Healing the Doctor’s Heart

When Dr. Daniel Parker requested an army nurse to help with his orphanage, he expected an organized, sensible matron. Instead he gets young, beautiful, obstinate Ida Lee Landway, whose vibrant outlook and unrelenting optimism turn his work and his life inside out.

Army life was easy compared to the discipline at her new workplace. Yet Ida is immediately smitten by the children in her care…and impressed by Daniel’s unfaltering dedication. Adding color and warmth to her new surroundings is one thing. Can she also help the good doctor embrace joy—and in so doing, find the family they both deserve?

He crossed his arms over his chest, teasing in his eyes.

“Am I to understand you are both asking permission and waiting for approval? Are you quite sure you’re Ida Landway?”

Something fell away between them. The carefully tended wall of employer and employee slipped down to reveal a timid, fresh partnership that went beyond children, medicine or education. When she heard him say her name, her view of him shifted from Dr. Parker the institution and took a small step toward Daniel Parker the man. The man who had just brought her paint to bring beauty into this tiny world they shared.

“Quite sure,” she said, wishing the words did not sound so breathless. “Thank you. Thank you more than you can ever know.”

“The sky blue is my favorite,” he said in the tone of a secret. “What’s yours?”

“All of them. Every single one of them.”

There was a moment of powerful silence, as if the air itself had changed between them. Ida wanted to look anywhere but into his eyes, but at the same time couldn’t pull her gaze away from their intensity. He seemed both bothered and more comfortable, which made no sense at all.

ALLIE PLEITER, an award-winning author and RITA® Award finalist, writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion for knitting shows up in many of her books and all over her life. Entirely too fond of French macarons and lemon meringue pie, Allie spends her days writing books and avoiding housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in speech from Northwestern University and lives near Chicago, Illinois.

The Doctor’s Undoing

Allie Pleiter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.

—Genesis 9:16

To clever, long-suffering, much-needed school nurses everywhere

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

July 1919 Charleston, South Carolina

Brr. Cold.

For July in Charleston, South Carolina, that was quite a feat. The shiver that ran down Ida Lee Landway’s back had nothing to do with the afternoon’s heat—which was oppressive—but everything to do with the frosty feeling coming from the imposing iron gates of the Parker Home for Orphans. One didn’t have to know children to know those looming cement walls and thick black iron grating were just plain wrong. Charleston homes boasted many beautiful wrought iron gates and graceful stone walls, but this entrance was large, clunky and downright unwelcoming. Oh, Father, Ida gulped toward Heaven, have I made a wrong choice?

She checked the notice in her hands one more time, hoping somehow she’d gotten the address wrong. The multibuilding compound—what she could see of it through the gates—looked more like a factory than an orphanage to her color-loving artistic eye. Many of the buildings had the city’s classic red brick and black shutters, but somehow the place still looked as if someone had doused the whole affair with a bucket of gray paint. Even Charleston’s red-clay soil seemed to have more vibrancy to it.

A small face popped into her vision. “Who’re you?”

An artist by nature, Ida was a student of faces. She collected a dozen details of this tiny countenance in a matter of seconds. Clean, but pale, with powder blue eyes. Her blond hair hung in utilitarian braids down each side of her head—again, neat but without any bows or ribbons. She looked about seven, with a pair of her front teeth missing to show the tiny white buds of their adult counterparts poking through pink gums. She looked like a child who existed, but not one who thrived.

The girl stuffed her hands into the worn pockets of her faded white pinafore and stubbed a scuffed black shoe against the gate’s lower rung. With the large vertical iron bars between them, Ida couldn’t shake the notion that it felt as if she was at the zoo—and that was an awful thought for a place where children lived.

Ida applied her friendliest smile. “I’m Nurse Landway. Who are you?”

“Gitch.”

Ida raised her brow at the odd name. “Gitch?”

Gitch shrugged. “Gwendolyn Martin, actually, ’cept nobody should bother with that name. I’ve been Gitch since I been here.”

“Gwendolyn’s a pretty name.” When the child obviously didn’t agree, Ida added, “But Gitch is definitely memorable. And rather fun.” She reached a hand through the gates to the girl. “Pleased to meet you, Gitch. How about you let me in?”

Gitch looked as if that were a ridiculous request. “Everybody knows I can’t do that.”

“Really.” It made perfect sense why a child of her age couldn’t simply unlatch the orphanage gate, but Gitch seemed so ready with a more involved explanation that Ida found herself eager to hear it.

“Dr. Parker’s the only one what’s can open this gate. Well, he and Mrs. Leonard, but she died. Mr. MacNeil can, too, but he’s not here.” She ran her pink tongue along her bottom lip before adding, “You’re a nurse?”

“I am.”

“This gate’s for visitors.” She narrowed her eyes at Ida’s valises as if to declare, You sure don’t look like a visitor to me.

It felt as if the world was daring her to declare herself a visitor and simply walk away to somewhere that didn’t feel even drearier than the war hospital Ida had just left. “No,” she replied, hiding the heavy sigh she felt in her chest. “I’m not a visitor.” Out of the corner of her eye, Ida spied two other sets of curious eyes peering at her from over a stone bench just behind Gitch. “I’m your new nurse.”

“Not mine.” Gitch’s thin chin jutted out. “I’m never sick.”

“A fact I take great pride in, Miss Martin.” The deep, crisp voice from her left startled Ida. “I work very hard to keep you well and healthy.”

Ida studied the man’s face. Dark, almost black eyes assessed her with a clinical precision. The doctor. Equally dark hair, combed to precision, framed a pleasant face—save for the utter lack of a smile. He was tall, very official looking in his crisp brown suit and starched shirt. That he was wearing a suit and vest in Charleston’s July signaled a man committed to decorum and order. General Barnes back at Camp Jackson had offered a less intimidating countenance, and he was not known as a friendly man. The man ran a home for children, for goodness’ sake. Shouldn’t he be a mite friendlier than the imposing gentleman in front of her?

“Dr. Parker?” It would have been wiser to keep the astonishment out of her voice.

“Indeed.” He nodded at the paper she was holding. “I take it the instructions to use the side gate were not to your liking?”

“Oh. I...well, I suppose I didn’t read that far.” Ida peered down at the set of detailed instructions that filled the bottom of her paper. All employees should use the side gate located on the south side rather than the Home’s front entrance. “Well, I’m not technically an employee yet now, am I?” She offered an even friendlier smile than the one she’d offered Gitch. “You could say I’m a guest...still.”

The attempt at humor fell far short. Rather than reply, Dr. Parker made a noise entirely too close to a harrumph and produced a set of keys to swiftly work the lock. Ida tried not to hear the hinge’s groan as an omen of doom. To think she’d considered this the least gloomy of possible postings available to postwar army nurses! Children shouldn’t be kept behind locked doors as if the place were a jail. She tried to regard the wrought iron fencing that ran around the outside of the compound as ornate, but failed. It couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but it felt much taller.

Dr. Parker stepped out onto the walk and picked up Ida’s two valises as though proper Charleston gentlemen hefted luggage every day—which, as far as she knew, they most certainly did not. Maybe he wasn’t such a stickler for propriety, despite his tailored appearance. He looked around. “No trunk or other cases, Nurse Landway?”

And there it was. Ida had spent the past years on Camp Jackson, an army encampment where fine frocks and other such things hardly made an appearance. As such, she’d almost forgotten her “low station,” as Mama surely would have put it. Those who came from the backwoods of West Virginia were not counted among society’s “young ladies of quality.” The truth was she didn’t have trunks of dresses as one might expect of a Charleston lady. She’d gone on scholarship to nursing school, which meant she’d done very well for herself by West Virginia standards, but still fell far short of South Carolina’s social elite.

Ida shrugged. “No, just these.” She forced confidence into her voice, although the answer felt woefully insufficient.

“Excellent.” Dr. Parker nodded and turned through the gate.

Excellent? Dr. Parker, of the impeccable suit and starched collar, found her paltry wardrobe excellent? “I beg your pardon?”

Dr. Parker set the cases down inside the compound, then pulled the gate shut with a resolute thunk and twisted the key. “I requested an army nurse for a specific reason, Miss Landway.” He picked up the cases and began walking on ahead at a brisk pace, clearly expecting her to follow. “We’ve our fill of finery with the ladies’ guilds and other such volunteers.” Ida had to nearly trot—and Gitch had to practically run—to keep up with the tall man’s stride. “I attend more philanthropic balls and charity socials than I can stand—for the good of the Home, of course,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way down the cracked sidewalk toward the largest of the buildings. “But I assure you what this institution needs more than anything else is good, practical help. I need a nurse more preoccupied with basic health than the state of her petticoat.”

He went on speaking, but Ida found herself staring at the saddest little collection of hydrangea she had ever seen. She wasn’t much of a gardener—although she loved to paint flowers almost as much as she loved to sketch faces—but even Ida knew the plants to be capable of stunning colors when tended correctly. The balls of blossoms looked to Ida like the rest of the orphan home compound: capable of color yet sadly lacking.

“Nurse Landway?” The doctor’s irritated tone pulled Ida from her thoughts. She looked up to find him staring at her from a good ten paces away. Gitch stood baffled in the middle of them, her blue eyes darting back and forth between the two adults. She had a “don’t mess with Dr. Parker” warning in her eyes that was far too old for her tender years.

“My apologies, Dr. Parker.” Ida quickened her steps to catch up with the doctor. As she reached Gitch, the girl grabbed Ida’s hand and tugged her along as if it were Ida who needed supervision rather than the orphan girl. “I was merely wondering who tends your gardens here at the Home.”

“You’ll meet our groundsman, Mr. MacNeil, later. The facilities are his charge, and it is no small task, I assure you.”

Gitch tugged on Ida’s arm. “Mrs. Leonard kept the flowers, only not so much as she got sick. Mr. MacNeil fixes things, but he ain’t much for flowers and such.”

“Isn’t much,” Dr. Parker corrected as he walked on. “Mind your grammar.”

Gitch rolled her eyes with such classic childhood weariness that Ida could only chuckle. She leaned down to the girl. “I ain’t much for grammar, neither.”

Gitch’s formerly narrowed eyes popped wide in shock, then she swallowed a giggle. Ida held a finger to her lips, smiled and offered Gitch a wide, wild wink. Well, at least she seemed to have one young ally at the Parker Home for Orphans. As for Dr. Parker, only God knew if he was friend or foe.

* * *

Daniel placed the two—thankfully light—cases down at the entrance of his office, genuinely puzzled. Camp Jackson had assured him Nurse Landway was practical, hearty and generally well suited for the endless job of keeping so many children fit. “Hearty and practical” suggested a stout, older female much like the late Mrs. Leonard. What stood before him was a slender, curvy peacock of a woman with wide, brilliant eyes, unruly hair and evidently not much focus.

He watched Miss Landway say goodbye to the Martin girl as if the child was Queen of England. Holding out a formal hand, Nurse Landway dropped a curtsy worthy of the stage and declared, “Fare thee well, Lady Gwendolyn. I look forward to our next meeting—grammar and all.”

