A Plain and Sweet Christmas Romance Collection

by Lauralee Bliss

  Lucinda slipped her hands from Mercy’s grasp and turned back to her work at the table. She lacked the courage to tell the woman that she wasn’t even sure if she’d uttered a single prayer since Alan’s funeral. “Maybe after the baby comes,” she murmured, forcing a weak smile. “Maybe I’ll be ready then.”

  Mercy heaved a deep sigh and took the finished pan of cookies and put it in the oven. When she straightened up again, she fixed Lucinda with a somber gaze. “If thee wants to know if something is from God, just remember that God gives only good gifts. If something is good, it’s from God.”

  Though Lucinda was tempted to say that God may give but He also takes, she bit back the retort. She would rather their cookie making not be marred by more sermons about her need to return to Meeting. So she nodded silently and went back to cutting out and decorating gingerbread men. As she and Mercy worked together, Mercy kept Lucinda enthralled with stories of her parents’ daring exploits as young people in southern Illinois on the banks of the Ohio River.

  Before Lucinda realized it, the afternoon had slipped away. She had just put the last pan of cookies in the oven when a knock sounded at the front door. Her heart jumped. Could it be Will coming to take her home? She hadn’t heard the living room clock chime five o’clock, but she might have missed it.

  Mercy turned from where she stood washing up the mixing bowls and utensils. “Would thee see who is at the door, Lucinda? I’m up to my elbows in soap suds.”

  “Yes.” Hoping her voice didn’t register her dismay, she headed to the living room. When she opened the door, a measure of relief washed over her. She couldn’t think of a time when she was happier to see Naomi Davis.

  “Good afternoon, Lucinda.” Mild surprise edged Naomi’s voice. “Is Mercy home?”

  “Yes.” She glanced toward the back of the house and the kitchen. “We were just making gingerbread cookies for the orphanage. Please, do come in.” Remembering her manners, Lucinda backed away from the door, allowing Naomi to enter with a rather sizeable basket on her arm.

  “That is very commendable of thee.” Naomi’s voice held little warmth. Her green-eyed gaze avoided Lucinda’s and instead flitted about the room like an insect searching for a place to land. It finally rested on Mercy’s loom.

  At that moment, Mercy, with tea towel in hand, bustled into the living room. “Good afternoon, Naomi. How nice of thee to visit. Please come in and sit down.” She motioned toward the bench against the north wall.

  “Thank thee, but I can’t stay.” Naomi held out the basket. “I know it is late notice, but I’ve brought rag strips for a rug I’d like to have made before Christmas.”

  Smiling, Mercy took the basket full of balled cotton strips in hues of browns and greens and set it beside the loom. “We should get this done before the end of the week, shouldn’t we, Lucinda?”

  “Oh.” The word came out of Naomi’s mouth more like a gasp, and her wide-eyed gaze bounced between Mercy and Lucinda. She fidgeted, and her complexion reddened. “I—I didn’t know that Lucinda wove rugs,” she said as if Lucinda wasn’t present.

  “Yes.” Beaming, Mercy glanced at Lucinda. “She just took it up a couple weeks ago, but she’s already doin’ an excellent job.”

  “I’m sure.” Naomi’s voice sounded weak. Her tortured smile looked more like a grimace. “As I plan to give the rug as a Christmas gift, I would really prefer that thee made it thyself, Mercy.”

  “Of course.” Mercy’s smile didn’t waver, but Lucinda thought the lines around her mouth tightened. Suddenly Mercy’s eyes flew wide open, and she gasped. “Oh, I almost forgot that last pan of cookies in the oven! If thee will excuse me…” Without waiting for an answer, she bustled off toward the kitchen.

  Naomi cast a worried look at her basket of rags as if having second thoughts about leaving them. Then, looking down her pinched nose, she ran a chilly gaze over Lucinda’s form. “It’s good to see thee looking so…well. Since I hadn’t seen thee at Meeting for months, I supposed thee might have taken to thy bed. But I see that is not the case.”

  Lucinda managed a stiff smile. Though she would not question the woman’s honesty, Lucinda found it hard to believe that Naomi wasn’t aware of her general health. “I thank thee for thy concern, Naomi, but I am well.”

