Between memorizing every farm fact Leonard gave during their ride, Isaac had thought about Eva’s suggestion. He would spread word among the traders that he needed piano music. If he got some, he would wrap the pages or books or however music was bundled and present it to Sybil.
But the idea didn’t sit well with him.
He hadn’t wanted to accept the trade on her behalf in the first place. Of course he’d made the decision in the moment and she’d thanked him later, but he didn’t want to decide things for her. She was smart—smarter than him, he suspected—and could make her own decisions.
Next chance he had, he would ask her what—if anything—she wanted him to do with the crates of trade. If she wanted his help swapping the buckets of nails, bundles of leather, and bolts of cloth, he’d gladly oblige. Otherwise, it was her decision.
After grooming Chloe, he gave her an extra scoop of oats and left her in her warm stall. Though the afternoon sun was bright in the sky, it seemed far away this time of the year, and it didn’t heat the air the way he hoped. It would set too soon again today and leave Falls Creek dark, but not quiet.
Nothing was quiet with eight overseers and the man from Riverside, Philip Roberts, who Leonard said had been made the overseer of Falls Creek, working across the road. They were clearing the brush from where they planned to erect a small chapel, some of them hacking at stumps and roots, some hewing lumber.
Isaac would have gone to help them, but Leonard had given him and Eddie an assignment to complete before dinner. Each was to write out which crops they would plant in which field this spring if they were granted the job.
The task wouldn’t be hard. Isaac knew how to manage crops, but he hated written assignments. He hadn’t been good at them in school and he doubted he’d gotten any better in the decade since.
As he walked out of the stable block’s arched front, Zeke ran from the house, his bowl-cut hair flopping with each bound and his white and brown dog running behind him.
Zeke stopped inches from Isaac’s boots, holding up an envelope. “This is for you, Mr. Owens. It just arrived from Southpoint.”
“Thanks, bud. And you can call me Isaac.” He took the envelope then reached down to pet the boy’s dog.
“Is it from your mama?” As Zeke spoke, air whistled through the gap of a missing front tooth. “Cause that handwriting is pretty like my mama’s.”
Isaac glanced at the envelope. “Nope. It’s from my sister.” He flipped it over and ripped the seal with the slip of a finger then stopped before he withdrew the letter. Sybil walked from the side stoop of the inn to the greenhouse. Just the sight of her pulled at him.
Whatever Penny had to say in her letter could wait. He slid it into his pocket and started walking across the yard.
Zeke stayed close to his side, and the dog stayed close to Zeke. “How old is your sister?”
“Hm?” He couldn’t take his eyes off Sybil. “Seventeen last month.”
“What’s her name?”
“Penny.”
“That’s a nice name, I guess. For a girl.”
He could see Sybil moving about inside the greenhouse but couldn’t tell what she was doing because of the foggy glass.
Zeke continued talking, so Isaac kept a slow pace. The dog ran off toward a tall gray leaf tree that shadowed an iron bench and several gravestones.
Zeke asked, “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
“I have an older brother.”
“What’s his name?”
Surrounded by the beauty of Falls Creek, the open fields he might get to plow and seed and harvest, and the gently rolling hills beyond it all, Isaac’s family back in Southpoint was the last subject he wanted to think about, especially his rat of a brother.
He stopped walking and looked down at Zeke’s curious and sweetly freckled face. The boy reminded him of himself when he was six, always asking questions, always wanting to be included. He leaned his hands on his knees to be eye-to-eye with Zeke. “Big Meanie. That’s my brother’s name.”
Zeke laughed a bubbly kid laugh. “No it isn’t!”
“Mm hm. Big Meanie. That’s what I called him anyway. You know why?”
Zeke looked up at the sky as if the answer were coming to him. “Because he’s a big meanie?”
“You got it, pal.” He straightened his spine. “His name is Nathan.”
“I don’t like that name.”
