The Proper Wife

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Finally setting aside her broom, she fetched the blanket and spread it in front of the fireplace. “There now, why don’t you sit and rest that foot of yours?”

That did sound good. “Ladies first.”

Rather than showing appreciation for his manners, she looked exasperated. “Oh for goodness sake, this isn’t Cora Beth’s parlor. Given the situation, I think we can put those sort of niceties aside.”

He clenched his jaw. Didn’t she realize that, “given the situation,” they should make every effort to maintain whatever decorum they could? “Good manners are always in order, no matter the circumstances.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “You know what I mean. You’re hurt and I’ve got berries to collect. Now, do you need help getting situated before I head back out?”

Her question set his teeth on edge. He wasn’t entirely helpless. “I’ll manage.”

She studied him uncertainly. “Your foot—”

“Is better off inside my boot where the pressure will keep the swelling down.”

“But what if it’s a break?”

“It’s not.” And even if it was, there was nothing she could do about it.

She nodded, then looked around. “Now, what can I put the berries in?”

“Are you sure you want to do that now? The rain hasn’t slacked off yet.”

She shrugged and gave him a playful smile. “I’d rather be wet than hungry.”

He started to point out that they had other things to eat, but then decided there was no point. Her mind seemed to be made up. “In that case I think the hamper is probably our best bet.”

“Of course.” She knelt and quickly emptied the contents. Reaching for the hat and coat, she nodded toward the blanket. “Set yourself down and I’ll be back in no time.”

“I’m coming with you.”

She paused with one arm in a coat sleeve and one not. “I can handle this. You should get off that foot—”

He ignored her protest. “It doesn’t take legs to pick berries. And, since I’ll be sharing in the fruits, literally, I should also share in the labor.” He grabbed up the hamper, tightened his grip on his cane and headed for the door. She could follow or not as she liked.

A heartbeat later he heard her scurrying to catch up. “You are one of the stubbornest men I’ve ever come across. And if you’d met my brothers you’d know that was saying something.” She flounced past him, pushed the door open, then turned back to face him. “You stand here with the hamper and I’ll pick the berries.” Before he could argue she held up a hand. “You’re almost dry so no point in getting yourself soaked again. Besides, if you insist on going out there I’ll feel obliged to give you back your coat and hat and how gentlemanly of you would that be?”

Speak of stubborn! He stared at the downpour. “Perhaps we should just wait to see if this lets up soon.”

“It’s not coming down quite as hard as it was earlier. And what if it doesn’t stop? I’d just as soon get to it while I’m still wet. Once I get dry I’m not going to be quite so eager to step outside again.”

He supposed that made sense. But the woman was never going to dry out at this rate.

Without waiting for his response, she drew the collar of his jacket up higher and stepped out into the storm.

Several minutes later, as she dumped yet another handful of berries in the hamper, he took her wrist and drew her out of the rain. “Time to come back inside. We have plenty enough to hold us for a while.”

As if not quite trusting him, she peered into the hamper. “I suppose that’ll do for now.”

Eli turned, glad that he could finally get off his feet. He hadn’t taken more than two steps, though, when he realized she’d stepped back out in the rain. What was she up to now?

Ignoring the throbbing in his foot, he set the hamper on the floor and limped back toward the door. “Miss Lassiter?”

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Her voice was muffled but he could tell she hadn’t gone far.

It was several long minutes later before she reappeared inside the doorway. Not surprisingly, she wasn’t empty-handed.

“Look what I found,” she said nodding to the four large pieces of firewood and two stout sticks in her arms. “There’s a chopping block out back. There’s more but the other pieces hadn’t been split yet and they were too heavy to carry. Anyway, I thought these might come in handy for the fire.”

Hadn’t she seen the small pile he’d stacked by the fireplace? Or, like him, was she worried about how long they’d be stranded here? “It was a good thought, but these pieces are soaking wet.”

“I know, but if we place the pieces just inside the fireplace around the fire, they’ll dry out faster. Then if we get down to where we need them, we’ll have a better shot at getting them to burn.”

While she crossed the room with her burden, he followed more slowly with the hamper. The woman had a sensible head on her shoulders after all, it seemed. Had he been wrong about her in other ways?

Once she’d arranged the damp wood to her satisfaction, Miss Lassiter stood and rolled her shoulders. Then she shed the garments he’d loaned her and hung them back on the make-do coat pegs.

“Thanks for the use of your hat and coat.” She studied them with a wince. “I’m afraid they’re showing signs of what I put them through.”

He shrugged. “They can be replaced.”

She made no move to approach the blanket and her face wore a slightly embarrassed look. Surely she wasn’t worried that he would—

“I’ve got water in my shoes,” she blurted out. “I was thinking I’d take them and my stockings off and set them by the fire to dry. If it won’t offend you, that is.”

Was that all? “Of course.”

She nodded and hesitated. Realizing her dilemma, he busied himself with studying the items she’d pulled from the hamper earlier, keeping his gaze averted to allow her what privacy he could while she removed her footgear.

A few moments later she carefully arranged her shoes and stockings on the uneven hearth.

“Ready to eat?” Wanting to put her at ease, he kept his tone conversational.

She nodded. “As soon as we give thanks.”

Give thanks? She saw something in this situation to be thankful for? But he supposed keeping to normal rituals in such an otherwise unusual situation gave her comfort and perhaps some sense of normalcy. So he would go along with her request. And since she seemed to be waiting for him to lead the blessing, he dutifully bowed his head. “For the food we have before us, Lord, we give You thanks and ask that You continue to bless our respective families and our endeavors. Amen.”

