The Heart's Charge

by Karen Witemeyer

  She could still hear his voice grate on her conscience, his words falling like acid on her soul.

  “Mark defended me, of course, but to no avail. Mr. Owen woke both our parents and told them what he’d witnessed. He painted it as an assignation, giving us both equal blame.” Katherine would never forget the look of horror on her mother’s face or the deep disappointment on her father’s. “I confessed everything, not wanting Mr. and Mrs. Wallace to think their son had done anything wrong, but it didn’t matter. My reputation had been ruined. Mark proposed to me that very night. I turned him down.

  “My scandalized mother insisted I accept, fearing that shame would fall on the entire family if I refused, but I would not be swayed. Even when Mark took me aside and tried to convince me that he wasn’t angry. He urged me to reconsider, told me he cared for me, and swore we would have a good life together.

  “But I couldn’t do that to him. Couldn’t trap him in a marriage he didn’t really want. Couldn’t steal his freedom, his dreams. What about his music? If he had a wife to support, he wouldn’t be able to chase his symphonic dreams. He’d be stuck in his father’s buggy whip shop, toiling at a job he hated. So I held firm.

  “He left the next day. Joined the US Cavalry and never returned.” Katherine hung her head. “Not only did I drive Westfield’s favored son away from the people who loved him, I drove him to the most dangerous occupation on the planet. His life could have ended on any of a hundred battlefields, and it would have been my fault.”

  Eliza pushed out of her chair, came around to where Katherine sat, and yanked her to her feet. “Katherine Palmer, his choices were not your fault.” Eliza gripped her shoulders. “He could have stayed. He chose not to. He could have pursued a career with the symphony. He chose not to. You are responsible for your choices, but you’re not responsible for his. Got it?”

  Katherine sniffed. What would she do without Eliza? She was a treasure. A grin stretched Katherine’s cheeks. “You really are bossy, you know that?”

  Eliza pulled her into a rough hug, then stepped away. “Yes, well, women have enough obstacles to overcome without weighing themselves down with blame that’s not theirs to carry.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Though guilt was rather sticky stuff. Hard to shake off even when one’s mind understood it didn’t belong.

  All of a sudden, a herd of children stampeded down the staircase. “Miss Eliza! Miss Katherine! The bugle man’s back!”

  Katherine and Eliza shared a look, then rushed to the front room and pulled back the curtains. Sure enough, a man on a white horse was riding into the yard.

  Eliza dropped the curtain back into place and grumbled, “Looks like he’s going to be harder to get rid of this time around.”

  Katherine mirrored her friend’s frown, but inside, her heart leapt with something that felt suspiciously like hope.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  What are you doing here?”

  Mark grinned at the puckered look on Kate’s face as he reined Cooper in and dismounted. She’d come out onto the front porch a moment ago and closed the door behind her. Now she stood with arms firmly crossed over her chest and legs braced apart, barring the path to Harmony House as if he were a desperado set on pillaging. He’d received warmer welcomes from Lakota warriors on the battlefield. Good thing he didn’t chill easily.

  After patting Cooper’s neck and murmuring a few words of praise to his faithful steed, Mark unhooked the sack of supplies he’d picked up from the hardware shop that morning. He held the sack aloft as he strode toward the house. He placed one boot on the lowest stair but didn’t ascend. Not yet. Best to be invited.

  “I noticed a healthy dose of wobble in your railing,” he said, tipping his head toward the wraparound porch balusters. Some leaned inward, some outward. Some were missing entirely. “Thought I could fix those up for you. I brought nails, sandpaper, and paint. Wasn’t sure what you’d have on hand.”

  The pucker around her lips softened just a hair, and her shoulders relaxed a smidgen. “That’s kind of you, but we’re managing. I wouldn’t want to delay you from whatever business brought you this way in the first place.”

  “My business is complete. And before you ask,” he said, holding up his hand as if he could hear her next argument, “my boss agreed to let Jonah and me take a few days off before heading back to San Antonio. I wired him this morning.”

