“Is that . . .” He pointed. “Are you wearing my shirt?”
It hid most of her torn, stained skirt. “I was afraid grit or bits of hay might fall into the food.”
“Makes sense.”
She pulled out two chairs, told him to prop his leg on the second. Too weary to disagree, he sagged into the first.
“Try to eat.” Abigail pushed a plate closer to him.
Again, he complied without protest.
Abigail darted up the stairs and began opening doors. Two sets of bunkbeds on the right side of the hall, a double bed on the left, and straight ahead a sink, toilet, and tub. Shoving the stopper into the drain, she turned on the hot water and, after setting towels and a washcloth on a stool, returned to the bedroom on the left. She selected a set of clean clothes, hung them on the hook behind the bathroom door, then tested the tub water’s temperature. A tad too hot, but by the time he got upstairs, it wouldn’t be.
She found him hunched over an empty plate, shaking his head. Although he’d devoured a sandwich and emptied his mug, fatigue dulled his eyes and sagged his shoulders.
“I ran you a bath. It will ease your sore muscles.”
Yet again, he was compliant. “Thank you,” he said, and went upstairs.
She’d fed him. Cleaned Rose’s stall. The bath she’d prepared would wash away physical evidence of the heartbreaking job he’d just completed.
But Abigail had no idea how to mend his aching soul.
* * *
When he returned to the kitchen, Jube found her at the sink, rinsing suds from the cocoa pan.
“Sorry to see it is gone.”
Turning, Abigail smiled. “There is more. In the refrigerator. Let me heat a cup for you.”
“You have already done enough. Too much.”
She rolled her eyes. “A few sandwiches is hardly too much.”
“I stopped by the barn on my way inside. . . .”
She shrugged it off. “I wanted to spare you having to see it.”
Her thoughtfulness was touching, but not the least bit surprising. She’d been good to Ira, who’d never deserved her kindness. It was high time he delivered his confession.
Jube pulled out a chair, and using his good leg, inched one out for her, too. “Will you sit and talk with me for a moment?”
Her fingers were still red from all her scrubbing as she gripped the chair’s back. “We can sit after Emily has taken a look at your leg.”
“Soaking in that hot tub helped it.”
Abigail answered with a snort of disbelief. She looked tired. Disheveled. And determined to take him to the clinic.
“If it still hurts in the morning, I will go.”
She didn’t look convinced, so he raised a hand, as if taking an oath. “You have my word.”
“I have been meaning to tell you something, too.”
His revelation could wait a few minutes more. “Ladies first . . .”
Her lips parted, came together as she pulled out the chair, pushed it back under the table. “Let me fix us both a cup of that cocoa first.”
Abigail moved through his kitchen as if she’d been doing it for years. He was glad that she felt comfortable enough to make herself at home. Would she feel that way after he’d ’fessed up? Tell her now, while she is in a friendly frame of mind.
“Might as well kill two birds with one stone,” she said from the dining room, “and change your bandage while the cocoa heats up.”
Like a happy pup, he got to his feet, slid the suspender from his right shoulder, and untucked his shirt.
And she went right to work.
“Oh no. You popped a stitch.” Within seconds, she’d unspooled a length of the silk thread, placed it on a napkin beside the needle, and drenched both with alcohol. Dampened a gauze pad, too, and used it to clean the wound.
“This might sting a bit,” she said, threading the needle.
While she worked, Jube thought of the patient, tender way she’d stitched up Ira’s forehead when he came home bleeding after a bar brawl in Oakland. He wondered if Ira had realized what a gift she was, if he appreciated all the tender, wifely things she’d done every day of their married life. God knows she deserved better, Jube thought.
Precisely why anything more than friendship between her and him was out of the question.
“There,” she announced, tugging his shirt back into place, “good for another day.”
“Thank you,” he said again.
She waved his thanks away. “Now then, you were saying?”
Give me strength, Lord. . . .