Fare thee well, Lady Gwendolyn? Daniel shut his open mouth and waited for little Miss Martin to explode in protest to the use of her full name. She always did. Why the child hated her given name so, he could never work out. Nor could he bring himself to refer to her as anything so crass sounding as “Gitch,” keeping to “Miss Martin,” or avoiding calling her by name altogether. To his shock, the child only smiled and—most surprising of all—attempted a curtsy of her own. Nearly falling over, she erupted in a flurry of giggles and a “Bye, y’all” called over her tiny shoulder as she tumbled from the room.

Miss Landway stared after her, laughing. “Oh, she’s delightful.” She turned to look at Daniel. “Are they all like that?”

Daniel tucked his astonishment back down inside as he motioned her to take a seat at the chair in front of his desk. “Like what, exactly?”

She cocked her head so far to one side that a curl bobbed over her raised brows. “Such contradictions—pale, sullen, then suddenly friendly. I was worried they’d all be grim, given the troubles they’ve had.”

“They’re children, Miss Landway, not soldiers. Many of them are sullen, as you put it. Withdrawn. Others are cheerful, despite coming from some dreadful situations. Many of them haven’t had a dependable home or meal until they came here.”

“That’s just wrong, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He’d forgotten a grown woman could pout as easily as any youngster. “Children shouldn’t know so much sadness. Children ought to have mamas and papas, don’t you think?”

A wiggling tendril of doubt over this recent hiring grew stronger in Daniel’s chest. He steepled his hands. “Children ought to have a lot of things the war took from them. Surely your work at Camp Jackson gave you some preparation for situations like theirs.”

She looked out the door that Gwendolyn—he used the name in his head now that she’d permitted it—had exited. “I’m no stranger to a sorry tale, Dr. Parker. I’ve seen some sad, lost souls come back from the war inside bodies that barely held their skin on.” She returned her gaze to Daniel, pointedly meeting his eyes. “Only it seems a double sorrow to bear so much at a young age.” Miss Landway made a dramatic gesture of clasping her hands and planting them in her lap. Miss Landway was fond of dramatic gestures, it seemed. “I want to help.”

Daniel couldn’t decide if her enthusiasm stood any chance of holding. There were days when the demands of the Home nearly drowned his spirits. So much was out of reach for these youngsters. Starting life with so many strikes against them sometimes loomed like the largest of hurdles; a burden that pressed against his ribs so hard some nights, he had trouble catching his breath. “Excellent.” The last two nurses had left after a handful of weeks, and Daniel needed this one to stay.

Donna Forley, one of the oldest girls in the Home who often helped out around the office, poked her head into the door. “You asked for me, Dr. Parker?”

“Miss Forley, I’d like you to meet Nurse Landway. Can you show her to her rooms?”

Miss Landway stopped midhandshake to blink at Daniel. “Rooms?”

“You were expecting an army pup tent?” Daniel could not remember the last time he’d cracked anything close to a joke. Why had he chosen such an inappropriate time to start?

“Well, I’m just astonished, that’s all. It’s been a long time since I’ve had rooms. As in plural—to mind my grammar. The army’s not known for generosity in lodgings, you understand.”

Daniel tucked his hands in his vest pockets. “You have a suite of three rooms on the first floor of the girls’ dormitory.”

Her hand swept grandly to her chest, and the wiggling in Daniel’s own chest returned. “Three!” she pronounced. “A veritable embarrassment of riches. I’ll get lost.”

Donna launched a wave of teenage giggles at the jest. Giggling. Was he to be surrounded by giggling from here on in? “I highly doubt that. They are small rooms, I assure you. But I can promise you the luxury of a private bath.”

“A private bath. I swoon at the very thought.” She struck a pose that sent Donna into another round of tittering.

Daniel swallowed his sigh. “All the same, dinner is at five thirty in the dining hall. You can meet the rest of the children then, although I suspect Miss Martin will have told half of them about you already.”

“Gitch has a big mouth,” Donna confided.

“Well then, she’s my kind of gal. I like conversation, and lots of it.”

Daniel took a breath to ask Donna to help with Miss Landway’s cases, but the nurse had already plucked the pair of them off the floor. She squared her shoulders at the teen before he could get a word out and commanded, “Lead on, my dear Miss Forley.” The pair of them marched from the room, bright as sunshine and chattering already.

However had the army managed the likes of Ida Lee Landway? More to the point, how would he?

Chapter Two

Ida took a small bit of time to explore the Home as she made her way to the dining hall for her first dinner. Her few visits to Charleston had shown her that the Home’s buildings were ordinary by the city’s standards: three stories high with a few of the requisite columns and shutters framing the windows. Still, the compound held none of the ornamental grace for which Charleston’s buildings and residences were famous.

The front entrance led into the center wing of the U-shaped main building. This segment housed a half-dozen classrooms on the upper floors, while what few offices there were shared the main floor with the dining hall. On one end of the main wing sat Dr. Parker’s office and a small receiving parlor. Ida presumed his living quarters sat beyond the French doors at the far end of that parlor, but didn’t dare investigate. On the other end of the wing sat a library and a common study room. Her infirmary was just around the corner from the library, at the beginning of the girls’ residential wing. The boys’ wing sat sensibly on the other side of the main building.

It was the thing that struck her most: the sheer sensibility of the place. The overwhelming practical, even institutional feeling of the whole structure. It felt off, wrong somehow. Too sensible. For someone coming from an atmosphere of the highly practical US Army, well, that was saying something.

She ventured out to explore the courtyard formed by the U of the buildings. A tidy, functional little play yard sat with swings, a teeter-totter, groups of benches and other diversions shaded by a large tree. True to Gitch’s word, there were also small plots that looked as if they had once been flower beds. She’d enjoy having flowers to look at again if the gardens could be coaxed back into life—sandy, scraggly Camp Jackson wasn’t ever known for its pleasant landscaping.

Knowing all the children were gathering for supper, Ida crossed the courtyard into the boys’ wing, which was a predictable mirror of the girls’ wing. She found an outward-facing window, and peering through it, found the side gate she should have used this morning. To her left, at the boys’ end of the common buildings, she saw what was likely the kitchen, for there were pots and shelving and washtubs outside as well as another neglected garden—this one looking more as if it had hosted vegetables rather than flowers. The clang of pots and pans and the smell of what might have been bread met her senses and reminded her she’d not had much of a lunch.

To her right was the back of the compound, where several outbuildings of various sizes stood. A garden shed, a storage shed and a third building Ida guessed to be the bathhouses. A friend had told her about the Home’s most unusual “luxury”: a set of small square bathing pools under gazebo-like roofs. Given that the children couldn’t easily be shipped off to the cooler beach or up into the dryer mountains, they seemed an unusual but practical way to battle the hot, humid days that made a low-country summer such torture.

Beyond all these lay the wrought iron fence that enclosed the entire Home. Simply put, Ida didn’t like it. Wrought iron fences could be beautiful—delicate, even—but this was hardly either of those things. It was a useful fence. Actually, if Ida were to put an adjective on the thing, she’d have chosen mean.

Not that the Parker Home for Orphans was an unpleasant place. Ida found she could be thankful for the small comforts and luxurious sense of space her quarters now had. Compared with the army, it was downright palatial. Three rooms, all to herself!

Still, the place wasn’t what she had been expecting. The feel of the whole compound simply stumped her, and she couldn’t work out why. All she could put a name to was a low, constant thrum in her stomach that it could be so much more.

A clue to her impression came to her as she came up on what had to be the dining room by sheer virtue of location, though definitely not by atmosphere. It was the quiet of the place that unnerved her.

Ida had found army mess halls to be loud affairs, and had expected dinner at the Home to be just as earsplitting, if not more. These were children, after all, and even her limited experience had taught her that young ones were noisy critters. Right now, the only thing that met her ears as she walked down the hallway toward the dining hall was an unnatural quiet. Children? Over fifty of them? This quiet? Ida had never known such a thing in all her days.

She turned the corner to view row upon row of noiseless children hunched over tin plates. A young boy gasped out a “Huh?” at her appearance, followed by a wave of swiveling heads. One would have thought these children had never seen a nurse before. Some of their mouths gaped, midchew, the youngsters astonished beyond whatever meager manners they possessed. Fond as she was of attention, Ida wasn’t accustomed to being such a cause of amazement. Whatever friendly greeting she’d rehearsed to give upon entering left her mind with the “whoosh” of pivoting heads.

“It’s her!” Gitch chirped, standing so quickly to shoot a waving hand in the air that it knocked a fork to the ground. The clatter rang like a fire bell in the quiet hall. Ida waved back, glad for a friendly face, only to watch an older child yank Gitch back down onto the bench and produce a “Shh!” nearly as blaring as the fork.

“Nurse Landway.” Dr. Parker’s voice came from where he’d obviously been waiting at the other end of the room, producing an equally massive wave of turning heads in his direction. Ida had the ludicrous thought that, were they to attempt a conversation like this, someone might end up seasick. “Children, please say hello to our new nurse.”

The “Hello” Ida received rang so hollow and obligatory that her insides echoed like an empty canyon. A gulp fought its way up her throat, and she stifled the urge to turn right around and repack her bags. It was the one voice, Gitch’s delightfully loud “Howdy!”—resulting in another yank back down onto the bench—that tugged Ida farther into the room instead.

They were like little soldiers. Sad, drab little soldiers lined up in unhappy rows too much like the rows of beds in Camp Jackson’s rehabilitation wards. Ida had expected sadness, had anticipated unhappy little frowns, but nothing on the order that faced her at this moment. She folded her hands in front of her, suddenly wishing she had a chair or railing beside her to clasp. “Hello, children.” She hated the lifelessness in her voice, but it was as if the room tamped down joy upon contact.

“Please come and join us in the staff dining room,” Dr. Parker said, motioning to the door behind him. They didn’t eat with the children? That made some sense if the children were noisy, but they clearly weren’t.

As she walked down the dining hall’s center aisle, Ida’s feet seemed to grow shoes of stone as every eye followed her. At Camp Jackson, such an entrance—a nearly bridal-aisle walk down the center of a room—would produce a flurry of whispered commentary. As a woman amid hundreds of lonely soldiers, Ida was no stranger to turning heads and loud, often ill-mannered commentary. Truth be told, she rather enjoyed such attention. It showed that the men were aware of and engaged in the world around them, a far preferable outcome to soldiers who closed themselves off after the horror of battle. Here, the quiet settled hard and hollow in Ida’s stomach.

Dr. Parker shut the French doors of the staff dining room behind him and pulled a chair out for her at a small oval table. Three other adults were already seated, but the two men rose at her entrance. “May I present Mr. Arthur MacNeil, who keeps things in running order around here.”

“It’s a pleasure to see a new face around here, lassie.” A red-haired man bulging out of his suspenders offered a friendly nod. His congenial features arranged themselves around a bushy ginger mustache. Narrow gray eyes framed in wrinkles gave him the look of an overworked but kindhearted soul. He looked to Ida like a man who would offer assistance in a tight spot but grumble about it endlessly afterward.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. MacNeil.” Ida hoped her wide smile would gain her access to whatever gardening information the man had accumulated over the years.

