By the time Maggie returned with Aaron, Lucy had made headway into the mound of fried potatoes, three pones of cornbread sat in the warming oven, and chicken and dumplings simmered over the reservoir on the back of the stove. And per Mrs. Everett’s instructions, Lucy had just fished her first batch of doughnut holes out of the grease and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar.
Maggie stopped and stared at the kitchen. “I thought you said you couldn’t cook.”
Lucy grinned, reached over, and hugged Mrs. Everett, leaving a streak of flour on her weathered cheek. “I can’t. But Ma Everett can. So between the two of us, we managed to get the job done.”
Chapter 4
At the end of the day, Eli and Josiah took a dip in Sipsey Creek, washing off the grime and sweat from a hard day’s work. He tossed his knapsack on the bed, and Lucy Denson’s crocheted shawl spilled out across the patchwork quilt.
“You coming?” Josiah called out as he hurried out the door and bounded down the steps, toward the tables set up under the lean-to in the shade of the pines.
“Yeah, be right there.” Eli walked to the door, fingering the shawl even as he spotted Lucy flitting about the summer kitchen. He shoved the shawl back in his pack. She wouldn’t want him flaunting her mishap in front of the other men. He’d give it back to her later.
Minutes later, he stood in line, plate in hand. Maggie and Lucy ladled chicken and dumplings, fried potatoes, peas, and thick slabs of cornbread on each plate. His stomach rumbled.
“How’d it go today, Everett? Samuel Frazier slapped him on the back. Your crew do okay?”
Eli nodded. “We felled a dozen trees and snaked ’em out to the log road. A couple of real good punkins. Couldn’t ask for better.”
“Any problems?”
Eli’s gaze met Lucy’s across the makeshift sideboard, and a becoming blush stole over her cheeks. She lowered her gaze and ladled a helping of dumplings onto Josiah’s plate. “Nope. Everything went fine.”
“Good to hear.”
Eli and Samuel moved up in line. Samuel frowned and looked around. “Where’s Annabelle?”
“She wasn’t feeling well earlier and went home.” Maggie took Samuel’s plate, heaped it full of potatoes and peas, then held it out to Lucy for a generous serving of chicken and dumplings. Maggie pushed the plate back at her brother-in-law, a smile playing on her lips. “And here’s your supper. You can share with Annabelle, but I doubt she’ll be able to eat anything.”
Samuel blanched. “What’s the matter with her?”
“Maybe you should ask your wife that.”
The man hurried away, and Maggie and Lucy filled Eli’s plate. At the end of the table, a huge pan of cinnamon and sugarcoated bear sign made his mouth water. He popped one of the doughnuts in his mouth and groaned at the sugary sweetness.
As good as his own mother’s.
“Maggie-girl, you and Annabelle outdid yourselves today.”
Maggie shrugged. “Wasn’t us. With Annabelle sick and Aaron being so fussy, Lucy did most of the cooking today.”
“Really?” Eli’s gaze snapped to Lucy.
She lifted a pale eyebrow.
Oops, he’d offended her. He grabbed a handful of bear sign and nodded in appreciation. “Tastes a lot like Ma’s.”
As he searched for a place to sit, he caught the glance Lucy shared with his mother. His mother smiled and nodded, looking happier than he’d seen her in a long time.
Lucy frowned at Eli, who sat hunched over at one of the rough-hewn tables, his attention focused on his plate. He shoveled food into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten all week.
She wrinkled her nose. No table manners there. But the other men were eating with just as much gusto, laughing, talking, and devouring their food at an alarming rate. She bit her lip, the sheer abandon they exhibited while eating making her nervous. Where were their table manners? Why, Deotis would never make such a spectacle of himself.
But regardless of the way they were eating, she couldn’t help but be pleased they seemed to like her cooking—or Mrs. Everett’s, anyway. She’d cooked a meal and nobody pushed their plates away. But could she do it again? The last few hours had passed in a blur, with Mrs. Everett not giving her a minute’s rest. Close the damper. Open the damper. Remove the doughnuts, no, the—bear sign, from the grease. Hurry! Set those dumplings to the side before they scorch. Scorched dumplings weren’t fit for a cat to eat, she’d said.