A verse from Isaiah came to mind: “. . . no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” God’s way of assuring him that it was safe to tell her?
“Well, ah, I . . . I thought we decided ladies first?”
Her smile disappeared, like shadows exposed to light.
“All right. I suppose it is long past time,” she said, and folded her hands on the table.
Memory of the accusatory words she’d snarled that night in the ER came to mind. “Irresponsible.” “Uncaring.” “Weak.” “Dishonest.” That last one, Jube thought, stung like a razor cut, even now. Jube braced himself for the worst and hoped for the best.
“I owe you an apology,” she began.
“What? No. I owe you an apology.”
She looked mildly surprised but continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“I said terrible things, things you did not deserve. I called you dishonest when, in reality, I was the dishonest one. Because I suspected. For months before the accident. And yet I pretended . . .”
What, exactly, was she saying? That she’d known about the things—and the women—that had lured Ira to town? He’d heard it said that love was blind. The writer of that cliché should have tacked on an addendum: Love had the power to veil the truth.
He didn’t want to believe that Abigail . . . his sweet, beautiful Abigail . . . had let him spend three long years punishing himself for Ira’s death.
“A hundred times,” he began slowly, “I almost told you everything that Ira had been up to.” A bitter laugh punctuated his statement. “You were right about one thing. I was weak. Too weak to risk hurting you. And the whole time, you knew. You knew!”
Abigail, crying now, said, “Jubal, let me explain why I—”
He began to pace. “That fistfight. The accident. Neither would have been necessary if . . .” He drove a hand through his hair. “I kept telling myself if I had confronted him sooner, if I had never promised to keep his secrets . . .” Whirling around to face her, he said, “I told myself it was my fault that he got so angry, that he drove off like a madman and . . .”
He couldn’t bear to finish with the truth: . . . crashed head-on into a tree, where he died.
Seeing her there, hiding behind her hands, made his heart ache. Made him almost sorry for what he’d just said. Made him want to hold her close and promise that nothing, no one, would ever hurt her again.
Almost.
Three years, he told himself. Three long years of beating himself up, of feeling guilty for changing her from a happy young wife into a lonely, bitter widow. And to think that even before the accident, she’d known.
He needed time. To separate fact from fiction. To make sense of the anger—and love—that battled inside him.
He grabbed her shawl from the hook in the mudroom, thrust it in her direction. He pretended not to notice when her hand shook as she took it from him.
“I appreciate everything you did today. Everything you have done since I was injured.” He barely recognized his own voice. “But I am tired, Abigail. I need some time alone.”
A pea-sized silver tear slid down her cheek. Its silvery track glistened in the late-afternoon sunlight that slanted through the window. She looked so small. Vulnerable. Miserable. Yet again, he fought the urge to comfort her.
“I should have told you the truth when I admitted those hard
truths, a year ago.”
He barely heard her. When Jube opened the door, a blast of cold air blew into the room. It ruffled her hair, free now from the constraints of the cap, stained beyond salvation, that she’d added to the rubbish pile. Had the truth stained their relationship, too?
In the doorway, silhouetted by the setting sun, she whispered, “I will return your shirt tomorrow, when I come back to change your ban—”
“I can manage on my own. And the shirt is old. I only wear it to fetch wood. Keep it.”
Jube hoped she’d read between the lines: Stay away from me, for now, anyway.
Standing on the top porch step, she said, “I am sorry, Jubal.”
Jubal remained in the open doorway as a frosty blast of air battered the curtains, sent napkins skittering across the floor. Napkins she’d carefully placed beside his cup and hers. Cups that held the cocoa she’d made. He hadn’t given her a chance to put away her self-made first-aid kit, and sunlight glinted from the needle. Tears stung his eyes, and he blamed them on the wind. On having just buried Rose and her calf.