“And this is Mrs. Jane Smiley, who serves as our girls’ schoolmistress.” Dr. Parker gestured toward a lady with a surprisingly angled face. How Mrs. Smiley, who had such a happy name and such a jolly plump build, managed to have such pinched, hard features was beyond Ida’s reckoning. She looked as though she ruled her classrooms with an iron fist.

“Good evening,” Mrs. Smiley said, allowing Ida to discover the woman’s voice was as sharp as her nose.

“Hello, Mrs. Smiley. How do you do?”

The woman offered no answer—and certainly no smile. Ida made an immediate mental note never to cross the fierce Mrs. Smiley.

“And finally, may I present Fritz Grimshaw, who serves as the boys’ schoolmaster.”

“Miss Landway, welcome to our facility.” Ida craned her head to meet an astoundingly tall man’s eyes. Long and thin, he resembled a tree with large, blinking eyes that peered over bottle-glass spectacles. She couldn’t hope to guess his age, for he seemed both young and old at the same time. While he didn’t seem to possess the authority Ida thought his position might require, she couldn’t help but wonder if Mr. Grimshaw’s sheer height allowed him to keep a large group of rambunctious boys in line. One could never hope to outrun legs so long.

“Thank you,” Ida said, feeling as though she were addressing the chandelier. While she was pleased Grimshaw had said “welcome,” she was equally displeased that he referred to the place as “our facility.” Facility? The clinical term matched the clinical decor. Even coming from the monochromatic army world, Ida found the lack of color in the Parker Home for Orphans nearly suffocating. First thing tomorrow she was going to write her dear friend Leanne and beg her assistance in finding some cheery curtains for her “suite” of rooms.

Parker took his place at the head of the table, at which point everyone sat. “Let us give thanks.”

Ida gave a sigh of relief. Table grace had always been a particular comfort to her, and she was glad to know the practice was in place at the Parker Home. She folded her hands and lowered her head, curious to hear the doctor’s deep voice in prayer.

“Bless us, O Lord, for these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Ida had never heard such dear words uttered with such a complete lack of emotion. In truth, the doctor’s grace was as hollow as the children’s greeting. He did mean the words—there was no doubt about that—but she could hardly guess if he felt them at all.

“There were times at Camp Jackson when table grace was a test of faith,” she offered, smiling at her new colleagues as she draped the dull gray napkin on her lap. “Army food isn’t always worthy of much thanks, you can imagine.”

No one laughed.

It was going to be a long meal. Gracious, it was likely to be a long year.

* * *

Daniel watched his mother’s ringed finger tap against the rim of her tea glass. He’d learned it as a sure sign of her irritation. It was a suffocating Tuesday afternoon, and she blamed her slow movements on the season’s wretched heat. He could hardly blame her for that. As immune as he often was to the humidity, today it bothered even him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as gently as he could. “That ache bothering you again?”

She shooed away the question with a flap of her hand and a muttered, “Pshaw, Daniel, don’t you start. I am old and it’s a steam bath out this afternoon. I should be in the mountains.”

He refused to reengage in that battle. He’d given Mother endless permission to go, but had been just as persistent in his unwillingness to go with her. He was needed here. Instead, Daniel changed the subject. “The new nurse arrived yesterday.”

Mother’s eyebrows shot up. “Did she? The one from Camp Jackson?”

“Yes. Miss Ida Lee Landway.” The sight of Miss Landway peering through the Home’s front gate came back from his memory. He’d expected someone so much more sensible looking. Ida Landway struck him as a barely contained whirlwind.

“A war nurse.” Mother waved her hand in front of her face as if to fend off the unpleasant thought. “To tend to children. Whatever got into your head?”

Daniel sipped his coffee rather than reply.

“Why do you drink that dreadful coffee in this heat?” His mother had always accused him of preferring coffee simply to irritate her tea service. He could never truly dispute the theory.

“You know I dislike tea. Hot coffee makes me feel cooler by comparison.” It was a trick told to him by a schoolmate who had summered in Turkey. While it had some scientific basis, today it sounded like a childish prank when repeated to his mother. How had Ida Lee Landway become the least unpleasant choice of conversation topics? “And as for Miss Landway, we needed someone sensible and...stout hearted.” It was a terrible choice of phrase. Sensible and stout hearted were the last adjectives he felt could apply to Miss Landway—though he hoped and prayed he was wrong. The orphanage couldn’t bear a third vacancy lightly.

“Heavens, Daniel, you sound as if you were buying a mule, not hiring a nurse for children.” He watched her shift weight gingerly off one hip.

“With the war over, Camp Jackson is the best source of experienced nurses. We tried hiring ones fresh out of school, and you know what happened.”

Mother snapped her fan open. “I can’t believe Charleston has no other fine nurses.”

“There are plenty of fine nurses, Mother.” Daniel set his cup back down on the rattan table between them. “Just not many willing to work for what the orphanage can pay. I stand by my choice.”

“March over and tell Buxton Eckersall you need more donations.” Mother threw a scowl in the direction of the Eckersalls’ impressive house just down the street. According to Mother, she’d been over there yesterday pleading the orphanage’s case. “They lost no boys in the war. I’d expect them to show a little more gratitude.”

“I take it the Eckersalls didn’t...”

“They did, but not nearly what they ought to have,” she said, cutting him off. “It was all I could do not to be offended. And now we’re resorting to army nurses.” She made it sound like the most drastic of choices, sniffing a final proclamation of annoyance in the Eckersalls’ direction. “I’d expected more of Lydia Eckersall, really.”

Mother expected more of everyone. She had good reason. There was a time—back before the war changed so much—when a single direct glare from Amelia Parker could move societal mountains. “The Parkers are a force to be reckoned with,” Father would always say when Mother had achieved one of her social victories. The name still commanded—and demanded—respect, but not on the scale it once had.

“The war has ground down many fortunes.” Daniel sighed. It was what he always told himself to ease the sting of shrinking donations. All while the mountain of need continued to grow.

“Well, not his,” Mother nearly hissed. “All the more reason to show some kindness to the unfortunate, I said.” Daniel huffed, and she turned to look at him, her eyes softening. He held her gaze until she backed down. “Well, of course I didn’t actually say that, but I tell you the thought hung in my mind. You should go over there and make him see why he of all people should contribute more.”

Difficult as she was, it was hard to stay annoyed with his mother. For years, Amelia Parker had nearly single-handedly funded the causes of her choice, bending the pockets of Charleston society to her will in the name of any number of philanthropies. His father had been named chairman of the war-bond effort not so much for his persuasive skills as for his wife’s. But the orphanage had always been their special project—the one to which they had given their name, and their direct supervision. Daniel’s mother felt charity to be her God-given gift, and she wielded it with a boldness the Lord Himself surely admired. Her stories from after the War Between the States, her tales of generosity to friend and foe alike, were the foundation of his faith, shaky as it was.

Only it seemed as if those rules of Southern culture were shifting without this generation’s permission. Mother couldn’t fathom that the playing field had so shifted, and every time her application of social pressure failed to achieve desired results, she would command, “You go over there and make him see.”

“I will,” Daniel conceded, returning to his coffee. And he likely would. He could leave no stone unturned, no pocket unbeseeched, in the name of the Home. For the Home was his “gift,” a yoke settled on his shoulders by both earthly and heavenly fathers. His earthly father had since joined his heavenly one, leaving Daniel to run the Home and its ever-growing operations. “Only I doubt I’ll have better results.”

Mother folded the fan shut and pointed it at Daniel. “A Parker prevails, always.” She invoked the family motto whenever Daniel expressed doubts as to his ability to call forth charity out of thin air as his parents once did.

He had begun to wonder if the adage had crumbled with Charleston’s other traditions.

Chapter Three

By Wednesday morning, Ida had settled in sufficiently to launch a thorough examination of her new infirmary. It was a small, tidy place, brighter than the rest of the facility thanks to the traditional white of the furnishings. A wall of cabinets and a small desk, as well as three chairs and a meager examining table, completed the room. Ida had spent the past hour peering into cabinets and opening drawers, stopping far too often to wrangle her hair back into place.

She’d been here not even two full days and already the humidity had wound her curls into a bird’s nest. Wasn’t it supposed to be cooler by the sea? Either it was the humidity or the closed-in feeling of these buildings, but Charleston seemed to be poaching her composure. Not to mention the woeful lack of supplies—if there was one thing the army had been, it was well stocked. Not so here. Counting far too few rolls of bandages, Ida blew out an irritated breath.

“Something not to your liking, Miss Landway?”

She startled, banging her head on the cabinet. Hard. The blow sent her backward into her desk chair, nearly toppling furniture and nurse over in an undignified heap.

“Don’t you knock?” she snapped, head stinging. Ida looked up, cringing in recognition as her eyes met the owner of that voice. “Pardon me, Dr. Parker, I hadn’t meant to be so direct. You startled me.”

“The door was already ajar. And somehow I think you always mean to be so direct.”

Ida grabbed the chair arm, seeing stars. “It seems I can’t find enough open doors and windows in this heat. And what’s that supposed to mean about being direct?”

Dr. Parker pushed the infirmary door farther ajar and peered at her. “You’re bleeding.”

Ida reached a hand up to her hairline only to feel a wet warmth that confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis. “Your cabinet has teeth.” She went to walk toward the cabinet, but found rising to be a rather painful enterprise.

“Sit back down,” Dr. Parker ordered, motioning her into the chair. “I am a doctor, you know.”

“Why Dr. Parker, that could almost be called a joke.” Ida sucked in a breath as a change of expression sent a stinging pain through her forehead.

“Despite what you may have heard, I do possess a minute portion of bedside manner.” He reached into the predatory cabinet and handed back a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of bandages.

Ida took them gingerly. “I’d have preferred to discover your lighter side under more dignified circumstances.”

He turned and narrowed his eyes at her forehead. “Let’s hope you don’t need to discover my skill with sutures, shall we?” He made an odd motion toward his own head with his hands.

She cocked her head at the gesture, an unfortunate choice since it sent sparks of pain flying across her hairline. Furrowing her brow against the ache only made things worse.

Dr. Parker made the motion again, then finally rolled his eyes. “Your hair, Miss Landway. You’ll need to move it out of the way.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Ida slipped off her nurse’s cap and went to smooth her hair back—only to be rewarded with bloody fingers and an additional stab of pain. “My stars, but that smarts.”

Dr. Parker unrolled a swath of bandage, snipped it from the roll and handed it to her. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to apply gentle pressure.”

“No need to tell me to be nice to my own noggin. Not when it hurts like this.” She gave the cabinet an angry look. “What in blazes bit me in there?”

Dr. Parker must have been wondering the same thing, for he was already running his hand around the corner of the shelf. “This. There’s a nail that’s come loose from the hinge.” He returned his gaze to her. “I don’t think it’s cut too deep or you’d be bleeding more than you are. You’ll be spared my stitchery, I suspect, but I’ll send MacNeil in here immediately to take care of this cabinet.” He leaned against the small desk. “Let’s have a look.”