  Kate’s arms uncrossed completely, and a hint of a smile curled her mouth. “Mr. Brooks is coming too?” She glanced behind her toward the house, as if thinking about how that news might affect someone inside. Like the sassy headmistress who’d opted to let Kate handle guard duty on her own.

  “Yep.” It was going to be interesting to see how things played out between those two later today. “He’ll be here in a bit. He mentioned something about repairing a wagon axle.”

  Kate’s smile faded. “I know it needs work, but we don’t have the funds to cover that expense right now. It’ll have to wait.”

  Mark grew serious. He climbed two of the four porch steps. “I’m not sure it can, Kate. Not if you want to ensure the children’s safety. I’ll cover the cost. Think of it as an investment in Sarah’s future.”

  “I can’t take your money, Mark. It feels too much like taking advantage of our past friendship.”

  Was that what she called it? Friendship? In his mind it had been a lot more.

  “This is a charitable organization, isn’t it?” he pressed. “One funded by donations?”

  “Yessss,” she hedged, obviously not wanting to go down the road he was steering her toward but unable to refute his logic.

  He took the third step then the last. Watched her blue eyes lift to follow him. His heart kicked in his chest as he drew nearer. When he finally stood with her on equal footing, her head tipped back in order to hold his gaze. A gaze currently absorbing the beauty of her face. Sky-blue eyes framed by long auburn lashes. Slender nose that turned up just enough to be adorable. A delicate jawline that invited a man’s hand to cup her cheek, and a chin that attested to her determined nature. Until yesterday, he’d never thought to see this face again. What a tragedy that would have been.

  Mark grabbed hold of the banister to keep from reaching for the woman in front of him. “Consider any work and expenses incurred by either Jonah or myself over the next few days a donation.”

  “But . . .”

  “If it makes you feel better,” he said with a waggle of his brows and a mischievous grin, “I’ll let you reimburse us with two home-cooked meals a day.”

  She shook her head. “I swear, Mark Wallace, you could convince a tree stump to uproot and move to a different yard with that smile of yours.”

  His grin widened. “Is that a yes?”

  “I suppose, but I won’t have you traipsing around the house uninvited and disrupting the children’s lessons. Eliza’s liable to take a rolling pin to your skull if you interfere with her teaching.” Her arms crossed again, as if she’d decided to retrieve her armor. “Besides, we are two single women responsible for the raising of children and reliant on the good opinion of potential donors. I know the cost of a damaged reputation, and while I was happy to pay the price when I was the only one to suffer the consequences, I won’t put Eliza or the children at risk. They have to come first, Mark.”

  The weight of those words slid over him like a leaden blanket, but he accepted it willingly. She hadn’t let him rescue her from scandal a decade ago, but he could take steps to ensure he didn’t endanger her reputation in the present.

  Placing his hand on his chest, he said, “You have my word, Kate. Jonah and I will remain outside at all times unless invited in for a specific repair. We can eat on the porch steps like any other hired hands, and if we need to speak with one of you, we’ll knock and await your pleasure.” He pulled his hand down and extended it to her. “Deal?”

  She eyed his hand for a long moment, then slowly untangled her arms and slid her palm into his.
“Deal.”

  The moment their skin touched, something jerked in his gut. Rather like a loose peg driven back into its proper place by the firm swing of a carpenter’s hammer. Shock waves rippled out from his core to shiver along his extremities as his attention riveted on her eyes. They widened ever so slightly when his fingers closed around hers, as if she too had felt the tremor.

  He’d thought he’d made his peace with leaving Kate behind all those years ago. Thought the hole inside him had been filled with the purpose he’d found in military service and in the brotherhood forged with the Horsemen. He’d never felt like anything was missing.

  Until now.