And on and on. Lucy’s head was spinning from the instructions, and she’d never wanted to set foot in a kitchen again.
Until the ravenous logging crew devoured what she’d cooked, scooted back the rough-hewn benches, and lined up for seconds. Even Eli, one of the last to arrive, pushed back from the table, made an end-run around the other men, grabbed a handful of bear sign, and taking his mother’s arm, led her away toward a two-room shanty nestled among the trees. As the men wandered away, Maggie scraped the last of the potatoes into a battered metal pan. “Well, that went over well. We’ll get things cleaned up and get ready for breakfast.”
“Breakfast?”
“Oh, it’s nothing like this. Flapjacks and ham, mostly. Sorghum molasses and butter. The men will want to be through eating and in the woods by daylight though, so we have to get cracking mighty early. And if Annabelle is still not feeling well—”
“Daylight?” Lucy squeaked.
What had she gotten herself into?
Chapter 5
A clatter jerked Eli awake and he lay in the darkness, wondering what had stirred him from slumber before the gut-hammer sounded.
His brothers snored in their bunks in the shanty they’d built when they first arrived in Sipsey. They’d added a separate room for their mother, so she could have some privacy. Had his mother gotten out of bed? Fallen, maybe?
He swung his legs out of bed and padded on sock feet toward her room. She was still sleeping soundly. As he turned, he spotted the lantern on in the cook shack. Banging and a softly uttered exclamation drifted across the clearing.
Pulling on his trousers, he stomped into his boots and headed toward the kitchen. He’d grab a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise, then bring his mother a cup back so she could enjoy it in peace while the crews wolfed down breakfast before heading to the woods.
The sight that greeted him at the kitchen brought him up short. Lucy Denson stood in the middle of the shack, a cloud of flour hovering around her. “Lucy?”
She whirled, her blue eyes wide. “Oh, Eli, what am I going to do?”
“What’s the matter? Where’s Maggie and Annabelle?”
“Annabelle’s still not feeling well and Aaron has got the croup. Jack said Maggie would be here as soon as she could, but for me to go ahead and get started.”
Eli glanced around the kitchen at the cold stove and the fixings for flapjacks. He rubbed his neck and squinted at Lucy. “Uh, Lucy, have you ever fixed flapjacks before?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve never fixed any meal before last night.”
“Never?”
She shook her head. “If it hadn’t been for your mother’s help, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I see.” And he did see. Those dumplings and the bear sign had tasted just like his mother’s cooking. He rubbed his hands together. “Well, the crew will be here anytime, so let’s get started.”
She held out both hands, warding him off. “Oh, but you can’t. It’s not your job.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s got to be done and looks like it’s you and me this morning.” Eli hunkered down and opened the firebox on the stove and stirred up the ashes. At least Maggie had banked the fire real good last night. “Do you know how to work the stove?”
“No. Mama wouldn’t let me near the kitchen.” Even in the dim light cast from the lantern, the misery on Lucy’s face was evident. She leaned in close, a look of fierce determination on her face. “I know I’m next to useless in the kitchen, but I’m willing to learn if you’ll just show me.”
E
li jostled her shoulder. “Hey, don’t say that. Anybody who can cook as fine a meal as you did last night, just from Ma’s instructions, can learn how to get the stove going in the mornings and whip up a batch of flapjacks.”
“You think so?” She sniffed and blinked, her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, then swept up to reveal eyes as blue as a clear summer sky. Eli froze, lost in the bottomless pools of her sky-blue eyes.
He cleared his throat and jerked open the damper on the stove. “I do. Now, listen carefully.”
Lucy watched every move Eli made. His large work-roughened hands got the stove going, sliced ham, started frying it, then showed her how to mix up a batch of pancakes.
“Flapjacks are about the easiest things in the world to make. As long as they’re not raw or burnt, the men won’t care.” He plopped some lard on the large griddle and used a spatula to spread it out. He sprinkled water on the flat surface, and it sizzled and splattered. Lucy jumped, but he snagged her around the waist and pulled her back.
“It’s not going to hurt you. See, when the water sizzles and dances across the griddle, the stove’s just the right temperature. Now, pour your batter. Not much, about the size of a saucer.”