Looking up at him, Ida felt small. She’d tended everything from sergeants to generals and never felt ill at ease, but Daniel Parker made her jittery. Yes, he was her superior, but that didn’t explain the discomfort that always walked into a room ahead of him. “I’m sure I’m fine.”

“Did you know,” Dr. Parker said as he peeled her hand away from the bandage and lifted it himself, “one of the first things they told me in medical school was that when a patient insists he’s fine, he seldom is.”

“I’m not a patient, I’m a nurse.” He was close enough that she could smell the soap on his hands. She could see the spot on his cheek where he’d nicked himself shaving this morning. She closed her eyes, mentally putting a dozen miles between them before her head chose to resume swimming.

“At present, you’re a patient. And a difficult one, were I asked to categorize.”

Ida heard him unscrew the top of the disinfectant bottle. “You’re about to douse me with that horrid stinging stuff and I’m the difficult one?”

He gave a low laugh. The sound surprised her, popping her eyes open despite her best intentions. He was way too close. She squinted them shut again. “Chin up, Miss Landway.” He’d applied his “doctor voice,” the one she knew every medical professional employed when about to do something that would cause pain. “This will only hurt for a moment.”

“If you think I—” A hiss of pain cut off the rest of her thought as the disinfectant found its target. If she hadn’t been seeing stars before, she saw a whole constellation now. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers... I’d forgotten how much that smarts.”

She felt Dr. Parker’s hand take hers and guide it up to hold the gauze in place. He had a doctor’s touch—precise, firm and yet a bit tentative. Theirs wasn’t the classic doctor-patient relationship—at least not in this case—and his touch told her he felt as uncomfortable as she did. In a moment or two she opened her eyes to see him leaning against the table, putting the cap back on the disinfectant, wearing the echo of a grin. Not a full smile, mind you, just the echo of one.

Ida lowered her good brow. “You enjoyed that.”

“On the contrary. I’m merely glad you didn’t cry. A good many of my patients end up in tears around here, so I’m grateful when I get the chance to tend to an adult.” He set the bottle down. “Genesis?”

“A trick I learned at Camp Jackson. Keeping a patient speaking helps prevent them from tensing up in pain. Some of those boys had to endure me pulling up bandages day after day, so I’d cue them if they didn’t know their books of the Bible. Opened up a lot of conversation about the topic, too.”

“Are you in the habit of conversing on the nature of your patients’ souls?”

Ida couldn’t tell if Dr. Parker considered that a good thing. “Only when the Good Lord opens the door. I’d understood this to be a Christian institution.”

“It is, but the army is not.”

“Dr. Parker, you’d be amazed how much a man wants to talk about his soul if he thinks he’s dying. Or ought to have died. I’ll tell you, God is more in that army hospital than lots of churches.” Parker shook his head as if he didn’t know how to respond. Now that her head felt a tad clearer, Ida thought it might be time to stand her ground. “Is this a Christian institution, Dr. Parker? Does God live here at the Parker Home for Orphans?”

She took some comfort in the fact that Dr. Parker thought for a moment before answering. She didn’t want some rote response to a question like that. Finally, he said, “I’d like to think He does, yes.” After a second he added, “That’s a rather bold question for someone who has been here two days. Why did you feel the need to ask it?”

You’ve opened the door, Lord, I’m walking through it. “Because—” she dabbed one last time before taking the bandage from her brow “—were that the case, I’d think this place would have more joy in it.”

That brought a gruff laugh from the doctor. “You’re expecting joy—from displaced orphans?”

“Dr. Parker, I expect joy from everyone. I believe in joy. I thrive on it. And yes, I’ve only been here two days, but I tell you this place is more dull gray than the army was drab green. Seems to me children are naturally happy, noisy, joyful creatures. I know they’ve seen hard times, but that ought not to knock all that happiness out of them. And if that has happened, I think maybe it’s our job to give that joy back to them. So far I haven’t seen that. I hope you don’t mind my saying you could knock me over with the quiet in this place.”

Dr. Parker tugged on his vest. “You are not shy with your opinions, are you?”

Ida shrugged. “I’m not shy, period. If I’ve got something to say, I’m going to say it—provided it’s worth saying, that is.”

She waited for him to reprimand her for her tongue—it had happened often enough at Camp Jackson—but he stroked his chin with eyes narrowed in consideration. “I think you have much to learn about troubled children. And I suspect your assessment of what’s ‘worth saying’ might differ greatly from mine.”

Ida folded her hands in her lap. Mama always said she let her mouth run ahead of her sense.

“But I do wonder if we couldn’t use a dose of positive thinking around here.”

Ida looked up, feeling the first sparkles of hope light in her chest.

“You’re welcome to share your opinions, but I will ask that you do me the courtesy of sharing them with me and not with the other staff. I should like to temper your...shall we say, enthusiasm...with a bit of experience and practicality. I’d like to think I am in charge for a good reason.”

Ida nodded. “You are in charge, Doctor. If the army’s taught me anything, it’s how to take orders.” It wasn’t really a fib, though it was unquestionably an exaggeration. She’d been written up for doing just the opposite more times than she cared to count. But she’d been working on it—and praying on it—and would continue to do so.

“See you mind that cut for the next day or two. And stay away from Louie Oberman until you’re sure it won’t bleed again. The poor child vomits at even a drop of blood.”

* * *

MacNeil knocked on Daniel’s study door that afternoon. “I fixed the infirmary cabinet like you asked. Found one or two other loose nails and fixed them, too.” The groundskeeper wiped his hands on his trousers. “You mind telling me what she was doing poking her head into that cabinet?”

It had been an amusing scene to walk past the infirmary and see the profile of Miss Landway bent over with her head in the cabinets. “I expect our new nurse likes to poke her head into everything.” He chose his description carefully. “She seems more...enthusiastic than I was expecting.”

MacNeil smiled. “She’s a bit of life in her, to be sure. Not a bad thing, all around. Different from the others, though.”

“That’s what I’m hoping. We need this one to stay.”

MacNeil nodded. “Aye, we do. I wasn’t much for the last one, if you don’t mind my saying. She looked afraid of everything, and little ones pick right up on such things.”

The last nurse had indeed been a disaster. A frail, delicate woman who seemed astonished by every bump and bruise. She looked far more suited to a nanny’s job than to nursing fifty-eight children’s daily scrapes and ill stomachs. It’s exactly why he had turned to the army, thinking an army nurse would have the stalwart constitution to take on whatever harm the children encountered. “Miss Landway doesn’t strike me as afraid of anything.”

“We’re no battlefield. It can’t be that hard for her to tend to this lot.”

“I’d say we have a rather good safety record for the number of children and the age of our facilities. I owe a lot of that to you.” He did. MacNeil was a master of repairs, cobbling together old parts and generally working wonders with precious little funding. “I can’t think of anyone we depend on more than you.”

MacNeil flushed. “Don’t let Grimshaw be hearing you say that. Or worse yet, Mrs. Smiley.” He leaned in. “It’s my opinion Smiley thinks she’s second in command.”

“Nonsense,” Daniel replied with a smile, “you are.”

This sent MacNeil into a gush of laughter. “I don’t know why everyone says you’re such a serious lot. I find you funny. Smart, yes, but you can make your share of jokes when it suits you.”

“Only with you.”

“Well, I’ll be making no jokes with the kitchen drains this afternoon. We got one working fine enough, but the other one’s giving me fits. I might need to buy some new parts.” He delivered that last line with the air of bad news. It was—the Home had endured a run of failing equipment in the past month, and the budgets were stretched already.

“Parkers prevail, MacNeil. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

MacNeil nodded as he turned toward the door. “You always do, sir. You always do.”

Chapter Four

Ida sat on the side of her precious private bathtub Friday evening and gingerly toweled her hair. My, but a cool bath did wonders to ease the tightness of a hot Charleston day. She’d been at the Home all of five days, and had discovered that by supper she felt so sticky and tired it was a challenge to converse with the other staff at all. Maybe that’s why the children were so quiet at supper—perhaps the days sapped their energy, as well. But they were hardly more boisterous at breakfast. No matter what the reason, Ida just hated to think that life had beaten the joy out of so many children all at once.

She walked into her bedroom, glad again to catch sight of the cheery yellow curtains her friend Leanne had delivered this morning. Leanne Gallows had been her roommate at Camp Jackson, and the two had fast become dear friends as well as colleagues. Leanne had met her new husband, Captain John Gallows, at the camp in a whirlwind wartime romance with the happiest of endings. John and Leanne lived in Charleston for now, but would soon be heading up to Washington, DC to John’s new post in the diplomatic corps. It seemed a special grace that even when Leanne left, these bright yellow curtains would remain as a daily reminder. They brightened the room the same way Leanne’s friendship brightened Ida’s service in the long, difficult war.

The old curtains had been a horrid dark green, nearly as lifeless as the endless gray of every building wall. Today even the old red brick of the building exteriors seemed to boast more life than the dull walls inside. Where were the paintings? The drawings? The happy fixtures of a joyful home? How could children grow and thrive without color and light?

Ida let her hand run along the frilly yellow ruffles that now skimmed her windowsill. She couldn’t wait to watch the sunlight catch them tomorrow morning. Braiding her hair, Ida toured her three-room suite again, giddy at the luxury of so much space. Walking over to the bureau in her parlor—her heart bubbling Look at me, I have a parlor! for the tenth time as she did—Ida opened the bottom drawer, where she’d stowed her paints and charcoals. These new days at the Parker Home were like a feast for the quantity of fresh faces to draw. Even now her hand hovered over a set of sketching pencils, eager to capture that skeptical look in Donna Forley’s brown eyes or the sharp angles of Fritz Grimshaw’s brows.

Only one thing stopped her: the charcoal’s gray color. She couldn’t bear to bring one more drop of gray into this world—even with something as harmless as a sketching pencil. I’ve simply got to paint. Certainly there were a dozen tasks clamoring for her attention on her first free afternoon tomorrow, but none of them would be more satisfying than to paint. Just the thought of filling any blank canvas she could find with a festival of color lightened her spirits. Ida wanted to capture the gentle blue of Gitch’s mischievous gaze or the particular pink of Jane Smiley’s ears when she got mad.

Or the curious puzzle that was the color of Dr. Parker’s eyes. She’d never thought of a set of eyes as colorless before. Not that they were without hue, but they seemed to have no distinct shade. They were dark, surely, but even the darkest brown eyes had flecks of warmer tones in them. Dr. Parker’s seemed neither brown nor gray, and yet Ida knew they couldn’t be a true black, either. The artist in her longed to stare at them hard in good sunlight, to unlock the mystery of why she couldn’t see colors in those eyes.

