RR05 - Tender Mercies Read Free Page A

Bridget hurried into the bedroom behind the kitchen. Astrid sat in the middle of her mother’s bed, her cheeks bright red and round as apples. She held up her arms, a sunny smile breaking out as soon as Bridget picked her up.
    She felt the child’s diapers and, since they were dry, whisked her over to the pot in the corner. Sliding down diapers and soaker, she sat Astrid on it. “You be a good girl and go now.”
    “Mor?”
    “She’s at Tante Kaaren’s.”
    “Drink?”
    “As soon as you go.” Bridget picked up a flannel square from the pile on the bed and began folding while she waited. She held one to her face, inhaling the fragrance brought in fresh from the clothesline. Soon they would no longer be washing diapers in this house, if the look on Ingeborg’s face at times was any indication.
    Trying to understand why God sometimes failed to bring more babies to a home was about like trying to understand why Gustaf had died so unexpectedly. God was God and, as such, beyond understanding.
    But He could work miracles, and getting the men to build her a boardinghouse might just be a bit easier than parting the Red Sea. “Uff da,” she muttered again, folding another diaper.
    “I done,” Astrid sang out. The odor emanating from the corner said as much.
    “You sit still. Have to wipe.” Bridget pulled one of the rags from the edge of the diaper pile. After wiping the little girl’s bottom and setting her on her feet again, she dropped the rag in a bucket kept for that purpose. More to be washed. Maybe Hjelmer was right. She should stay here and help care for the babies.
    “Gustaf, what am I to do?” But, like God, her beloved husband didn’t answer either.

Chapter 3
    “Now don’t go getting all het up over it.”
    “But I don’t understand.” Katy shook her head, setting the golden curls flowing down her back to bouncing. “John is never abrupt like that. He was downright rude.” She shook her head again, this time more with sorrow than indignation.
    “Maybe he had something on his mind.” Zeb MacCallister propped a lean shoulder against the post holding up the porch roof that aproned his house. From this vantage he could see the corrals that surrounded three sides of the two-story main barn like a woman’s skirts. In the paddock to the west, Manda had one of this year’s crop of colts, haltered and on a lead line, following behind her like a docile dog. He knew for a fact she’d just begun to work with the young one the day before. Talk about a gift—that ornery young girl could gentle an animal faster than anyone he’d ever seen.
    “Zeb, are you listening to us at all?”
    “Sure enough, sugar.” His drawl, laced with warm molasses, made both his wife and sister giggle. Only when he’d been somewhere far away in his mind did he slow his Missouri drawl like that. It gave him time to think. What had they been discussing? Could it still be the way Pastor Solberg had cut them off ?
    “Ah ’magine we’ll understand sooner or later.”
    Mary Martha hooted at his roundabout comment. “Zebulun MacCallister, that is the most farfetched bit of boondoggling I’ve heard since I left home. I know you got the gift from Uncle Jedediah, but he’s much better at it than you.”
    Zeb had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, but he’s been at it longer.”
    “I know exactly what was going on with the preacher. He’s not still mooning over Katy, but . . .” Mary Martha had to pause at the gasp of horror from her sister-in-law. “Come on, Katy, surely you knew he was in love with you.”
    Katy shook her head, so golden beside these two with the dark curls. “Pastor Solberg was—is—one of my best friends, but I never . . .” Her look of horror grew. “I never did anything to . . . to . . .” Her gaze darted between the brother and sister, whose grins grew wider with her discomfort. “Zeb, you know I—when you . . .”
    “Darlin’, take it easy. I know you fell in love with me the first time I