Change of Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

months ago, except for
missing Kathy, I was one of the happiest women in Chicago. I had a
good job at the library, all the social activities I could make
time for.” She glanced up at Jase. “Mother always told us social
activities defined a woman’s purpose in life.” She looked outside
once more. “Good advice is the one thing Mother left us before she
died. I’ve always acted on what she raised us to believe and was
happy to live as she’d said I should, but how can I be happy now
when my life has changed so much? Sometimes, I don’t know what I’m
going to do.”
    “You’ll be happy again, Miss Randolf,” Jase
said. “You’ll be back in Chicago in a few weeks. Everything will
look different to you when you return to your old life. You feel
bad now because you’re tired, and you’ve been thrust into a very
difficult situation.”
    She shook her head. “It isn’t just the
difficulties I’m facing here and now. My life in Chicago is as dead
as my sister. A week before I got word of Kathy’s death, I was
fired from my job at the library. My employer has a sister who was
recently widowed and needed a job, and since she has three children
and I had none, she got my job.” She glanced at Zack and turned to
look up at Jase. “Now I have a boy to raise myself and no job to
support him or me.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “My aunt will take us in, and I’ll look for
another job.”
    “Do you have money to tide you over until you
find work?”
    Marietta shook her head. “I used every cent I
had left to make this trip, but that isn’t the worst of it. I’m
confident I’ll acquire another job, but how will I ever become a
mother to Zack? I don’t even know how to be his aunt. Though I’m
quite fond of him because he is a part of Kathy, I barely know the
boy.”
    Jase touched her chin and smiled softly at
her. “You’re already mothering him, Miss Randolf. I’ve watched the
two of you the last few days. You knew how to calm him when he
fretted, you fed him when he was hungry, you cuddled him when he
slept and kissed him and tucked him in. I heard you pray with him
too, Miss Randolf.” He touched her hair then drew back his hand.
“Don’t say you don’t know how to be a mother. Whether you realize
it or not, you’re a gentle mother and a loving woman. Zack is very
lucky to have you.”
    Marietta gazed into the softness of his eyes
a long moment. What a special man he was. He’d awakened feelings
inside her she couldn’t begin to understand. At the moment, he was
touching her more deeply than he should, and she needed to put a
stop to it before she did something foolish like stretch up and
kiss him the way she’d wanted to for the past two days.
    “I’d... I’d better make fresh biscuits. I’m
sure Zack is hungry again.”

    ~ * ~

    The sun shone brightly the next day, but the
buckboard’s fight over and through the drifted snow still lasted
the entire day. The sun was just beginning to set when the three
storm victims laid eyes on Fort Kearney.
    Will Carson came out to meet them some
distance from the fort. “Thank the sweet Lord you’ve returned
safely,” he exclaimed. “Amy has been beside herself with worry that
you’d all perished in the storm.”
    “We stayed in the shack near the edge of my
property line.” Jase gave Marietta a quick look before he turned
his attention back to Will. “It was a rough few days, but we made
out all right.”
    “That’s good news, Jase,” Will said. “You’d
best take Miss Randolf and Zack straight to Amy. She’ll be wanting
to feed them and clean them up and fuss over them. You know how she
is.”
    Jase smiled. “It’s been my pleasure to be
fussed over by your lovely wife myself a few times.”
    “And don’t think I’ve forgotten that,
Jase.”
    The two men laughed at their secret joke,
then Will’s expression sobered, and he focused on Marietta. “Miss
Randolf, I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you.”
    Her heart