Daisy, Tulip, and Buttercup rose slowly to their feet, assuming it was time for their morning milking. Leah quickly fastened Tulip into the milking stand, poured some feed into the attached trough, and grabbed a bucket. As the milk hit the metal in rhythmic spurts, she was keenly aware of how she could tend her animals without even thinking about it, yet she had no idea how to proceed with little Betsy—except that the poor abandoned baby needed food, diapers, and other supplies as soon as they could gather them. She felt confident about feeding Betsy goat’s milk diluted with some water, because she’d supplied milk for a couple of neighbor ladies who’d been unable to nurse their wee ones, but beyond that . . .
Why on earth did that woman leave Betsy here? She could’ve chosen any number of other homes in Morning Star where folks already had young kids and babies.
When she’d milked the three goats, Leah took a big plastic bottle and its nippled lid from the cabinet. She sighed, replacing it. Even though the bottle and lid had been sterilized between uses with orphaned lambs, she didn’t dare risk infecting Betsy by using her livestock equipment.
Lord, I hope You’re giving Jude and the twins some ideas about how to proceed from here, she prayed as she strode toward the house with her covered bucket of goat’s milk. When she stepped into the mudroom, Betsy’s cries sounded quieter. She saw the twins at the stove with a pan of boiling water.
“We found an eye dropper, and the girls are sterilizing it,” Jude explained. He was rubbing Betsy’s back as she rested against his shoulder. “After we’ve had breakfast and tended the animals, we’ll visit some neighbors to borrow diapers and such—and we’ll let Jeremiah know we have an abandoned baby.”
They make it sound so simple, Leah mused as she took off her barn coat and bonnet. “I have to pasteurize this milk—boil it and then cool it quickly with an ice bath,” she remarked. “Meanwhile, would some water make Betsy feel better?”
Jude smiled gently. He looked completely at ease handling the tiny baby, even as he picked up on Leah’s nervousness. “The girls have changed her diaper, so as soon as that eye dropper is cool enough, I’ll give Betsy some water, jah,” he said softly. “I can’t imagine why her mother would’ve dropped her off—let alone left her without even the basic necessities. She’s a sweet little thing. Probably no more than three months old, best I can tell.”
Leah swallowed hard. The tension that had hardened Jude’s face while he was squabbling with his daughters had disappeared, and he now appeared totally smitten by the tiny girl he was rocking from side to side. As his gaze met hers, Leah saw desire in his dark eyes—not sexual desire so much as the yearning to hold his own baby . . . a baby he’d fathered with her.
Leah had anticipated Jude’s wanting to start a second family, and despite her lack of experience with babies, she was eager to have his child—because she’d figured on having about nine months to prepare herself for motherhood. In the harried hours since the twins had confronted Jude about not being their birth father, Leah had fleetingly wondered if he was unable to father children, considering the long gap between the twins’ births and Stevie’s. That wasn’t a subject she wanted to ask him about, however—and now that baby Betsy had arrived so unexpectedly, they had more immediate issues to deal with.
The longer Jude gazes at me this way, the less anything else matters, Leah realized as her insides fluttered. Because the love she shared with him was so much more wonderful than what she’d imagined before the wedding, she knew she was truly a blessed woman—even if Alice and Adeline despised her. Jude will know what to do about Betsy. And maybe having a baby in the house will inspire the twins to behave more lovingly. More responsibly.
“What’s goin’ on? Who’s cryin’ so loud?” Stevie asked hoarsely.
Leah smiled at him. As he stood in the kitchen doorway, his thick brown hair stuck straight up on one side, and his short flannel pajama pants suggested that he’d grown a lot since someone—probably Margaret—had sewn them for him. “We got a surprise package this morning,” she explained. “The baby’s name is Betsy, and her mamm left her on our porch.”
Stevie’s eyes widened. “Her mamm just up and left her? In the middle of the night?”
Leah nodded as she got out the large pot she used to pasteurize her goat’s milk. “It makes me wonder, though, if Betsy’s mamm is Amish, because she drove off in a noisy car. I saw its taillights on the road just as I stepped outside.”
Alice’s and Adeline’s eyebrows rose as they stepped away from the stove and removed the eyedropper from the boiling water. “Odd,” one of them said, and the other echoed the sentiment.
Jude watched his daughters’ faces as he continued his walk with Betsy. “Any idea who might’ve been driving the car? One of your friends, maybe?” he asked. “If Jeremiah and I can reach Betsy’s mother—”
“Not a clue,” Alice insisted.
“Nobody we know,” Adeline put in quickly. “We’ll get our clothes changed and make breakfast, so we can round up some baby clothes from the neighbors.”
Stevie appeared fully awake, his face lighting up. “So we get to keep her?” he asked eagerly. “I wanna help take care of her! Can I, Leah? Please, can I?”
Leah’s heart swelled at the boy’s generous offer before she poured the goat’s milk into the big pot on the stove. “I think that’s a fine idea, Stevie,” she replied softly. “But if we find Betsy’s mother, we might not be keeping her—”
“Jah, don’t get your heart set on having a little sister,” Adeline warned as she and Alice left the kitchen. “Babies really do belong with their mothers.”
As Leah exchanged a glance with Jude,