Isaac held back his agreement even though it burned on his lips. The day he’d left Southpoint, Nathan had sneered at him, his father had ignored him, and his mother had acted as she did every day—dramatically wept over things she shouldn’t have and dismissed what should have been her focus. And while they were distracted with themselves, Penny sneaked out to meet a disreputable young man no one wanted her to see.
Isaac’s last moments with his family had proven he couldn’t leave fast enough. Again.
Still, they were his family.
He pointed at Zeke’s dog as it rolled in the bare dirt beneath the bench. “I think he wants to play. Why don’t you go throw a stick for him to fetch while I read my sister’s letter?”
Once Zeke ran off, Isaac drew the letter from his pocket and read Penny’s plea for him to return home. He could hear her whiny voice with every sentence. She claimed their parents and brother had turned their attention to her after he left and were treating her poorly. That part he believed. She ended the letter by saying she was in love with the scoundrel he didn’t want her to marry, and certainly not at seventeen.
He’d left home a second son, set to inherit nothing and tormented into believing he needed to prove he deserved it all and more. Penny would have to solve her little problems herself.
He stuffed the letter into his coat pocket not bothering to fold it, then watched Sybil in the greenhouse. Compared to his unbearable relatives, Sybil was like a tender plant that needed to live in the shelter of a greenhouse rather than being left out in the elements. Though he didn’t enjoy thinking about the future much, the idea of being with her kept popping into his mind.
He could take care of her, love her, protect her. He could give her a happy home filled with children, none of whom would be allowed to ridicule the others. He could easily live here at Falls Creek his whole life with a woman like Sybil Roberts.
All at once the need to secure the job pressed harder on him. Becoming the farm manager wouldn’t be simply for his livelihood or his way of staying out of Southpoint. It would be for her, for them. For their future and their family together.
And no matter how much it shook him to consider the future, the woman standing in the greenhouse captivated him. Foggy glass and rows of shelves inside the building blocked his view of what she was doing, and he had to know. The future would have to take care of itself. All he could think of was the present and at the moment, Sybil occupied his every thought.
He gave the rest of the yard, the buildings, and the inn a quick scan. No one was around except Zeke, and he was running toward the front of the house with his dog. The pounding of the men working across the road echoed off the buildings.
This was his chance.
He opened the greenhouse door and watched her face as he stepped inside. Hopefully, all he needed to know would be clear in her expression when she saw him.
She glanced over her shoulder. When her gaze met his, she turned slowly, smiled sweetly. Her feet didn’t advance toward him as he’d hoped they would. She stayed where she was in the aisle between rows of planters toward the back of the musty room. “You’re back from your ride with Leonard.”
“Yes.” He took off his hat and smoothed back his hair. It needed a trimming.
A playful edge sharpened her smile. “Did Eddie return too?”
“No, we left him in the back forty.”
She laughed. “You wish.”
“Yes, I do.” He loved the sound of her laugh. It made him want to say something else to make her laugh more. Nothing came to mind. He’d never been thi
s way around a woman before. It was unsettling.
She held a small clay pot that had a sapling standing a few inches from the soil’s surface. The new plant wobbled with Sybil’s slight movements.
He pointed at it while he walked toward her. “What have you got there?”
She glanced at the little plant. “It grew from one of the gray leaf seeds Bailey planted a few days ago.”
“Will you help her with gardening?”
She shook her head and returned the pot to its place in the rows and rows of others. “No, I just needed to get out of the house for a bit.”
“Picked a fine time for it. Sun’s out. It’s warm in here and—”
“That’s not why I came.”
His hands yearned to reach for her, but something told him to hold back. “Sybil, are you all right?”
Her grin vanished, and her tone strengthened. “Now that is why I came out here.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Everyone keeps asking me if I’m all right. My family and the guests and the overseers must be afraid I will go mad after what happened last night. Everyone except Bailey. She understands I’m braver than I look.” She brushed the soil from her fingertips then crossed her arms, defiantly. “That’s why I came out here. To talk to Bailey.”
He read her posture and stayed a couple paces away from her. “She’s an interesting woman. That’s for certain.”
