He swung her off the wagon like she was light as a feather and then he went around the back of the wagon and did the same with her trunk. His face was neutral and she assumed that meant touching her didn’t have the same effect on him as his touch did on her.
“I’m going to put this in your room and go put the horses away and then I have some work to do. Lily will show you to your room. If you’d like to freshen up and rest, Lily can help you find whatever you need, and she can make supper too.” Hannah couldn’t help but think that was a lot of responsibility for an eight year old girl. She looked around at the large ranch however and she was sure that Luke had no choice but to utilize the help that he had.
“Thank you.” She told him. She caught herself watching the flex of his arm muscles as he carried the trunk into the house. The effect he had on her was surprising. It wasn’t that she’d never found a man attractive before…but there was something about this one that made her belly feel like it was on fire. He went back outside and Lily took her hand again and led her a few feet and said,
“This is the sitting room.”
Hannah surveyed it. The furniture all looked hand made out of wood with hand sewn cushions in a soft shade of yellow covering the seats. The windows had yellow curtains on them that were dusty and worn with age. There was a tiny little fire place and a shelf in the corner filled with books. Lily pulled her towards another door and through that was a tiny little bedroom with a lumpy looking little wooden bed and a wooden stand with a wash basin set inside of it. This room was where Luke had set her trunk.
The next room was a little bigger and the bed was twice the size of the one in her room. This must be Luke’s room. There was a vanity with a little mirror on it and a chest of drawers. On top of the chest was a photograph of a woman with long dark hair. She had gentle features and big, round eyes. Hannah went over and picked it up. “Is this your Ma?” she asked Lily.
Lily nodded. “I don’t remember her. I used to think I could, but I realized it was all the stories Pa told me about her that I had inside of my head. I was only two when she died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss Hannah. It had to be difficult for you to grow up without a mother.”
She suddenly found herself wrapped up in the hug of the little girl once more. She reached down and pet Lily’s hair. Her fingers got stuck in places and it felt greasy. The poor thing was starving for attention and before the evening was over, Hannah would understand why.
After Hannah washed up and changed out of her traveling dress into a more practical one, Lily finished showing her where the entrance was to the root cellar and where the outhouse was. She showed her the henhouse and pointed out to her which hens to avoid when she was collecting the eggs in the morning. She also showed her the vegetable garden which looked like it was thriving to Hannah.
“Does your Pa help you take care of the garden?”
“No. He turned the ground for me and bought me the seeds to plant. The rest of it I did all by myself.”
“Impressive Lily. You have a lot of responsibility for a girl so young.”
Lily shrugged. “I try and help Pa as much as I can. He has so much to do. I need to pick some vegetables for the stew,” Lily told her. “Do you want to help me?”
“Sure.” Hannah had no idea what she was doing but Lily turned out to be a great teacher for a little eight year old. She showed Hannah which ones to pick and how to tell when they were ready. They took the back to the house and Hannah went to wash up once again. When she came back out she found Lily in the kitchen mixing ingredients to make cornbread. “What can I do to help, Lily?”
The little girl grinned. She was a really pretty little girl. Maybe Lily could talk her into letting her do something with that wild hair. “You can make this cornbread,” she said. “Pa acts like he likes mine…but I’m afraid he’s gonna break his teeth on it one of these days.” Hannah laughed. He may not spend much time with her, but from the things Lily said, it sounded like the time Luke did spend with his daughter was quality.
“Okay then, what have you done so far?” Lily told Hannah what ingredients she’d put in so far and then she moved on to wash the vegetables that they had picked from the garden earlier and get them ready for the stew. The little girl talked non-stop while they worked and Hannah listened, adding the obligatory mm hmm and uh huh as they went along. By the time supper was ready, there probably wasn’t much about Lily that Hannah didn’t know. Hannah helped Lily set the table and then said, “Should we call your father?”
“No ma’am, he won’t come in yet. He doesn’t come in until it gets dark.”
They sat down together at the table and Hannah said, “What time does he leave in the morning?”
“Before the sun comes up…but he comes in a little later to have breakfast and he comes back for lunch.”
“So other than breakfast and lunch he’s gone all day…every day?”
“Yes, unless we have to go to town for supplies.” Hannah was shaking her head. No wonder this poor girl was already so attached to her. She was practically living alone way out here.
They cleaned up the dishes together after they finished eating and by that time the sun had gone down enough that they needed to light the kerosene lanterns. They sat down and read together for a while before Hannah said, “Lily, do you have a bathtub?”
“Yes, it’s out back. Pa drags it in on bath day.”
“Bath day?”
“Yes ma’am, Sunday evenings is bath day.”
“What about church?”
“We don’t go to church since Aunt Mabel died…Well, Pa never went with us as far as I can remember. Aunt Mabel said he used to go with Ma all the time.”
