Free The Midwife's Secret by Kate Bridges Page A

brought a smile to Amanda’s lips.
    She and Ellie were spending lots of time together. It waswonderful to have a friend to confide in, although Amanda hadn’t yet been able to share her deepest personal problems.
    Ellie watched Pierce walk to the shack. It seemed whatever she had to say, she’d say it when her son was out of earshot.
    Tom and Donald glanced up from where they were hinging a cedar door onto the new root cellar, which they’d built into the side of a small hill. The clearing for the cabin had been leveled, and the six-by-six boards laid for the floor. Toward the back of the structure, where the kitchen would be, a shiny water pump handle protruded three feet above the new well. It was starting to shape up nicely, and Amanda was counting down the days when she’d no longer have to work with Tom Murdock. The sting of their last argument still burned in her cheeks.
    Her divorce was still no one’s business but hers.
    She knew it wasn’t Tom’s fault that he’d been the messenger about William’s new sons.
    After this year’s winter, the coldest blizzard they’d had in decades, she’d heard William had lost half his cattle in the freeze. Knowing how difficult that struggle must have been for his wife, Amanda was happy the young woman had healthy babies to keep her company.
    But Amanda’s argument with Tom just went to prove how different they were.
    She watched the rich outline of his shoulders as he heaved on the door. Did he know she’d lost a baby? She doubted it. He hadn’t mentioned it when they’d argued. Neither she nor William had registered the baby’s birth—as most parents didn’t—so the Mounties wouldn’t have easily discovered it.
    “What is it?” Amanda asked after Pierce had disappeared inside. She offered her friend a chair.
    Ellie preferred to stand. “Two orphans are comin’ to town.”
    “Orphans?” Amanda felt her pulse rush in surprise.
    “It’s too bad your cabin’s not built yet, aye, Amanda, or you could take ’em.”
    Amanda’s mind began to race with possibilities. With hope. “Who are they?”
    “Their pa was a telegrapher fer the CP Railway, and he’d been workin’ up at the camp that was surveyin’ the land north of here, at Lake Louise. Two years ago he and his wife drowned in a canoein’ accident. One of the older women in camp has been lookin’ after the children, but I hear her rheumatism’s gettin’ the better of her, and she can’t get around anymore.”
    “Do they have any other family?”
    “An aunt somewhere in Quebec, I hear, but the rumor is—” Ellie rushed forward and lowered her voice “—she’s got a terrible marriage, with five children of ’er own. She doesn’t want any more mouths to feed.”
    “How awful for the children.”
    “Yes, isn’t it, though?”
    With his knee-high boots caked in mud, Donald came and slung an arm around Ellie’s shoulders, adjusting her blue shawl for her. It was an intimate gesture between a caring husband and his wife, and Amanda got caught up, witnessing his gentleness.
    “Where are the orphans now?” Donald asked his wife.
    “They’re comin’ in around seven or eight this evenin’, on the mud wagon from Lake Louise. They’ll stay with the conductor’s wife overnight, then board the train for Calgary in the mornin’. One of the orphanages has agreed to take ’em.”
    An orphanage in Calgary? Was it Mrs. Blake’s, or the one run by the church? Amanda couldn’t imagine howlonely and distant it must sound to the children. They must be frightened out of their wits at being shipped out of their home. What could she do about it?
    “How old are they?” Tom asked. He’d quietly joined them, standing a foot away from her. The open collar at his throat revealed a hint of the chest beneath. Tough and lean, he unnerved her.
    “I don’t know much more about ’em,” Ellie replied. “Mr. Langston at the mercantile said they were very young, but someone else in the store thought