Restless, Ida closed the drawer and returned to her bedroom windows. She opened them as wide as they would go, hoping to catch Charleston’s famed off-the-water evening breeze, but the night’s stillness prevailed. The heat was like a living thing here, pressing against one’s chest, pulling a soul down. Ida found she had to deliberately fight it, the same way a war nurse deliberately fought against sadness and despair. “Not even a foothold,” her nursing teacher would always say. “Mind your thoughts as much as you mind your sanitation, for both can infect with equal power.”

Guard my heart, Lord, Ida prayed as she slipped into bed, thinking even the thin sheet too much tonight. Already her night shift felt as if it were cementing itself to her arms. And if it’s not too much trouble, send a breeze.

An hour later, Ida turned over yet again, unable to get comfortable in the thick night air. No matter how much she needed sleep, it was nowhere to be found tonight. Her ability to nod off in even the worst of conditions had been a blessing at Camp Jackson—Ida couldn’t remember the last time she had trouble catching winks. “Fine!” she declared to the dark room, sitting up and reaching for the light. “Now what?”

She didn’t feel like reading. She’d already organized most of her things, and that sounded as if it would make too much noise anyhow. There wasn’t enough light to paint properly, and the black and white of sketching sounded entirely unappealing.

It wasn’t a breeze that the Good Lord sent, but an idea with just as much refreshment. Dashing to the bottom drawer of her bureau, Ida found her knitting needles. Leanne had taught her the craft at Camp Jackson, where many of the nurses worked in their free time to make socks for the thousands of soldiers who fought for freedom on tired, cold feet. Ida had become a competent knitter, even if the required soldier colors of navy, black and olive left much to be desired.

Now that the war was over, colored yarn had become one of life’s everyday luxuries. As a matter of fact, Ida was pretty sure she had just enough... “Aha!” she cried, as her hand found the small ball of bright pink yarn. It had been a gift from Leanne. A cheery bright pink was just the thing to lift her spirits.

Trouble was, the only thing Ida really knew how to make from memory were socks, and this ball wasn’t enough for a full-size pair, nor was it the proper thickness.

Unless the feet were very small. Surely, somewhere in all those children in all those sizes was a pair of feet tiny enough to fit whatever socks emerged from this yarn.

Grinning and wide awake, Ida peered at the ball and her needles, calculating if her memorized sock pattern could be adapted just enough to create a pair of small pink socks. “There’s only one way to find out,” Ida told the yarn in her hands. “I’m ready if you are, and it surely beats staring at the ceiling.”

Adjusting her lamp, Ida tucked herself into the chair by the window and began to knit.

* * *

Saturday morning had brought a drenching rain, a sweet relief to the choking heat that had pushed children and staff to the limits of their manners. While Daniel could always do without the mud puddles and the leak that invariably sprung in one roof or another, he was always grateful for the way a good “gully washer” could rinse the world fresh and clean. A smile found its way across his face as he walked in the welcome shade of the afternoon. Midsummer like this, rain perked up the plants around the grounds, coaxing out a few of the blooms that still graced the yards from the years when the property had been a grand estate. “The Home still has the bones of a great lady,” Mother was fond of saying, even though both women were showing their age. Time hadn’t been kind to either of them, and Daniel felt that sting more fiercely with every passing month.

“See how that makes a circle right there? How it meets that line from the other side?” He caught Miss Landway’s voice as he turned a corner toward the front of the compound.

“It’s just shapes?” a child’s voice, full of wonder, came in reply. Daniel slowed his steps, not wanting to intrude but still curious. He peered to his left to see Miss Landway seated on the stone bench by the front gate. She had a pair of girls on each side of her, more at her feet and a large pad of paper perched upright on her lap.

“Shapes and color. That’s how an artist sees the world.” She moved her hand over the paper, and Daniel shifted closer to improve his view. “Look at the gate and tell me what shape it is.”

“A rectungle,” one girl said. Miss Landway’s laugh chimed across the courtyard in reply.

“A rectangle, yes. Very good.” He watched her sketch out the shape in the center of her page. “But not just any old rectangle. What’s special about this one?”

“It’s got a moon on top,” Gwendolyn Martin, on the bench right next to Miss Landway, piped up as she pointed to the gate’s rounded arch.

The nurse’s smile was warm and bright as she nodded toward her seatmate. “Right you are, Gitch. The moon is also a shape, called an arch or a crescent, and if you plop that big old moon sideways on top of our rectangle—” she added the curve to the top of the drawing “—you get our gate.” Miss Landway spun the drawing around so that the girls at her feet could see, and a chorus of wide-eyed ooohs met her display. The part of him that worried how long the Parker Home could retain a nurse was happy to note she used the word our when she referred to the gate. Lord, You know I was looking for someone entirely different, but I’d still be grateful if this one actually stays. He could try to learn to see the world in colors and shapes if it meant she stayed here where she was most definitely needed.

As if she’d heard his thoughts, Miss Landway opened a tray of watercolors on her lap with a flourish and announced, “Now we’ve got to add the colors. Call out the ones you see.”

“The gate is black,” young Miss Martin offered.

“Only it’s got red and orange around the hinges and in spots on the side,” added another girl.

“The dirt is brown but the leaves are green,” another girl spoke up, pointing to the objects she named.

“But not the same color as those leaves over there,” came another comment. “Those are a different green.”

The children called out half a dozen colors and a few more shapes as they peered hard at the landscape before them. Miss Landway held up her pigments and had each girl match the color she saw with a color from the tray. For a woman who continually bemoaned the lack of color at the Home, she was wasting no time in digging up a palette right here. He stood and watched, fascinated, as she used each color to create a painting of the gate and the plants around it. Miss Landway had skill; the image was pleasant enough to hang in the staff dining room.

If only she had stopped there.

“The best thing about art,” she said once she’d finished with each child’s color, “is that we don’t just have to leave the world the way we found it. We can have more fun than that.”

Daniel felt his jaw go slack as Miss Landway dove into her palette and created a riot of hues around the gate. Under her enthusiastic brush, a full and wild garden sprung up around the gate on her paper. In a matter of minutes, two outrageously colored birds perched on the wall under a blinding yellow sun. A bright red house rose up beyond the gate whereas in real life only a dull gray shed stood on the other side of the street. Before she was finished, every inch of the paper was filled with motion and color until the canvas looked more like a tropical circus than the scene Daniel saw before her. When Miss Landway flipped the painting around to show the children, giggles and applause echoed across the courtyard along with her loud and musical laugh.

How had she done that? Daniel’s gaze flicked back and forth between the real-life gate and Miss Landway’s fantastical painting. It irked him that suddenly the Home’s serviceable but pleasant front gate now looked dull and dreary, even to him. He’d liked the gate just fine before, and ought to still like it now. He didn’t care for the funny, poke-in-the-ribs feeling Miss Landway’s artwork produced, nor did he care one bit for the sad dissatisfaction that filled the eyes of some of the children after a moment.

She didn’t realize what she had done. It would probably never occur to the plucky Miss Landway that she had just shown them a world they could never have, and left reality that much worse for the visit to a fantasy. How on earth was he to explain such a thing to the likes of Ida Lee Landway?

He walked over to the group, flipping his watch open as he came closer. Gwendolyn saw him first and stood up, a streak of fear in her eyes. They all looked as if he’d caught them doing something naughty, and that bothered him immensely. He took pains to soften his voice when he asked, “An art lesson, Miss Landway?”

“The girls wanted to watch me paint.”

“Our gate is a rectangle with a moon,” Gwendolyn pronounced. It bothered him that the little girl offered it like the grandest of compliments.

Miss Landway raised one eyebrow, a “what are you going to do with that?” gesture that made Daniel feel as if he were being tested. It should have been the other way around. Even ten minutes later, Daniel still hadn’t quite figured out how Miss Landway had turned the tables on him so that he walked away without uttering one word of the lecture on appropriate reality he had planned. An hour earlier, he had thought his biggest fear in regards to Miss Landway was the possibility that she would leave. Now he had a new fear entirely—that she would stay, and fill the children’s heads with dreams that were out of their reach.

His mother’s admonition echoed in his brain as he made his way back to his office, stumped and more than a little worried. “Be careful what you pray for—the Good Lord just might give it to you.”

Chapter Five

Daniel was just sitting down to enjoy his weekly indulgence of an hour’s quiet reading before Saturday supper when the sound of yelling reached his rooms. He put down his book and cocked his ear, listening. No, it wasn’t yelling, it was crying. Girls crying. Several girls crying. Something was most definitely amiss.

Ignoring his disappointment, Daniel pushed himself out of his chair and made for the door. The cries were coming from the dining hall, where Mrs. Smiley and the girls ought to be setting out the dishes for supper. Had someone cut themselves? Was one of the girls ill? He started walking in the direction of the noise, half expecting to be ambushed by one of the children or staff coming to get him, but he met no one on his way toward the torrent of girlish tears.

Of all the things Daniel steeled himself to see, a flock of angry girls slamming down tin plates in tearful fits was not on the list. No one seemed to be injured, but each of the five girls on supper table duty that afternoon was crying.

“I want some,” the youngest girl moaned as she slapped a napkin into place. “Why can’t we all have them?”

Daniel scanned the room for Mrs. Smiley, hoping for an explanation to the sea of unhappiness swirling before him. He found her, two tables away, having angry words with...with Ida Landway. While Mrs. Smiley was easy to irritate on a good day, Daniel was at a loss for what Miss Landway could have done to not only raise the ire of Mrs. Smiley, but each of these girls, as well.

Dodging past a sniffling nine-year-old brandishing a fistful of forks, Daniel made for the teacher. “Mrs. Smiley, what has gone on?”

Miss Landway’s eyes snapped up at the question, and Daniel could see the nurse was upset. It wasn’t surprising; despite her cheerful name, Mrs. Smiley’s tongue could curdle milk when she got angry—he’d had to have more than one conversation with the woman about keeping her temper under control. When the older woman turned, however, Daniel’s jaw slacked.

Baby Meredith Loeman, the youngest occupant of the Parker Home for Orphans at just over a year old, wiggled a pair of bright pink booties at him from Mrs. Smiley’s arms.

“I don’t suppose I need to explain it to you now,” Mrs. Smiley snapped.

As if to drive the point home, wails of “I want pink socks” and “Why can’t Nurse Landway knit me socks?” and “I hate my socks!” surged up behind him.

The only thing stronger than the matron’s glare was the look of stunned regret in Miss Landway’s eyes.

“She hasn’t got a lick of sense, this one.” Mrs. Smiley cast a disparaging glance in Miss Landway’s direction. “Giving a trinket like that in front of all the girls.” She scowled at Miss Landway. “What did you think would happen when you did such a thing?”

“I...I...” The nurse looked at him, her eyes wide and startled. “It’s just a pair of socks.”

Daniel swallowed a weary sigh. This was why gifts were such a tricky business at the orphanage. But before he could explain that to Miss Landway, he needed to calm down the children. “Girls,” he began in his best “let’s all be sensible” administrative voice, “y’all are already wearing socks. Perfectly fine socks.”

“Perfectly dreadful socks!” Little Mary Donelley could always be counted on for a dramatic interpretation. “They’re plain old white and mine has a hole in the heel.”