Miss Lassiter echoed his “Amen”, then nodded toward the cluster of food items. “I’ll take one of those pears if you don’t mind.”

He nodded and reached for the fruit. To his surprise, she remained standing as he handed it up to her. What now?

As she accepted the pear from him, he noticed the red marks on her wrist and frowned. “What happened?”

She followed the direction of his gaze, then gave a sheepish smile. “I got a little careless. Dewberry vines have lots of nasty little thorns and I tangled with a few when reaching for the plumper berries.” Before he could offer sympathy, she shrugged. “Don’t worry, though, I’ve gotten much worse on other berry-picking expeditions.”

She took a bite out of the pear, and his gaze was captured by a little dribble of juice that found its way to her chin. He couldn’t seem to look away, until she used her sleeve to wipe it away.

Giving his head a mental shake, he turned his focus to the food, grabbing the jug of apple cider to moisten his unaccountably dry throat.

Miss Lassiter appeared not to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. She was staring at one of the windows, her head cocked to the side. “Sounds like the rain’s coming down even harder now. Good thing we picked those berries when we did. We may be in for a long afternoon.”

Eli merely nodded. No point in adding to her worries. Fact was, even if the rain stopped in the next few minutes, he had no idea how in the world they were going to get around that fallen tree. His only hope right now was that they’d be missed before long and someone would be out looking for them.

“Did you tell Danny you were planning to come out here?” He kept his tone casual.

“Not specifically. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

So much for that idea. No one would know where to look even if they realized the two of them were missing. Miss Lassiter had definitely not thought things through this morning.

“You might as well sit,” he said. “There’s plenty of room here.”

She shook her head. “My skirts are soaked.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sitting would be uncomfortable right now. I thought I’d stand in front of the fire for just a bit to try to speed the drying process.”

Which was sensible but it put him in the position of lounging on the floor while she remained standing. He wasn’t doing very well in the gentleman department.

They ate in silence for a while, Eli trying hard not to stare at her bare feet and trim ankles peeking out from the hem of her skirt.

An explosive sneeze, quickly followed by a second, jerked his gaze up to her face. “Are you okay?” Had she caught a chill?

But she dismissed his worries. “I’m fine. I think it’s just all the dust we kicked up when we were cleaning earlier.”

Eli grabbed the jug of cider. “Would you care for some of this?”

She nodded and set the core of the pear in the fireplace. Wiping her hands on her gown with the indifference of a child, she took the proffered cider.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to drink straight from the jug—I didn’t see any drinking glasses.”

The caveat didn’t seem to bother her. “I’ll manage.”

As Miss Lassiter drank, Eli studied her closely for other signs that she might be taking ill, but she seemed remarkably robust.

After a couple of deep swallows, she absently handed the jug back to him while she studied the room. “I wonder what kind of history this place has. I mean, I know it’s not much to look at today, but now that we’ve cleaned it up a bit, I can picture how it might have looked back when it was new. It would have made a cozy little home for some farmer and his wife.”

Eli looked around skeptically. Even though it was mid-afternoon, the dark-lidded sky and semi-shuttered windows left the one room cabin in shadow except for the area here by the fireplace. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t picture this place as anything but a hovel.

“Whatever its history, apparently it didn’t suit,” he said diplomatically. “It appears to have been abandoned for some time.”

“Yes, but aren’t you at all curious about why? Maybe there was some great tragedy, where the farmer or his wife died and the one left behind could no longer bear to be here. Or maybe they headed farther west looking for adventure. Or maybe the farmer who lived here married a woman who preferred life in a big city.” She had a faraway, dreamy look. “There are so many stories a place like this could tell.”

What in the world was she going on about? “Speculating over such things seems like a pointless exercise.”

She studied him as if he had somehow disappointed her. “Don’t you like imagining things? I mean, don’t you ever do things like make up stories to tell Penny?”

He shifted, feeling her opinion of him had just dropped a few points. “I read to her from time to time.” It was hard to keep the defensiveness from his tone.

“Not quite the same, but it’s a start.”

A start? A start on what?

She bent down and scooped up some of the berries. “I think my back is dry enough.” She fanned her skirt out with her free hand. “Time to dry the front.” And with that she turned to face the fire.

Eli placed his palms behind him on the blanket and leaned back as he studied her back. She was definitely a puzzle to him. How could a woman be so sensible one moment and so fanciful the next? And why was Penny so taken with her? His half sister had been so quiet and withdrawn since the tragedy. But around Miss Lassiter she seemed more lighthearted than she had since he’d assumed guardianship.

Truth be known, while he’d hoped it was just a matter of giving Penny time to grieve, he’d worried that she’d been permanently scarred by everything that had happened. Yet she seemed to really come alive around Miss Lassiter. And while he was relieved to see the old Penny come back, he couldn’t help but be curious as to the reason.

He studied the coiled tendrils that had escaped his companion’s pins, listened to her soft humming as she held her skirt out to the fire. And wondered again if perhaps he’d misjudged her.

Sadie studied the flames as she absently munched on the berries. How very sad and lonely to live without the occasional daydream, without letting the imagination have reign from time to time. Had he always been that way? Or had something in his life hardened him? Maybe he just needed someone to teach him how.

For Penny’s sake, of course.

She wiped her hands together as she finished the berries. Her skirts were still damp, but they were dry enough to sit now.