  Kate drew out his protective instincts like no other, but he wasn’t the naïve kid he’d been the last time he’d seen her. He remembered the sting of her rejection far too well to get carried away by the excitement of seeing her again. He’d test the waters, see where this reconnection led, but he wouldn’t make the mistake of handing his heart to her on a silver platter again, not unless she offered hers first.

  An hour later, Mark had dismantled much of the railing on the east side of the wraparound porch. He’d extracted the weakest spindles, leaving more than a dozen gaps in the railing. He needed to inspect each one for rot. See how many could be salvaged and how many would require replacements.

  As he examined one spindle missing a hefty chunk of wood from around the nail hole, the sound of a door opening brought his head up. Running a sleeve over his forehead to wipe away the sweat that had accumulated from laboring in the morning sun, Mark straightened in anticipation of seeing Kate. Who else could it be? The children wouldn’t be released from their lessons until noon when they took a break for lunch.

  Yet it seemed a pupil had escaped, for instead of the lovely Kate rounding the corner, Abner strode down the porch, a glass of water sloshing slightly in his hand.

  “I finished my reading early, so Miss Katherine asked me to bring you a drink.”

  Mark set his hammer aside and accepted the glass. “That was kind of her.” Although he would have appreciated the gesture more had the lady seen to the task herself. But that wasn’t Abner’s fault. Mark nodded to the boy. “Thank you for the delivery.”

  Abner shrugged.

  Mark lifted the glass to his lips and took a good, long swallow, expecting the kid to scamper away and return to the house now that his job had been completed.

  But he didn’t. Instead, Abner strolled over to the dismantled railing and hunkered down to examine one of the spindles. “You fixin’ it?”

  “Yep. Trying to, anyhow.” Mark set his half-full glass on a floorboard near the house, then joined Abner in a crouch. “I’m a mediocre carpenter at best, but I figure I can repair some of the spindles, replace others. Make it safer for the little ones. It might not be the prettiest job ever, but when it’s finished, it should be sturdy enough to hold up to Ted’s romping.”

  Abner craned his neck around to look at Mark. “How’d you know he used to climb on the railings?”

  Mark chuckled as he tipped his head toward the place where the railing had started to buckle. “See how the paint’s practically worn off that section? And how it bows out away from the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, having once been a rather adventuresome tyke myself, I know all about the temptations of railings. Hanging. Swinging. Turning flips over them.” Mark rose to his feet and peered over the railing to the ground beneath. “Especially when there’s a soft patch of grass on the other side to break my fall.”

  Abner stood as well, walked to the railing, and peered over the edge to see for himself. He had to lift up on his tiptoes, but when he settled back down on his heels, he measured Mark with a look.

  “Why’d ya assume it were Ted and not me?”

  Mark winked. “Easy. You’re the oldest. You have to oversee the others. Frolics aren’t exactly your thing. Ted, on the other hand, is a Texas tornado trapped in a four-year-old’s body. He’s constantly in motion. Running, jumping, spinning. To be honest, I’m amazed your teacher manages to keep him contained in the classroom in the mornings.”

  “She doesn’t.” A touch of a smile quirked Abner’s mouth for the first time. “She lets him and the twins play with the alphabet blocks and dominoes while she gives Ruby and me our morning assignments. Then, while we work in our readers, Miss Eliza sits on the floor with the little ones and goes over the different letters on the blocks. She counts the dots on the dominoes with them too. Quill and Prissy can already count to twelve and say their letters, but Ted’s more interested in building houses with the blocks and knocking them down than learnin’ anything.”

  “You might be surprised,” Mark said as he leaned against one of the supporting pillars near the railing. “Just because he doesn’t learn the same way you do doesn’t mean he’s not learning.”

  “Maybe. Seems like he’s just makin’ things harder on Miss Eliza, though. She has to trick him into learnin’. Tellin’ him things like he can’t knock his wall down until it’s five rows tall or only lettin’ him play with dominoes that have six dots on ’em.”