He walked toward Mrs. Smiley, trying hard not to be charmed by the chubby pink legs wiggling pink booties. Most women he knew would be cooing and tweaking such pink-booted toes. The handmade booties were adorable little things that would have made for a very welcome sight—were they anywhere else but an orphan home. Why? The “I want some!” whine from behind him served as a painful example. No wonder Mrs. Smiley was completely uncharmed by Meredith’s clear delight in her present—the poor old woman was likely to have a tiresome evening as a result of Miss Landway’s innocent little gift.

Daniel held his hand out. “I wonder if I could take a look at those.”

“Gladly.” Mrs. Smiley plucked them off Meredith’s feet with a huff so loud even Daniel almost winced. Miss Landway certainly looked as if the sound pierced her ribs.

Daniel pocketed the pink socks and nodded in Miss Landway’s direction. “Why don’t you and I have a cup of coffee in the other room? Mrs. Smiley and the girls can finish up in here.”

Once inside the staff dining room, Miss Landway pulled the door shut behind her with one hand while the other went over her eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”

She looked as if she might cry, and Daniel was surprised at how deeply her regret touched him. It wasn’t right how unfair this place could be to anyone trying to make a difference. Daniel remembered how the need to do something—anything—for these children had nearly drowned him in his first days at the orphanage. He’d given a sweet to one of the girls when she’d banged a finger and found himself amid a similar storm of “Why can’t I have one?” howls.

He searched for something soothing to say. “It was a generous and kind impulse, Miss Landway.”

She slumped down on one of the dining chairs, distressed. “I had no idea it would cause such a ruckus. I just wanted to put a bit of cheery color...”

“I believe your heart was in the right place.” Daniel moved to the sideboard and poured two cups of coffee. “You simply need to learn how to channel such impulses into things that benefit all the girls without singling out one.” He held up a cube of sugar in a silent inquiry, and she nodded, parking her chin on one hand. “It’s one of the most difficult things about working here, and one of the reasons I asked you to clear any ideas with me.”

“They’re just socks.” Her moan sounded as if it could have come from one of the girls.

Daniel set the cup and a small pitcher of cream down in front of the nurse. “No, they’re not. How can I get you to see that?”

Miss Landway dumped a generous portion of cream into her coffee. The woman did nothing by halves, he was beginning to see that. “So I can’t do anything for one of them, I have to only do things that can be done for all of them?” She made it sound dreadful.

“I think what just happened should make that obvious.” He collected his own coffee and sat opposite her.

“But they’re individuals. Each of them is unique. Their differences ought to be celebrated, not ignored by making sure everything they have is exactly the same.”

Daniel remembered that urge, and felt a tinge of regret that practicality had squelched it out of him so effectively. “In a perfect world, I’d agree, but...”

Her eyes sparked. “But nothing. Don’t you go telling me we don’t live in a perfect world. That’s a poor excuse for not letting a baby girl wear pink booties.”

She was going to take some breaking in, this one. “I’m not saying Meredith cannot wear booties. But she cannot be the only one wearing pink booties.” He fished the pink things out of his pocket. “Make them all booties, or socks, or whatever—I’ve no objections to gifts as long as every girl receives them.”

“It’ll take me months.” He noticed her phrasing. She would do it. He could see it in her eyes.

He didn’t know where she’d find the time—he didn’t know how she’d managed to make the pair he now placed on the table between them. “When did you make these?”

She took a long sip of coffee, which gave him a hint of the answer. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Once I got the idea, I couldn’t sleep until they were done. This place is starving for color, Dr. Parker. Can’t you see that? I just had to do something.” She reached out and fingered one of the small pink fluffs. “They made Meredith so happy.” Miss Landway looked up at him. “And they made all the other girls so miserable.”

He couldn’t help but offer her a smile. “In your defense, it doesn’t take much in this heat. The smallest thing can set them off. Even Mrs. Smiley can lose her delightful charm.” That last remark surprised him—Daniel hadn’t joked about Mrs. Smiley’s dour personality in months.

“She is quite the heavy hand,” Miss Landway replied with a sparkle returning to her eyes.

“She is very good at what she does. Her job is enormous. If you don’t realize that now, you will soon. I’m not so sure her firm hand isn’t absolutely necessary in order to get things done.” He picked up his own cup. “Surely an army nurse can grasp that.”

Miss Landway smirked. It wasn’t an expression Daniel often attributed to women, but it applied in this case. “Not this army nurse.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll find a way, you know.”

“A way to what?”

She nodded toward the door. “To shower those girls in a rainbow of colored socks. You just watch. My mama always said I could teach a mule how to be stubborn.”

Daniel believed it. “Really?”

“If I can give each girl socks in as many colors as I can, provided they all get the same number of socks, do I have your permission to do so?”

He didn’t see how this would help, but then again he didn’t see how he could say no. “Yes. But only if your regular duties do not suffer and only if the gifts are equal for all.”

Miss Landway stuck out her hand. “Dr. Parker, you have a deal.”

He found himself shaking her hand. The odd feeling in the pit of his stomach forced him to add, “Miss Landway, what will you do if the boys want socks, as well?”

It was a joke, but she didn’t take it as such. She gave his hand a comically forceful shake. “I’ll just knit faster, Dr. Parker.”

Land sakes if he didn’t believe her.

* * *

Dr. Parker had been right—a weekend started with such discontent quickly dissolved into a marathon of unpleasantness. Ida prayed hard during the Home’s simple Sunday church service that her impulsive gift wouldn’t do much harm, but the lack of classes seemed to allow the children extra time to acquire cuts and scrapes, sore stomachs and aching heads. This was an altogether different kind of nursing care. While the army had been a flood of dire needs, Ida found her current post to be a wearyingly steady drip of little grievances. It required a particular sort of endurance—and a mountain of grace.

She was just cleaning up after the third queasy tummy of the afternoon—a particular torment in this heat—when Ida heard a rap on her door. Mr. Grimshaw towered over a feisty-looking boy of about eight, clutching him by the elbow so hard the lad looked like a marionette strung up by a puppeteer. It wasn’t until Ida let her gaze fall from the dizzying height of Mr. Grimshaw’s face that she noticed the boy’s bloody knuckles.

“Oh my,” she said, reaching for a basin and cloth. “Only one way to get those.”

“I imagine you’ve dealt with a badly thrown punch or two in the army.” Mr. Grimshaw nearly hoisted the boy onto the examining table.

“Usually they come in pairs,” Ida replied, peering at the boy’s angry scowl. “Where’s the other one?”

“Jake Multon is down the hall with Dr. Parker,” Grimshaw replied.

“He’s hurt worse,” crowed the boy, obviously seeing himself as the victor in the scuffle. “I hope he has the shiner for a...ouch!”

Mr. Grimshaw had pinned the boy’s good arm with his spindly fingers. “That’s enough of that. You’ll both be sweating it out in the laundry room for a week if I have my say.”

Ida couldn’t help but groan right along with the boy. In this weather, she couldn’t think of a worse punishment than standing over enormous vats of hot water washing the orphanage’s endless stream of dirty linens. “Maybe not.”

That raised one of Grimshaw’s bushy dark eyebrows. “And why not?”

Ida poured water into the basin and pointed downward, instructing the boy to submerge his bloody knuckles. The resulting yelp answered Grimshaw’s inquiry more effectively than any explanation Ida could offer. “Pain aside, young Mr....”

“Loeman. Tony Loeman.” The boy hissed his name through gritted teeth.

“Young Mr. Loeman here will run the risk of infection until the broken skin heals. So unless he can man the laundry vats with one hand, you’ll need to find another way for him to pay his debt to society.” She handed a cake of soap to the boy. “Scrub when you can stand it. While you’re at it, how about you explain what brought this on. Or does Mr. Grimshaw already know?”

To Ida’s surprise, both teacher and student gained a look of embarrassed reluctance at the question. Their expressions connected the boy’s name in Ida’s memory, and she stepped back to park a hand on one hip. “No.”

“Jake was making fun of Merrie’s socks.”

“While I admire your efforts to defend your baby sister’s honor,” Grimshaw chided, “slugging Jake Multon was a poor way to go about it.”

Ida felt as if the world had spun into ridiculous cyclones around one small act of kindness. “It was just a pair of socks!” she declared, more to the whole world than to her present company. She frowned at the boy. “You threw a punch over a pair of baby booties?”

“He started it.”

Ida looked up at Mr. Grimshaw. “How do y’all survive Christmas?”

“It ain’t much fun, but...”

“Scrub!” Ida cut Tony off with the command. She was beginning to see why the Parker Home for Orphans had run through its share of nurses. At this rate, she’d be apologizing clear through to Easter. “Mr. Grimshaw, would you step outside with me for a moment?”

Grimshaw gave Loeman a look that would pin a tiger in its place and then reached clear across the room to open the infirmary door with ease. “Of course, Nurse Landway.”

Pulling the door shut, Ida kept one eye on Loeman through the glass as she peered up to the teacher. “I’m dreadfully sorry to have caused such a ruckus, Mr. Grimshaw. Believe me, I had no idea the trouble those booties would cause.”

Grimshaw blinked, his face splitting into a smile that looked somehow alarming on his lanky features. “I thought it rather cute, truly. Seems a shame how a spot of kindness gets so poorly repaid.”

Ida hadn’t expected his reaction. “Why thank you, Mr. Grimshaw. But it seems to me you are doing the paying.” She cast a glance at Loeman, now wincing as he gingerly swiped the cake of soap across his knuckles. It stung, no doubt about that, but keeping wounds clean was absolutely essential in this moist heat. “I hadn’t thought about there being siblings in here.”

Grimshaw’s features softened further. “Loeman’s one of the sadder cases, actually. His pa’s been out of work so long they just couldn’t feed them any longer.”

Ida’s jaw fell open. “Do you mean to say Meredith and Tony’s parents are still living? They’re not actually orphaned but abandoned?” The thought practically knocked her against the hallway wall. “It’s a wonder Tony hasn’t slugged the whole world.”

“He’s working on it. This wasn’t his first fistfight. That’s why I came down so hard on him.”

Ida could only sigh and stare in at the poor boy. He looked her way for a fraction of a second—likely imagining she and Grimshaw were out here devising hideous forms of punishment—then returned to his painful task.

“I still think it was a fine thing you did. I know Mrs. Smiley will give you no end of grief for it, but I’m glad to see a kindness paid, no matter what the cost.”

After a weekend of awful consequences, the man’s encouragement warmed Ida’s sore heart. “It’s mighty kind of you to say so, Mr. Grimshaw.” She glanced up and down the hallway, again aware of how stark the buildings were. “I’m just so aching to put a dash of color into this place. Children should live in cheerful rooms, don’t you think? Happy, color-filled places?” It seemed an odd thing to say to a man who seemed a study in black and white every day.