“So you don’t go anymore at all?”
“No ma’am.”
“I think we’ll have to change that, which means we’ll have to change bath day as well. How does Saturday night work for you?”
“Isn’t today Saturday?”
“Yes Ma’am,” Hannah said with a grin.
Lily narrowed her eyes and said, “Did you just trick me?” Hannah laughed.
***
Luke stayed out on the ranch longer than usual that evening. It wasn’t that he didn’t have work to do, but he usually tried his best to get back in time to see Lily before she fell asleep. Tonight though, he was hoping when he came back to the house Hannah would already be in bed and he wouldn’t have to struggle with making conversation with her. He had no idea what to say to her and each time he thought about marrying a woman that he didn’t even know how to have a conversation with, his stomach clenched and he began to sweat. He couldn’t believe that he’d actually gone through with placing that ad. It had been an act of temporary insanity…a way to appease his daughter. Now that he had this woman here, he was questioning everything about it. She was pretty enough and she seemed intelligent…but she wasn’t Cassie and even after six years he couldn’t help but feel like somehow he was being unfaithful to her.
Luke put his horse away and went around to the front of the house. He cleaned off his boots and took off his hat and stepped inside. The house was really quiet…and really clean. Every surface looked as if it had been scrubbed and polished and the clutter had somehow disappeared. He looked down at the floor and saw that it had been swept and scrubbed and he was now standing on it with his dirty boots. He bent down to take them off and heard Hannah’s voice saying,
“Would you like me to take them outside and wipe them off?”
Luke looked up and time froze. Hannah was wearing a dressing gown that covered her from neck to ankles, but her red hair was in a braid now without that silly hat covering it. The braid hung down past her waist. It was thick and shiny and gorgeous and his calloused palms itched to touch it. The fiery color of it emphasized the creaminess of her skin and without that hat and veil her eyes looked even bigger and brighter. He realized she was giving him an odd look. Had she been waiting a long time for him to answer?
“Um… no
, I’ll just get them dusty again. I’ll sit them out on the porch so they don’t ruin your clean floor. It looks really good in here. It smells good too.” She looks really good and smells really good…
Hannah smiled and that put him over the top. Luke felt stirrings in places that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He continued to stare at her until she lifted one of her eyebrows and he realized once again that a long time had passed. Finally he bent down and picked up his boots. He carried them outside and came back in to find her heating his dinner on the stove. He went over to the sink and pumped water to wash his hands. Then he pumped a glass full and gulped it down. His mouth was so dry.
“Here you go,” she said, sitting the plate down in front of him. Luke picked up his fork and started to take a bite when Hannah sat down next to him. She smiled again. What was she trying to do to him? He took a bite of the cornbread and chewed it for several seconds before it dawned on him that it wasn’t hard…and it was tasty.
“Did you make the cornbread?”
“I may have helped Lily just a little bit.”
“It’s the best cornbread I’ve ever eaten…and it doesn’t crack my teeth.” Hannah laughed. Luke loved the sound of it. “How was Lily for you?”
“She’s such a delight. I gave her a bath and we braided her hair and I read her a story…”
“That’s a lot. How long was I gone?”
She laughed again. Luke wished that he was funnier. He didn’t want her to stop. “That is only scratching the surface of what we did. You were actually gone for a long time. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t you worry, leaving Lily alone so much?”
He shrugged. “I always let her know what part of the field I’ll be in…and now it’s a moot point anyways because you’re here with her.”
“Hmm, I suppose. What time do we leave for church in the morning?”
Luke had just taken a bite of his stew. He choked on it. Hannah got up and calmly got him a glass of water. After he finished coughing she sat back down and stared at him with those pretty hazel eyes and waited for an answer. “Lily and I don’t usually go to church…”
“I would like for that to change.”
“You and Lily would be welcome to go…”
“First of all, I have no idea how to drive a wagon team. Second of all, while we’re here on the ranch you’re welcome to avoid me and even ignore me if you like, but if you expect me to be your wife, then I expect to be treated as such in public.”
Luke was looking at this woman who he’d known for less than twenty-four hours, incredulous that she was already trying to change the way he did things. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“Then I’ll drive you to town and you and Lily can attend services while I pick-up our supplies. I won’t be told that I have to attend church.”
“That’ll be fine. Can I ask why you’re so opposed to church?”
“I’m not opposed to church per se…”
“Lily told me that you used to attend regularly until you lost your wife.”