The frustration lines between her brows vanished. “Bailey and I are so different and have lived such different lives, yet I find her comforting to be around. Like we’re old friends.”
He let her speak and slowly advanced while she did.
“Bailey doesn’t worry or complain about things like people here do. She lived through a war and a plague in the outside world. I can’t even imagine what she’s seen. We have such peaceful lives compared to what is out there.” She motioned mindlessly toward the hammering and hacking across the road. “Having an overseer start a church doesn’t make her rant every time she comes into the kitchen.”
She’d changed subjects quickly. Apparently, she wasn’t thinking about the scare last night after all. Still, he doubted she was as settled about it as she claimed to be. While he’d been away from the inn all afternoon surveying the fields, she’d been in the house with her sister and father. So which one had perturbed her?
Frederick might know what was happening enough to rant about the overseers’ making Falls Creek an official village, but Isaac doubted it. That left her shrewd businesswoman of a sister.
He took one step forward, reducing the distance between them to an arm’s length. “Do you mean Eva?”
Sybil heaved a breath. “She hasn’t shut up about it all day. She thinks Philip will run the inn and ruin her life. I’ve spoken with him a few times and he’s actually quite nice. He’s polite and very knowledgeable.”
A jealous spark heated Isaac’s stomach. He’d met Philip and hadn’t considered the man to be a possible rival for Sybil’s affections, but the admirable way she spoke of him rankled. He wanted Sybil to talk about him with fondness. Did she talk about him with her friends, or even think of him at all?
He touched the end of the scarf where it had snagged and he’d crudely tied the loose ends. A thought occurred to him, so he unwrapped it from his coat collar. “Last night when I came into the inn, I was coming to see you.”
“You were?” Her eyes widened and a faint smile gave him hope.
He couldn’t keep his lips from returning her smile. “Yeah,” he held out the scarf, “see I caught this on the old shelves I was helping Solo move in the stable block, and I was hoping you could mend it for me.”
“Oh, I see.” A disappointed line replaced the curve of her grin. Her voice flattened as well. “You wanted to see me about the scarf. I can mend it, but I might not get to it until after dinner. And speaking of dinner, I should probably go back to the kitchen to check on the roast.”
His heart and stomach both cheered. She’d been expecting him to say something sweet. She did like him. He handed her the scarf and when she took it, he covered her hands with his. “That’s why I was coming to see you last night, but it was only a pretense.”
“A pretense?”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but yes. I wanted a reason to talk to you.”
She stared up at him with eyes as green as the sprouting plants in the pots all around them. Color had brightened her cheeks for the first time today. Her rosy lips parted as though she were about to speak, but she said nothing. He loved when she did that. Had he taken the words from her mouth?
Heavens, he hoped so!
Someone walked out of the inn’s side door. He could see their movement in the edges of his vision, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Sybil for even a second. This was his chance to find out if all her blushing and smiles and knitting him a scarf meant more than friendship.
If he was wrong about her, kissing the boss’s daughter would cost him the job. She was the first woman he’d met who would be worth it.
The figure walking toward the greenhouse grew closer. He couldn’t lose this connection to Sybil, this private moment. He leaned in and watched her eyes as his mouth neared hers. Her eyelids fluttered shut, so he took the chance and met her lips with his.
She didn’t flinch or try to stop him. Nor did she return the kiss.
He kept it brief—a testing, a hint of the passion growing inside him. As he pulled away, he watched for her reaction. The taste of her lips still lingered on his.
She looked up at him, eyes wide and mouth still slightly parted.
He held his breath, waiting.
The greenhouse door rattled opened, startling Sybil. She yanked her hands away from his.
“Hey guys!” Bailey cheerfully greeted as she entered, but she immediately halted. “Oh, sorry. I’m interrupting.” She covered her smiling mouth with one hand and backed out of the greenhouse. “Just forget I ever came out here. I’ll be in the, um, barn. Yeah, the barn.”