“It’s a nice thought, Nurse Landway. Although I could have done with a little less red today.” He peered at a bloody smear on his cuff. “Do hope they can get this out in the wash,” he muttered to himself before returning his attention to Ida. “I must get back to the library, where the boys are learning chess. Please do send Tony back there when he’s done here. While the laundry may not be possible, I’m quite sure Mr. Loeman can play chess with one hand.”

Ida put her hand on the infirmary door. These boys needed some place to channel their energy, but she doubted chess was going to fit the bill. What a complicated minefield of a place the Parker Home was turning out to be. You’re going to have to help me find my way, Father, Ida prayed as she eyed the scowl still filling Tony Loeman’s face. This place makes the army look easy!

Chapter Six

Ida raised the frame and set it gently on the nail Mr. MacNeil had placed in the wall above her small desk. She looked back at Leanne Gallows before she adjusted the frame so that it hung straight.

“Perfect,” Leanne said, smiling. “I like the yellow matting—the room needs it.”

“It does.” Ida stepped back to admire the brightly framed copy of the “Nightingale Pledge.” Ida, Leanne and hundreds of nurses before and since them had recited these words at the pinning ceremony that officially welcomed them into the profession. The piece had been framed in a formal cream matting, but last night Ida had salvaged a few inches off the hem of her yellow curtains and redone the mounting. She’d made a promise to herself to add one bit of color to her world every day, even if it was something as small as a hair ribbon. “And here I thought the army had gotten me used to drab.”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Leanne looked around and shrugged. “Well, then again, I suppose it is. Seems sad to ask children to live like this.” She clearly caught the look in Ida’s eyes, for a smile turned up one corner of her mouth. “Which is why you’re plotting something, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe I should remind you about the bit in there about abstaining from mischief,” Leanne teased, crossing her arms over her chest. Leanne had given Ida no small amount of grief over the line in the pledge that read “I shall abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous,” to which Ida had no small amount of trouble adhering.

Ida sat across from her friend. “Socks can hardly be counted as mischief.”

“I thought you told me an actual fistfight had broken out over those baby booties.”

“Well, yes,” Ida admitted, “but we can’t blame that one on the socks. In this awful weather, boys are going to be spoiling for a fight no matter what—the booties were only an excuse. I just hadn’t thought through the implications.”

Leanne laughed. “Imagine that.”

“I’ll have you know I have Dr. Parker’s approval on the idea as long as each girl gets the same number of socks at the same time.”

“I’ve heard of the Parker family, but I don’t really know them. What is Daniel Parker like? You’ve been here a whole eight days. How have you found your new employer?”

Ida didn’t have to think much before replying. “Whopping serious.”

Leanne laughed. “I imagine half the world strikes you as overly serious. So, then, is the good doctor somber serious, or dedicated serious?”

“A bit of both.” Ida looked in the direction of Dr. Parker’s office. The angle of the buildings was such that she could see the windows of his office from her own office windows. She had come down here well past midnight Sunday evening, having forgotten a book she wanted to review, and found his light still on. She knew he left the compound now and then, but other than that he seemed to be continually at his post. “I believe he views his work here as a vocation. He seems to bear the burden of all these youngsters mighty personally. You’d think they’d be fond of him for it.”

Leanne cocked her head to one side. “Aren’t they?”

Ida fiddled an unruly curl escaping from her pinned-up hair. “They like him, but it doesn’t really seem to go much beyond that. It’s not as if they are afraid he’ll harm them in any way, but they don’t look to him for affection—to give it or to receive it. I expect I’ve gotten more hugs in my week here than that man gets all year. Those little arms can’t reach past all that authority to get to the man on the other side, if you ask me.”

“Well, I suppose it takes a certain amount of command to keep a place like this from chaos. Soldiers mostly do as they are told. Not so with children.”

Ida leaned in. “That’s just it—they do obey like little soldiers. Take suppers, for instance. The meals here are deathly quiet. Makes me skittish to hear only the sound of so many little mouths chewing. If I could tell Dr. Parker one place to lighten things up, I’d sure start with the meals.”

“Will you? Start telling him where to lighten things up?”

Ida blew out a breath and sat back in her chair. “I just won the sock skirmish—or so I think. I might need to ponder when to wage my next battle.”

“An army fights on its feet.” Leanne recited the saying often quoted by Red Cross knitters as they had stitched up socks for the boys overseas. “So now you’re going to start the brightening campaign with a rainbow of little socked feet?”

“Lots of ’em.”

“You told me this post doesn’t give you a lot of idle time. I admit it’s a wonderful idea, but Ida, it could take you a year or more before you get enough socks done.”

Ida leaned in just as Leanne’s face showed the idea coming to her, as well. “That’s why you’re going to help me. You did it once before at Camp Jackson. Now we need a much more colorful version of our band of knitters right here.”

“Volunteer knitters like we had at the Red Cross. Of course!” Leanne tapped her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that first. It’d be so easy.”

“If gals would knit for soldiers, they’d surely knit for children.”

Ida watched her friend purse her lips in thought. She knew that look. “I imagine I could have a dozen ladies lined up by tomorrow if I set my mind to it.”

“And don’t I know what you can do when you set your mind to something.” Ida grabbed Leanne’s hand. “So you’ll help?”

Leanne’s eyes sparkled. “Just try to stop me. But we’ll need details—how many girls, their shoe sizes, that sort of thing.”

Opening her desk, Ida handed her a sheet of paper. “I’m miles ahead of you. We have twenty-six girls. I told them I was inspecting their shoes for mites last night at bedtime, but I really just logged their sizes. I figure if we just divide them up into small, medium and large sizes, we’ll have it covered with only three patterns. But the yarn...”

Leanne stood up. “Don’t you worry about the yarn. Papa has enough friends in the cotton trade to get that covered. And what Papa can’t get, John will.” Leanne’s new husband, John—a decorated war hero who’d come to South Carolina to stump for war bonds after being wounded in battle—was legendary for his persuasive abilities.

“One rule.” Ida held up a finger. “Only bright, cheerful colors. No white. And not one speck of black, navy or army green.”

Leanne pulled Ida into a hug. “Not on your life. Pinks and yellows and every cheerful color I can find. I think ruffles on the edges, too?”

Ida imagined Gitch’s feet clad in extravagant yellow ruffles and could barely contain the glow in her heart. “Absolutely.”

“I can even help from Washington,” Leanne said with a sadness overcoming her smile. Leanne and John were moving soon to Washington, DC for John’s new post as a diplomatic attaché. Ida knew she’d feel the loss keenly when the couple left. She treasured every face-to-face visit with Leanne, knowing soon they’d be confined to letters and infrequent visits. They’d been partners in escapades—knitting and otherwise—for so long, Ida wasn’t sure how she’d keep her spirits up in a place like this without Leanne.

“Of course you can.” Ida tightened her grip on her friend. “Socks mail well. But it won’t be the same. I shall miss you so very much.” They’d been through desperate times together, such as when they’d fought the Spanish influenza outbreak that had almost taken Leanne’s life. Still, Leanne was glowingly happy in her new life and destined for great success in Washington with her dashing husband.

“I won’t worry about you having nothing to do here,” Leanne said as she pulled away and tucked the list into her bag.

“Do you think we need to supply patterns?”

Leanne thought for a moment. “Not if we gather experienced knitters. Scaling down to small sizes and cheerful colors will be easy for women who knit all those army socks. Honestly, this should be effortless to pull together. I’ll stop by the Red Cross on my way home and come back in a day or so with the list of volunteers.”

“I was thinking we could assign specific girls to each knitter if we can find enough volunteers. That way there would be a personal connection. I want every chance for these girls to know someone outside those gates cares about them.”

Leanne recaptured Ida’s hand. “Look at you. I never thought of you as having much of a heart for young ones, but it’s so clear you belong here. This place needs my dear Ida’s dose of brilliant color.”

Ida quoted the pledge behind her. “I shall be loyal to my work and devoted towards the welfare of those committed to my care.”

“With only the necessary amount of mischief,” Leanne added, giving Ida’s hand one last squeeze before turning toward the door. “Oh!” She dodged to the side as a small boy with a very green tint to his face tumbled into the room half held up by one of the older lads.

“Eddie ate dirt,” the older boy proclaimed, as though that were all the explanation required.

Ida didn’t even bother to ask why but simply reached for a basin with one hand as she waved farewell to Leanne with the other.

* * *

Daniel was wrestling with the midmonth invoices and bookkeeping when a knock came at his door.

“Come in.”

To have Mrs. Smiley appear at his door with a scowl was a near-daily occurrence at the Home. Her scowl today, however, seemed especially severe. It didn’t take a medical degree to diagnose the source of the schoolmistress’s current pain.

Daniel removed his glasses. “What has Miss Landway done now, Mrs. Smiley?”

That wasn’t entirely fair, but he was indeed weary of Mrs. Smiley’s litany of petty complaints. She’d yet to grace any of the nurse candidates with her favor. Indeed, Daniel could never be sure the stout woman had ever found any of the Home staff up to snuff—himself included. Still, she’d been hired by his father, and was practically as much a fixture of the place as the bricks and mortar. As a doctor, he could manage without a nurse, but he could never hope to last a day without a schoolmistress.

“It isn’t Nurse Landway exactly, Dr. Parker.”

Daniel wasn’t sure if that boded well or ill. “Well, then, what is it exactly?”

“That woman just spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince me that knitting involved mathematics. As if I should be tucking yarn and needles inside the girls’ textbooks.”

Daniel never favored sums and figures as a child, nor as a man, as his current battle with accounting accurately proved. “Is there math in knitting? I’d no idea.”

Mrs. Smiley huffed. “Well, if you want to ask Nurse Landway about it, make sure you’ve got half an hour to spare. I declare, but that woman can go on.”

“She has a certain...” He searched for the right word that would agree with her but yet still defend his new nurse. “...enthusiasm, I’ll agree.”

“I want your assurance such foolishness will not be entering my classroom.” Mrs. Smiley’s plump hands planted on her hips. “The last thing I need is those girls thinking about fiddling with stitchery when I’ve got multiplication to teach.”

“Perhaps she was just making conversation.” Miss Landway did seem eager to make friends with just about anyone. Perhaps she viewed the dour Mrs. Smiley as an interpersonal challenge.

“Make conversation? That woman has no need to dream up conversation. She has chatter seeping out of her pores, bless her heart.” Like generations of Southern women before her, Jane Smiley applied the platitude of “bless her heart” at the end of any negative judgment. Somehow considered the universal absolution of an unkind comment, to Daniel “bless her heart” simply allowed women of good breeding to be delicately mean. The opinion was confirmed by the next sentence out of his schoolmistress’s mouth. “If I want my meals in a circus, I’ll just head on down to the tavern.”

The thought of prim Mrs. Smiley hoisting a mug with the town’s multitude of sailors in a tavern was about as ludicrous as it was entertaining. But he couldn’t agree with the substance of her complaint. The truth was, Daniel was rather coming to enjoy Miss Landway’s way of livening up conversation at the staff dining table. He’d learned things about his staff since her arrival that he’d never known in the years he worked here. Yes, she could be difficult at times, and he was quite sure she’d challenge him on any number of subjects once she settled in properly. His initial reservations, however, were giving way to a reluctant admission that Ida Landway might actually be good for the Parker Home for Orphans. “What is it you’d like me to do, Mrs. Smiley?” He’d learned this to be an effective question—often Mrs. Smiley didn’t actually want any action taken, she just wanted her views to be known. Clearly and in considerable detail.