It wouldn’t be easy, facing the boys. They’d seen the bloody mess. Watched Noah tilt the loader’s dirt-filled bucket, completely blanketing the cow and her baby with rich, loamy soil. Would they ask him to explain how and what had gone wrong? If so, he’d quote Ecclesiastes: “. . . what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all must return.”
What would he say if they asked why Abigail—who’d made regular appearances to deliver cookies and lemonade as they worked—had stopped coming around?
He hoped they wouldn’t ask about either.
Because God help him, Jude didn’t understand any of it.
Chapter 7
Weeks ago, Abigail had washed and pressed Jubal’s shirt, and hung it in the entryway. Every time she passed it, going in or out of the back door, it made her heart ache. So she’d moved it to the front hall. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Wrong, she thought, driving toward the inn.
The thermometer on the porch post said fifteen degrees, and now it was snowing, too. Tiny, frosty flecks stuck to the windshield and painted the road’s edge white. She gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her fingers ached, and her heartbeats kept time with the wipers.
Calm down, she thought. By the time you make the return trip, the road crews will have salted the pavement.
After Ira’s death, waiting tables at The Broadford eased her adjustment to widowhood. Just as the work had helped then, it would help now. At the start of her morning break, she asked Bill for more hours. Any shift, any job, even the one she liked least. Even shoveling ashes from the fireplaces was better than going home, where Jubal’s shirt hung like a plaid flannel reminder of his sad face and angry words.
“Are you good with numbers?” Bill asked.
“I suppose. . . .”
“Ever used a computer?”
“Only the one that runs the cash register in the dining room.”
“That’ll do. Marybeth can teach you what you don’t already know. This is perfect timing. Stella fell and dislocated her hip, and can’t leave the house for a month, at least. If you’ll come in early and stay late to balance the checkbook, pay bills, write checks, I’ll pay you double time.”
Even without the offer of overtime pay, she would have said yes.
“Come in early, stay late, whatever works for you. Beggars can’t be choosers, y’know!” He laughed, then handed her a key to the back door. “Don’t forget to keep track of your hours.” Winking, he turned his attention to the couple who approached the check-in desk.
Despite the weatherman’s prediction of three feet of snow by suppertime, the guests were in good spirits. In the dining room, laughter and spoons, clinking the sides of soup bowls and coffee cups, blended in an off-key song. A hearty discussion about the upcoming election filled the parlor, while in the library two gentlemen debated: checkers or chess? And in the kitchen, Marybeth hummed as she arranged sliced cheese and crackers on small serving platters.
Bill entered through the back door.
“As I live and breathe,” Marybeth said. “If it isn’t Nanook of the North.”
“I give up.” He brushed snow from his shoulders and stomped clumps from his boots. “It’s coming down so fast that I no sooner get a path cleared than it’s covered up again.”
His wife waved away the flakes that had whirled in and landed on the table. “Close the door before you have to shovel a path through the miserable stuff in here!”
“Ingrate,” he teased, kicking it shut. “May I remind you that without that miserable stuff, we’d have to shut down during the winter months?”
She popped a piece of cheese into her mouth. “I stocked the fridge and pantry, so I guess the guests won’t mind waiting until tomorrow to hit the slopes.”
He dropped his parka and knit hat onto the floor. “Al will help,” he said, adding snow-crusted gloves to the pile.
“Home. With a one-hundred-and-two-degree fever.”
Grinning at Bill’s unintelligible response, Abigail looked out the window. He hadn’t exaggerated. The snow was falling so hard and fast that she could barely see the inn’s big red barn, rented during warmer months for weddings, corporate parties, and fundraising events.
“I can help with the shoveling.”
“No, you can’t. You’re sweet to offer,” Marybeth said, “but we’re booked solid. I need you inside.”
“She’s right, Abby. But even if we weren’t full up, you’d freeze out there. It isn’t just snowing to beat the band; it’s windy, and cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss, too!”
“Hey, watch it, buddy.” And smiling at Abigail, she said, “Would you mind delivering these trays? And let everybody know there’s tea, coffee, and hot chocolate on the way.”