Lucy smiled as the circular rounds of batter formed perfectly on the griddle. But the bowl grew heavy, and on her third attempt, she poured way too much. Eli grabbed the bowl and tipped it up, laughing. “Enough. You won’t be able to flip that monster over!”
“I’m sorry.” One arm wrapped securely around the large bowl, the other clutching the spatula, Lucy rubbed her face against her sleeve, trying to push a wisp of hair off her face. “It’s heavy.”
Eli reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. His brown eyes crinkled at the corners, and his gaze shifted and moved lazily across her face. His thumb rubbed softly against her cheek, and she shivered at his touch. “You’ve got flour on your face.”
“I’m—I’m not surprised.” Lucy whispered past the lump in her throat. She needed to move away, to put some space between them, but there wasn’t much room between the stove and the long sideboard, where they served the meals. She took a shuddering breath, willing her lungs to breathe.
Eli’s eyelids fell to half-mast and his gaze dropped to her lips. For a wild moment, Lucy wondered if this big, brawny man who towered over her was going to kiss her. Her heart pounded. He wasn’t. . .she didn’t. . .
An incessant clanging rent the air and Lucy jumped, nearly losing her grip on the bowl of batter. The men’s wake-up call had her turning toward the griddle. “Well,” she said, her voice high-pitched from sheer nerves—“the men will be here any minute. What next?”
Eli leaned around her, plucked the spatula from her nerveless fingers and flipped a flapjack over, the batter perfectly browned. “You just flip ’em when they’re brown, and that’s it. All right?”
Lucy nodded, taking the spatula from him.
Maggie came rushing in, grabbed an apron, and tied it on. “Oh, Lucy, bless you.”
“It wasn’t—”
Eli touched his fingers to her lips. “Shh.”
Then winking, he grabbed a cup, poured himself a cup of coffee he’d made, and settled onto one of the benches. “Morning, Maggie.”
Chapter 6
Eli sipped his coffee as one by one the men crowded under the lean-to. They jostled for position near the stove and the coffee he’d set to boiling earlier. He frowned. Or were they just getting closer to Lucy? Even Caleb, who didn’t even like coffee, stood near the stove.
Every single one of them dwarfed her slender frame as she focused on making flapjacks. Where Maggie rushed about the open area flipping ham and frying potatoes, Lucy stood firmly in front of the griddle, watching the flapjacks as if her life depended on getting them just right.
She eased up a flapjack and peered underneath. Seemingly satisfied they were brown enough, she scooped the cakes up one at a time and piled them on a platter, then carried them to Maggie. Maggie grabbed the huge platter and placed it on the table. “We’ll need more.”
His lips twitched when Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “More?”
Maggie darted away, forking up ham and whipping around so fast it made his head spin. As the men dug into their breakfast, Lucy turned back to the stove and carefully poured out another batch of flapjacks.
Eli shook his head at the precise way she attempted to make each pancake the exact same size, all of them perfectly round, perfectly browned. She’d learn the men didn’t care what the food looked like as long as it was reasonably tasty and kept their bellies full until their next meal.
Lucy felt Eli’s gaze on her, but kept her attention firmly on the task at hand. She knew she needed to help Maggie with the rest of the meal, but she was afraid she’d burn the flapjacks if she left them unattended. Better to stay at her station than to show how utterly incompetent she was in the kitchen.
Maggie single-handedly kept the men supplied with fried potatoes, ham, coffee, butter, and syrup, while all Lucy could do was cook flapjacks. Her face heated; she pressed her lips together and peeked to see if this latest batch was done. Satisfied they were, she flipped them over. She eyed the pale yellow orbs. They didn’t look done enough. Maybe she should flip them back over. Frowning, she studied the pancakes, trying to decide what to do. Was the stove hot enough? Did she need to open the damper? Or add more wood?
Maggie hurried to the stove, the empty platter in her hand. “Those ready?”
Lucy poked at the flapjacks. “I’m not sure.”
Maggie grabbed the spatula and deftly flipped one over. “They’ll do.”