Apparently this was the present case, for she blinked and huffed again, caught up short at the request for a suggestion. While the schoolmistress was never short of opinions, she rarely had suggestions. Miss Landway, on the other hand, seemed to boast an endless supply of both. “Mind she knows her limits, Dr. Parker.”

“Indeed I will, Mrs. Smiley.” It was, in truth, a valid suggestion. Daniel had already concluded that guiding Miss Landway to see her proper boundaries and not to step on toes would be the key to her fitting in on the staff. He switched the subject. “How is Miss Forley doing in her studies these days? I know she was having some trouble earlier.”

Nothing puffed up Jane Smiley like the accomplishments of her charges. “Exemplary. Once Donna put her mind to it, she caught on quickly. I’ve even asked her to tutor one of the younger ones having trouble with subtraction.”

Daniel hoped Donna Forley would be one of the Home’s success stories. After losing her mother to illness at an early age, Donna was raised by her father and an aunt until the war, when battle and influenza took them both from the poor child. Life had dealt Donna a terrible hand indeed, and she’d been withdrawn and near starving when she had come to the Home. Now, at sixteen, she was blooming into a confident young woman ready to take her place in the world. She’d managed to establish bonds with the other children, crafting siblings when no blood family existed. Daniel took great satisfaction in the fact that many of the Home’s “graduating” classes became makeshift siblings to each other in the outside world. Father had told him, “The Home makes families out of need, not blood,” and it was true.

He was almost afraid to ask the next question. “And the business with Matthew Hammond?” Romantic entanglements—even on the most basic teenage levels—were one of the most difficult parts of his job. Young hearts deprived of familial affection often looked for love in inappropriate places. It seemed at least once a week he, Mrs. Smiley and Mr. Grimshaw had to sit down and strategize how to keep Boy A from finding a few minutes alone with Girl B out behind the dormitories. Mr. MacNeil had even once suggested they install a hive of honeybees in that corner to deter “trysts.” While Daniel applauded the groundskeeper’s creativity, he also knew young hearts would simply seek out another secluded corner. Since then, however, “beehiving” had become the staff code word for teens getting a bit too sweet on each other.

“Settled for now,” Mrs. Smiley said wearily. This particular couple had been caught “beehiving” multiple times, making Daniel wish Donna would indeed focus her clever mind on math rather than Mathew. “But it won’t be the last, I’m sure.” Her eyes squinted in analysis, as if the pair were a mathematical equation. “Properly chaperoned, they might make an appropriate couple.”

Daniel sat back in surprise. “Really?” While still eminently clinical, this was the first time he’d ever seen Mrs. Smiley offer anything close to an endorsement of any couple. Just because his curiosity refused to let go, he asked, “How so?”

“When they’re not making eyes at each other over supper, their characters do suit each other well.” She folded her hands in front of her. “Donna coaxes him out of that shell of his, and Matt calms Donna down. Matt turns seventeen next month, and Donna two months after that. I believe they might actually fare well if they chose to make a go of it after graduation.” Again, Daniel couldn’t shake the notion that she looked as if she’d just solved an algebra problem, not brokered a match.

Still, Mrs. Smiley claimed to have been happily married for six years before her husband died. As a bachelor himself, Daniel had to at least respect her opinion as the more experienced on the subject of courtship and matrimony. He certainly brought no expertise to the subject; women had mostly bored or baffled him. Not that Mother ever ceased to offer up suitable bridal candidates—that woman’s pursuit of a Parker family heir could never be called subtle.

It served him well that most women, while enamored of his social standing, quickly grew tired of the time and devotion he gave to the Home. And for all of Mother’s rants about his duty to the Parker legacy to pressure him to find a bride, wasn’t this the true Parker legacy—this orphanage that his father had built? Daniel knew he didn’t measure up to his father in many ways, but he would not cease in striving to give his best to the Home, come what may.

“And what, in your opinion, should we do about that?”

An actual smile broke over Mrs. Smiley’s face—a rare sight indeed. “Much as we should do with Nurse Landway—temper their enthusiasm.” She gave the final word a tone of disdain.

“Perhaps the September picnic could grant them an appropriate social outing.”

She considered the suggestion with a hesitant grimace. “Grimshaw and I will discuss the idea and let you know what we decide.”

Daniel did indeed feel as if Grimshaw and Smiley outnumbered and overrode him some days. The two of them had been mastering the students longer than he’d been director. Should they ever come to a disagreement, Daniel could never imagine how he would reject either of their suggestions. By God’s grace, it had never yet occurred.

There was one subject that might end up testing that theory, however. “Mrs. Smiley?”

“Yes, Dr. Parker?”

“Nurse Landway has asked me for permission to arrange for the girls to receive hand-knit socks from a corps of volunteers.” He steepled his hands and chose his words carefully. “I’ve told her I’m in favor of the project so long as each child receives an equal gift. While I don’t much care what color socks the girls wear, I do think the influx of new volunteers could be of use to the Home. I trust you have no objections?”

“Socks? Like Meredith’s little ones that caused such a fuss the other day?” She looked as if she found that a ridiculous idea.

“Yes. Socks. In colors, apparently. I know it seems...unusual...but I can’t see the harm in trying, provided no one child is singled out. Any new donations—even if they are time and talents—would be a very good thing for us. And I believe the girls would enjoy it.”

“Socks?” Mrs. Smiley repeated, clearly trying to wrap her sensible mind around so ludicrous an idea.

“So it seems. I intend to give my approval, unless you have a reason I shouldn’t.”

“As long as they mind their lessons, I can’t say it matters what’s on their feet.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I think it’s silly.”

“I doubt the girls find it so. But I shall keep my eye on things in any case.”

“You’ll need to do that, Dr. Parker. Mark my words.” With that, Mrs. Smiley turned and left the room, muttering something about colors and nonsense and enthusiasm.

Daniel stood and closed his ledgers, glad to now have a task to divert him from midmonth invoices. Who knows? he mused to himself as he headed for the hallway. It might be rather fun to tell Miss Landway she could go ahead with one of her ideas instead of having to constantly rein in her imagination.

Chapter Seven

Daniel found Miss Landway carrying a load of clean white examination table covers down the hallway toward her office. Her hair, wild as usual, was striving mightily to release itself from the knot she’d wound it in at the back of her neck. Her auburn locks continually struck him as on the verge of escape—which might explain the three different-colored pencils currently sticking out of her bun. Colored pencils. It seems the woman could not even conduct basic correspondence in black and white.

He’d stopped in her office the other day and, finding her gone, allowed himself a moment to take in the scattered collection of sketches and tiny drawings that decorated her papers and notes. He’d also noticed the bright yellow matting with which she’d framed her profession’s oath. Daniel couldn’t quite decide if he found the bits of color she always left in her wake enjoyable or ridiculous. Perhaps they were both.

He caught up to her and took the laundry load from her hands before she could utter a syllable of protest. “Allow me.”

She stopped, sitting back on one hip with—and there was no other way to describe her expression—an annoyed smile. “I’m able to fetch my own linens from the laundry room.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. Still—” he continued walking toward her office “—what kind of example for gentlemanly behavior would I be setting for the boys if I were to be found walking next to you while you carried such a load?”

Nurse Landway darted ahead of him, reaching the infirmary door before he did and standing in front of it. “There are no gentlemen in training to be found here. So I’ll be fine and dandy.” She reached out her hands for the pile of folded cloths.

“I can at least place them in the cabinet for you.” He reached for the doorknob.

She angled in front of him. “I’ll be fine, really.” With her chin tipped up at him—for he had perhaps half a foot on even her statuesque figure—she looked defiant.

Daniel had the distinct impression she was hiding something. Her eyes darted back and forth and he watched her hand tighten on the office doorknob. He stole a glance over her shoulder to notice faint shapes of color through the thin curtains she had strung over the door’s glass window. Rather a lot of color.

“Miss Landway, allow me to enter.”

Were she a child, he would call her stance squirming. Given that she was a fully grown woman, Daniel didn’t know quite how to describe it. She winced. “You don’t want to do that.”

Ida Lee Landway was most certainly hiding something. “I’m quite sure I do.”

She hesitated again, this time giving a pitiful tug on the table covers, which Daniel was now sure he would not surrender even at gunpoint.

“Kindly open your office door, Miss Landway.” He kept his words polite but his tone firm.

She gave a small whine, ducked her head like a guilty child and pushed the door open.

A riot of color greeted his eyes. Boxes and baskets of yarn in a kaleidoscope of bright hues filled every available surface of the office. It was as if the circus Mrs. Smiley was just bemoaning had arrived and subsequently exploded in the infirmary. His infirmary.

Miss Landway cut in front of him. “I can explain.”

Knowing he had come to deliver his approval for her little project, he found the entire situation amusing. Still, the sight before him only proved Mrs. Smiley’s point: someone needed to mind Miss Landway’s limits. And that someone was him. “I expect you shall.”

She began rearranging the boxes, as if that would somehow render them invisible. “My dear friend Leanne—Mrs. John Gallows, that is—had the most extraordinary luck when she went looking for donated yarn.” She turned to him and laid a hand on her chest in a theatrical gesture. “We had no idea she’d get such enormous and immediate replies when she went asking. It’s a blessing, really.”

“You sought donations?” He looked around to find someplace to deposit the linens, and couldn’t see a single empty surface.

She moved a box to the floor, gesturing for him to put down the stack of cloths, which he did. “Well, not exactly. I was telling Leanne about the whole business with Meredith’s booties and the idea I had. I was asking her if she’d help me. There are twenty-six girls after all, and we’d want each of them to have more than one pair of socks, so—”

“We?” he cut in.

Miss Landway planted a hand on one hip. “You did say I could go ahead if I could guarantee each girl received equal gifts.” Sparks of defiance lit her eyes—she’d become much more invested in this than he’d realized.

Part of him liked that. Another part of him felt as if he was watching the year’s greatest headache form right in front of his eyes. “I did. And I told you I’d think about approving your recruitment of a core of volunteers to assist.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I see you didn’t find waiting for such approval necessary.”

She spun about the room, her hands flung wide. “Well, my stars, I didn’t think it’d all happen this fast!”

When he didn’t reply, she turned to face him with pleading eyes. It was obvious it would rip her heart out if he told her to send back the yarn. He wasn’t going to do that, of course, but in many ways this was the baby booties all over again. Charity may be the heart of the Parker Home for Orphans, but procedure gave it the bones to endure. He had to make her understand that if she was going to last, and Daniel found he wanted this nurse to last.

He pinched his nose and pushed out a breath. “I’m pleased at your initiative, truly I am.”

She looked as if she were holding her breath. “And?”

“And I am not going to ask you to send all this back, but—”

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