Chapter Eight
Sybil snapped a freshly laundered sheet open and covered the mattress in Room 6. She’d spent a week lightheaded from Isaac’s kiss, barely able to think straight, over-sweetening desserts and staring out the kitchen window like a lovesick schoolgirl. After every meal he stopped by the kitchen doorway and complimented her cooking. And if neither Eva nor Bailey nor Claudia was in the kitchen with her, he’d add a secretive wink to his smile. She didn’t appreciate the winking, but she liked him too much to care. Then he’d dash back outside, trying to beat Eddie to the barn chores.
It only made her admire him more—the way he spent every moment of daylight working in the barn or building fences or sharpening farm tools, doing all he could to win the job. But he never stayed after dinner to play cards with the family. He didn’t invite her out to the porch to talk the way Solo did Eva.
Nor did he try to steal any more kisses.
If it weren’t for the compliments and full egg basket on the kitchen counter every morning when she went downstairs, she wouldn’t have any reason to believe she was special to him. She was starting to feel as though she might have dreamed the whole thing up.
She’d only mentioned the kiss to Bailey the day it happened, seeing as how she’d walked in on them and knew about it anyway. And yesterday when Bailey asked if there had been any more kisses, Sybil began to think maybe it had never happened, or would never happen again.
“You should kiss him,” Bailey said in her bold American tone. “Just wave him into the kitchen the next time he stops at the doorway and then plant one on him. A big one!”
Kiss him? Her relationship with Isaac certainly was not secure enough for her to make such an indecorous move. Maybe someday she would have the confidence. Perhaps if he promised his undying love for her and was definitely staying longer than one season. Maybe then she would plant one on him.
She chuckled thinking of Bailey’s phrase while she tucked the sheets around the mattress. Bailey wasn’t im
modest, nor was she rebelling against their traditions. She simply hadn’t been raised with the Land’s customs. She was a raw mix of uncensored opinion and nothing-to-lose attitude. She would be the perfect match for Revel if only Sybil could get him to move home.
After the overseers’ decisions, that looked impossible. At least the group of eight men were all gone now. Gone back to their villages after leaving an indelible mark on the lives of everyone at Falls Creek. There would be no courier system in the Land, so Revel would not be riding through twice per week. And the overseers decided to take a wait-and-see approach on national defense, which would have brought Revel to the inn as he passed through with Connor to train men in each village. Maybe the overseers would allow it in the future. Until then, Sybil’s plan of making sure Revel and Bailey spent plenty of time together during those visits went up in a vapor of wishful thinking.
But those decisions from the Land’s overseers weren’t the cause of the big shakeup at Falls Creek. Sybil carried the soiled linens into the hallway and looked out the balcony door’s window. The thin white steeple of the small chapel the eight overseers and Philip had built spired into the air across the road from the inn. The view from the front of the inn—even from Sybil’s bedroom window—would never be the same.
During the past few evenings when she’d looked out her window, the compact chapel had grown in front of the moonlit hills. Yet now on this gray and cold afternoon, the half painted chapel looked hopeful, as though it would one day be a refuge rather than an obstacle.
Claudia stepped out of Room 3 with a bundle of linens in her arms. She blew a wisp of silver hair off her sensibly thin face. “Thanks for helping me with these rooms, dear. I’m praying Eva can find a new housekeeper soon.”
Sybil shook her attention from the chapel. “It’s no trouble for me, really. The casserole is in the oven, and it’s not time for me to start the rolls yet.”
The older woman dropped the linens on Sybil’s pile by the stairs. She leaned against the wall with a sigh. “Each day I take longer to clean a room than the day before. The laundry too.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her bony wrist. “I used to imagine that the man who took over Leonard’s job would bring a young wife with him. Somebody to take on the housekeeping work for me.” She paused with her hand at her brow. “It’s a good thing Eva has been writing to the villages about the job. Because if Eddie gets the farm manager position, we’ll never get a housekeeper through that boy, and Isaac seems to have his eyes on someone who already has her work cut out for her here.”
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