eliza didn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. Katherine understood the implication.

Georgia Harris and the women in her community had hearts as big as the Texas sky, and they’d never turn away a babe in need. But they had children of their own to provide for and woefully thin purses with which to do so. It wouldn’t be fair to add to their burden without offering something in return.

“Take a few dollars from the kitchen crock. I’ll figure something out.”

Eliza smiled. “You always do.”

Katherine wished it was as simple as Eliza made it sound. When they’d joined forces to establish Harmony House, Katherine had brought two things to the partnership—money and connections. Eliza supplied everything else: experience with children, practical competence, knowledge of the need and how to serve it. Katherine had possessed none of those necessary skills. All she’d been able to offer was an untapped dowry for purchasing property and connections with potential donors. That had been enough in the beginning. But the longer she stayed away from Westfield, the weaker her ties to those connections became. If she didn’t find a new source of benefaction soon, Harmony House might take a decidedly discordant turn.

Without warning, a handful of banknotes appeared between the two women.

“Here.”