When Abigail delivered the snacks, one of the ladies said, “What a lovely surprise.”
Her friend said, “Yes, and tea sounds lovely, doesn’t it, Marie?”
“Be right back,” Abigail told them.
She started for the hall as the first woman said, “Isn’t she just adorable?”
“Yes. I just love listening to the Amish speak.” She met Abigail’s eyes. “Are you married, dear?”
“My husband died three years ago.”
“Oh, what a shame. Children?”
“No.”
She glanced at her husband, who sat with Marie’s husband, playing Double Solitaire. “That’s number three for me. So don’t worry. Pretty as you are, your number two will come along soon.”
“She’s right,” said Marie. “Has some handsome young Amishman set his cap for you?”
Abigail pictured Jubal, and the way he’d looked the last time she saw him.
“If any man has set his cap, I am not aware of it.” She smiled. “I will be back shortly with your tea.”
It was true, she thought, filling teacups and coffee mugs. Jubal had looked angry. Disappointed. Hurt. But on other occasions, she remembered, placing the sugar bowl and creamer on a big wooden tray, he’d looked anything but. Would he have reacted so strongly if he didn’t feel a certain warmth toward her . . . feelings that had nothing to do with his friendship with Ira?
The longer you tell yourself things like that, the longer it will hurt.
While here at The Broadford, she’d concentrate on the job. At home, she’d catch up on things she’d been putting off: Refinishing her mother’s rocking chair. Painting the porch swing her father had built. After all, taking care of the house they’d left her was important for reasons that had nothing to do with Jubal Quinn.
The ladies were deeply involved in a game of Gin Rummy, and barely noticed when she delivered their tea. A good thing! Abigail told herself, and made her way to the dining room to clear the tables. Several guests had gathered a
t the windows.
“Guess we can forget about a night ski,” said one of the men.
Silhouetted as he was by fast-falling snow on the other side of the glass, he reminded her of Jubal . . . tall, broad shouldered, trim waisted—
Stop it, she scolded. And do your job!
“To be honest, I’d rather stay inside,” his wife said. “We’ll ask Bill to build a fire in our room.”
Hand in hand, the couple climbed the curved staircase as Abigail cleared tables. While she was loading the dishwasher, the wind drew her attention to the windows, where snow had blocked the bottom panes. Poor Jubal, she thought. He’d have to trudge through the stuff to tend his cows, fetch firewood, with still-healing ribs and an injured leg. “Stop it,” she mumbled to herself. He’d made it through last year’s back-to-back snowstorms, and those that had closed Pleasant Valley’s roads every year before that. He’d survive this one, too.
And the boys? She hoped they’d gone straight home after completing their milking chores, and were by now engaged in an exhilarating snowball fight. But what if, instead, they’d talked Jubal into letting them work on the buggies? Then they’d be trapped there now. The image of Jubal plumping pillows and gathering blankets to make them comfortable inspired a smile.
She carried those good thoughts all through the next hours, as she folded laundry, pressed tablecloths, and folded bed linens. “Let me know when you’ve brought fresh towels to the guests,” Marybeth said, “and I’ll introduce you to the office equipment.”
It was nearly five o’clock when they wrapped up the first session, and as they moved from office to kitchen, the boss’s wife stood at the back door. “Good grief, Abby, look!”
Abigail peered over her shoulder, saw her truck nearly buried in a drift. “If it is this bad here, what do the roads look like?”
Her boss tuned a small radio to WKHJ. “. . . and if you don’t have to be out,” Terry King was saying, “stay home, or you’ll end up stranded, right, partner?” Jim Shaffer, the other morning DJ, said, “Yep. We’re stuck here, subbing for the afternoon crew, ’cause we can’t get out, and they can’t get in.” He went on to describe icy, snow-covered roads, where drifts had turned I-68 into a one-lane highway.
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