  “Sounds to me like Miss Eliza is a smart lady.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Miss Katherine?” Mark probed gently, hungry to learn more about the woman Kate had become. He knew the girl she’d been ten years ago, but who was she now? “Does she help with the schooling?”

  Abner shrugged again. “Not really. She mostly tends the little ones after Miss Eliza shoos them outta the schoolroom.”

  “Is that why you’re so protective of her? Because she cared for you when you were little?” Mark forced casualness into his tone, trying to disguise how interested he was in the answer. “I remember how you guarded her at the door yesterday when I showed up unannounced.”

  “Miss Katherine didn’t care for me when I was little.” Abner’s voice grew quiet. Small. “No one did.”

  Guilt stabbed Mark square in the chest. He hadn’t intended to dredge up painful memories for the kid. He floundered for a moment, debating whether it would be better to apologize or pretend there was nothing shocking in Abner’s revelation.

  Before he could choose, though, the boy filled the silence. “The other kids were brought here,” Abner explained, “by family that didn’t want ’em or do-gooders tryin’ to help. Not me.” He kicked at one of the loose spindles, his attention fixed on the ground.

  Mark matched his soft tone. “How’d you get here, Abner?”

  He lifted his face, and his eyes took on a fierce glow. “She chose me.” His jaw tightened before his gaze dropped again to the porch floor. “My ma worked in a saloon in Llano. Took men to her room every night, spent whatever she made on drink the next day. Blamed me for stealin’ her looks and knocked me around whenever she got frustrated. I learned to stay outta her way. Earned my keep by cleanin’ spittoons and runnin’ errands for the owner, until my ma bashed him over the head with a whiskey bottle during one of her spells. Trammel didn’t even wait for the doctor to stitch up his head before he kicked us out.

  “Ma was cussin’ and hollerin’. Makin’ a scene. Slapped me across the face when I tried to calm her down. She woulda hit me again, but Miss Katherine scooped me up and pulled me outta Ma’s reach. Ma lit into her good, but Miss Katherine didn’t balk. She held me tight and told my ma that she would have her arrested for saltin’ a child. She took up for me. No one had ever taken up for me before. Made me feel safe. I didn’t wanna get down for nuthin’.”

  Mark struggled to keep his emotions masked, not wanting the kid to see the pity welling inside him.

  “They argued for a while,” Abner continued. “I don’t know ’bout what. All I remember is my ma shouting about how she never wanted the brat anyway and if Miss High-and-Mighty thought she could do better, she could keep him. I raised my head and called out to my ma, but she kept walking and never looked back.

  “I was so scared, sure the nice lady would put me down and leave me too. But she didn�
��t.” Abner lifted his chin and stared into the yard. “She held me tighter. Promised that everything would be all right. Told me she and her friend were starting a home for children just like me. That I could come and live with her.” A half smile tugged at his mouth. “I didn’t believe her, of course. But I wanted to. So bad that I wrapped my legs around her waist and my arms around her neck so she couldn’t put me down.

  “That’s when the church lady stepped out of the crowd. Miss Eliza was with her. I think they’d been meeting with the lady before Miss Katherine left to get me. I knew who the church lady was. Trammel used to talk about her. Said she was a meddlin’ do-gooder who wanted to close down his den of inkwitty. She didn’t like drinkin’ or gamblin’ or what the girls did upstairs. Said we were all of the devil. That church lady took one look at me, at the mark on my face, and told Miss Katherine that if she and Miss Eliza wanted her charity money, they couldn’t take me to Harmony House. She said a child born in sin and bearing its stain had no place in a Christian foundling home. I knew then that Miss Katherine would let me go. Money and power always won. With my ma, with Trammel, with everyone. The church lady had both.

  “I unwrapped my legs and starting sliding to the ground, but Miss Katherine wouldn’t let me. She grabbed me around the middle and held on tight. She looked right at the church lady and said she was sorry they wouldn’t be working together. Then she carried me to her wagon and held me on her lap all the way here.”