Within seconds, she’d stacked all the flapjacks on the platter and tossed it on the table. Forks stabbed at the golden cakes, ripping them apart as the men grabbed pieces off the platter. They slathered the flapjacks with globs of butter and sorghum molasses and hunkered over them, shoveling the food into their mouths.
Lucy shook her head at the free-for-all as the men devoured the flapjacks, the rest of Maggie’s ham, and six pots of coffee. A man with shoulders like an ox stood, reached across the table and picked up the leftover potatoes, dumped them on his plate and poured half a jar of tomato relish on top. He then picked up a fork and started eating without missing a beat.
Someone clanged on the gut-hammer and just as suddenly as they appeared, the men gulped down the last of their coffee and stood, moving away from the kitchen all as one unit. One bench fell over with a thud as they all trooped out. Lucy stared at the mess they’d left. She’d never seen anybody eat like that. Not even last night had been as chaotic. Eli tipped the bench upright and pushed it under the table, and her gaze met his.
He tipped his slouch hat toward her and Maggie then loped away, hoisting himself on the back of one of the log wagons headed toward the woods.
Chapter 7
By the time Uncle Hiram dismissed church Sunday morning and the congregation filed out to enjoy dinner on the ground, Lucy’s smile felt frozen in place. They’d moved away eight years ago and, other than Uncle Hiram, her aunts, and her cousins Annabelle and Jack, she didn’t remember any of the people who insisted they’d known her from the day she was born.
While her mother carried food from the wagon to the long tables spread out beneath the towering pines, Lucy enlisted her younger cousins to gather wildflowers. As the ladies laid old quilts and sheets on the tables, Lucy placed canning jars filled with flowers on top. The bright-colored flowers brought out the reds, yellows, and blues in the quilts. She stepped back, admiring her handiwork. She eyed the flowers on one of the tables, grabbed a couple out of a jar that was overflowing, and poked them in a skimpy one.
Aunt Eugenia smiled at her from the other side of the table. “I declare, Lucy, you sure do have a way with flowers. Sunday dinner has never looked so inviting. Would you be willing to help decorate for the Independence Day celebration?
“Of course. What did you have in mind?” Lucy helped her aunt arrange the food on the table around the flowers.
> “Well, flowers for starters. And the men will build a speaker’s platform, so we’ll need bunting for that.”
“What about fireworks?” Lucy loved the annual fireworks display in Chicago. Another thing she’d miss this summer.
“Oh, none of that.” Aunt Eugenia frowned. “Too noisy and scares the animals.”
A pity about the fireworks. She loved the patterns and stunning colors they made against the night sky. If she could just transfer all of that sparkle to a crochet pattern. She pictured the explosion in her head. Maybe she could come up with a pattern that would look like fireworks. Red, white, and blue pinwheels, with a bit of a spiral. Stars, maybe. . .
Aunt Eugenia continued to discuss the July Fourth celebration and with an effort Lucy pushed thoughts of crocheting and fireworks to the back of her mind. “Could you make place ribbons for the contests; pies, watermelon eating, canning? That sort of thing. And the men have all kinds of events planned. I’ll have to ask Samuel how many so we have enough ribbons.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure I can come up with something.”
“That’s settled, then.” Aunt Eugenia smiled at someone behind her. “Ah, Mrs. Everett, good to see you looking so well today.”
Lucy turned to find Eli and his mother behind her. The elderly woman reached out to pat her on the arm, a secretive smile playing about her lips. “Been doing more cooking?”
“A little.” Lucy’s gaze lifted and met Eli’s, and a blush stole over her cheeks. Had he told his mother about their early morning cooking class? From the look on his face, she guessed not. She turned back to Mrs. Everett. “How are you feeling, ma’am? I missed seeing you yesterday.”
“I’m fine.” She flexed her fingers. “My arthritis has been acting up and I think I overdid it the other day. But I do have a recipe I want to share with you. Eli wrote it down for me.” She fumbled with the drawstrings on her purse. “Oh, drat it.”
Eli plucked the black bag from his mother’s fingers and pulled open the drawstring, his work-roughened hands large against the small bag. He extracted a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to Lucy. Their fingers brushed, and she lowered her gaze. “Thank you.”
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