Luke put down his fork and pushed back from the table. “I’ll be in from the field in time to take you and Lily. I won’t discuss my wife or my reasons for not going to church. I hope you sleep well.” He left Hannah sitting there looking after him and stormed into his room. He closed the door and picked up Cassie’s picture off of his chest of drawers. “Am I doing the right thing here Cassie? Is having her here wrong? I’m so confused Cass. I wasn’t supposed to be attracted to her…she was just for Lily…I wish you were here. I wish you could tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
True to his word, the next morning Luke came in out of the field in time to pick up Hannah and Lily for church. He was shocked when he saw his daughter. She was in a dress for one thing. He hadn’t seen her in a dress since her aunt Mabel passed away. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected that Hannah must have done something to it to make it still fit. Lily’s hair was in two neat braids on either side of her pretty face and for the first time in a long time, she looked like a girl.
“Well look at you Lily bug! My girl is going to be the prettiest one in church.”
“Thank you, Pa. Wait until you see Hannah.” As if on cue, Hannah stepped out of her room. She was wearing a light green dress with a dark green bustle and a matching hat. She had her hair braided to the side again and she was wearing something shiny on her lips that made Luke think about kissing them. “Isn’t she pretty, Pa? Won’t she be the prettiest lady there?” Luke’s mouth was dry as a bone. She was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen and he was speechless. “Pa?”
“Yeah Lily bug…” he cleared his throat, “She looks real pretty.”
Hannah’s face colored. “Thank you,” she said. “We made breakfast, would you like to eat before we go?” Luke’s stomach was on fire. There was no way that he would be able to eat.
“Nah, I’ll eat later. Let’s get you ladies to church.”
On the ride to town Lily talked non-stop. Luke and Hannah sat silently side by side without saying a word. Luke was caught up in his own thoughts about what he was going to do. He wondered what Hannah was thinking. When they got to town, Luke dropped them at the church and told them he would be back in an hour. He said hello to a few of his neighbors that he hadn’t seen in a while. When Aunt Mabel was alive, he used to drop off her and Lily every week. Since she passed, even that small bit of socialization had gone by the wayside.
Luke watched them go inside, hand in hand and for the first time in a long time, he had the urge to go inside with them. He suddenly felt like he wanted to be a part of something. He wanted to feel alive again. He hesitated, thinking it over long enough for the doubts to creep back in. This was the church he married Cassie in. The people inside were worshipping the very God that took her away. In his mind, going inside without her would be evidence of him doing the same thing. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He clicked his tongue at the horses and led them down the street towards the feed lot.
***
Time never stands still, and while Luke and Hannah both struggled to figure out what they were doing with their lives and what they wanted to do…weeks passed, and they were quickly turning into months. Hannah adjusted to her life with Lily, but as the time passed the silences between her and Luke got longer and more awkward. Sometimes when she and Lily were laughing or playing she would catch him looking at her like he wanted to join in. As soon as he realized she was looking at him, he would turn away. It was a game of push/pull and Hannah wasn’t sure how much more of it she could take.
He wasn’t mean to her, ever. As a matter of fact, exactly the opposite was true. He was excruciatingly polite. He thanked her for everything she did for him and noticed and complimented everything she did in the house or the garden. He took her and Lily to church every week. He took her shopping for supplies or went to town with a list of things she needed. All the while when he was with his daughter he was that warm, funny man she’d caught just a glimpse of. But that was it. He didn’t talk to her about anything of any substance. He’d closed himself off to her that first night she came here…the night she mentioned his wife. Yet somehow along the way, Hannah had managed to fall in love with him.
“Hannah, are we going for our walk today?” Lily brought her out of her thoughts. Hannah looked at the girl and smiled. She’d fallen as hard for this little miniature version of Luke as she had for him. Sometimes at night when she lay in her lumpy little bed, she thought about packing her things and going home, most of the time the only thing stopping her was Lily. She had no idea how to leave her.
“Of course we’re going for our walk. I’ve been waiting for you.” Lily giggled.
“Let’s go then,” she told her. “Then we can do our lessons before I muck out those stalls that Pa asked me to get to today.”
Hannah took the girls’ hand and followed her out the door. “You like those lessons, don’t you?”
“I love them!” Li
ly told her with enthusiasm. Hannah had begun schooling her a few hours each day. They got up early to tend to their chores and then they had their walk and they studied the trees and bushes and any plants or animals they saw. If Lily didn’t know the proper term for something, they would take a “sample” and have it “analyzed” when Luke came in from the fields at night. Luke knew every plant, flower and tree within a hundred miles it seemed. After their walk, they did their lessons. In the evening if Lily was still awake when her Pa came in, she would talk incessantly, telling him everything she learned how to do that day, and sometimes showing him her work in the workbook that Hannah bought for her. Those were the times when Luke would smile his most genuine smile, and Hannah would melt. She had to get out of here before the heartbreak that was inevitable ended up tearing her apart.
[2016] A Bride's Journey Page 5