Page 24 of A Groom for Lauren
They soon arrived at Millie’s home. The family was unloading from their wagon and Mary Rose came running over to see Esther.
“May I carry her?” Mary Rose asked.
“No, you may not, young lady,” Millie said. “It’s my turn,” the woman cooed as she practically yanked the basket from Lauren’s hand. “I didn’t get a chance to hold as long as I wanted to before Altar came and took her from me.” She lifted Esther and handed the empty basket back to Lauren. “Hello, pumpkin.”
Lauren grinned. “Altar loves children. She says she hopes she has ten.”
“Good heavens! I hope she was joking.”
“I don’t think so.” Lauren lifted her shoulder. She couldn’t imagine wanting to have more than Esther. How the young black woman could want that many babies, was beyond her.
“Poor Wolfe,” Millie murmured as she tucked Esther tight against her. “He already calls the twins his cubs. If he had eight more, he’d have to call them a pack.”
They all laughed. Robert came over and shook Christopher’s hand.
“I take it you’re here to see how the calf is doing, Dr. Spaulding?”
He said that he was. “I wanted to show it to Mrs. Hale while it was still young. Calves grow rather quickly.”
Robert took hold of Christopher’s horse. “Yes, they do. I’ll put your horse in the barn and come inside for coffee when you are ready.”
Millie nodded. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to play with this little one. Come on, Mary Rose.”
As Millie and her daughter walked away, Lauren felt some tension leave her.
“Are you all right, Lauren?”
She looked up at Christopher. “I am. I want to thank you so much.”
“What for?”
“You not only saved me from the water, but you saved me from my pride.”
He held out his arm. “I don’t think I saved you from anything. I believe the Lord wanted me to be there when you need Him, through me.”
The thought so that made her pause. To think a woman like her who had failed her husband and her marriage could still be known of God and that he would send a man like Christopher…
Thinking of Jonah’s favorite verse, she found new comfort in that. “The Lord is my Shepherd…”
From what she knew of such things, a shepherd took care of his sheep and didn’t let anything come after it and take it from its grasp.
Not even when then had sheep self-destructive tendencies.
She swallowed a lump that formed in her throat. It was almost overwhelming to think of it. “You’re very kind,” she said after a moment.
They walked in comfortable silence along the path to the far pen where the calf was contained with several other animals. Its coat had an almost reddish hue to it. It looked at them with large eyes before turning on spindly legs and started drinking greedily from its mother’s teat.
“Aren’t they beautiful,” Lauren sighed. “Is it a girl?” Christopher nodded. “Mother and daughter are doing wonderful.”
“That’s not her mother.”
Lauren turned to him. “What do you mean?”
A look of pain crossed his features. “I had to euthanize the mother. She was too old to be bred. I told the Widow Banks that, but she had to do it because the cow brought her the only money she had. But the heifer didn’t have any more strength to bring the calf into the world. I had to choose to save the calf or lose them both.”
“Oh, Christopher.” She reached out and patted his hand that rested on top of the wooden fence.
“It’s always difficult to make decisions like that. I tried with everything within me to save them both. But I couldn’t.”