  Naomi’s voice turned hard, dropping any pretense of friendliness. “Then I shall expect to see thee at Meeting this Sunday. For if thee is well enough to walk two miles every day to weave rugs, thee is well enough to attend Meeting.” Her critical gaze sharpened to an outright glare. “I will tell thee plainly, Lucinda Hughes, Simeon and some of the other elders have begun to question if thee ever truly experienced sanctification and if thy name should remain on the membership rolls of Serenity Friends Meeting.”

  Chapter 6

  We buried Pa last Tuesday.”

  Lucinda stared in disbelief at the words on the page of her sister’s letter. Despite the roaring fire in the belly of the coal stove a few inches away, she sat as if frozen to the bench along the wall of the mercantile that doubled as a post office.

  She’d read Esther’s announcement three times and still felt only numbness. Surely there must have been some scrap of tenderness between herself and Pa—something to evoke a smidgen of emotion. But nothing came. Not sadness. Not even relief. Nothing.

  One image of Pa muscled out all others in Lucinda’s mind. Her most vivid memory of him was the day she told him she’d be leaving their tenant farm and going to Indiana with the Quakers. She could still see him towering over her in a drunken rage. His slurred voice still echoed in her ears. “You leave this place with them black-hatted Bible thumpers and you’ll be dead to me, girl. You want to leave, then leave. But don’t you ever come back, or I’ll put you in the ground. I swear it!” After that he’d seared the air with obscenities, the memory of which still blistered her ears.

  She shivered. If not for the half-dozen Quakers standing in the yard behind her, Lucinda had no doubt that Pa, in his fury, would have swung his raised fist and struck her down where she stood.

  She blinked, willing the frightening image to disappear. When she focused again on her sister’s letter, she found Esther’s next revelation nearly as jarring as the news of Pa’s death.

  I’m fixing to have another young one next summer. Me and Lonny would like for you to come back down and live with us. You wouldn’t know Lonny. He done found religion. He quit drinking and has started taking me and the children to church on Sundays.

  Esther’s words filled Lucinda with happiness for her sister as well as her little niece and nephew. But she found it hard to picture Lonny Ray Malloy as a teetotal churchgoer. In part, Lucinda’s desire to escape the fate of her two older sisters had convinced her to leave home. Both Esther and Lydia had married men cut from the same whiskey-soaked cloth as their father—demanding when sober and cruel when drunk. Though she was glad for Esther, the notion of returning to the grim life of a tenant farmer held little appeal.

  Still, as she read on, her sister’s description of Esther, Lonny, and the kids searching the woods along Raccoon Creek for the perfect Christmas tree strummed a compelling melody across Lucinda’s heartstrings. She liked imagining her child growing up alongside his cousins.

  “I hope all is well with your family in Kentucky.” The voice of Beulah Reeves, the storekeeper’s wife, brought Lucinda’s face upward.

  “Yes.” It was not a lie. Whether or not her siblings grieved Pa’s passing, Lucinda knew his absence removed a constant danger. Feeling the need to digest all she’d learned before sharing it with anyone, she stuffed the letter back into its envelope and tucked it into her skirt pocket.

  Beulah struck an expectant stance, her head cocked to one side and her arms akimbo as if waiting for Lucinda to divulge more of the correspondence. But when she failed to oblige, Beulah gave her a lukewarm smile. “Well, I have your groceries all boxed up. So unless you can think of something else you might need, I’ll have my boy, Henry, carry the box to your bug
gy.”

  Lucinda rose from her perch on the bench. “Thank thee, Beulah. That will be all.” She’d almost forgotten why she’d driven into Serenity in the first place.

  Fifteen minutes later as she drove home, Esther’s words still dominated her thoughts: “Me and Lonny would like for you to come back down and live with us.”

  After Pa’s hateful warning nearly two years ago, Lucinda had put all thoughts of ever returning to Kentucky out of her mind. But now, for the sake of her child, she must at least consider it.

  Through a flurry of snowflakes, she guided Star along the dirt road toward home. Home. Was this place even her home anymore? Maybe Naomi was right and Lucinda had never experienced true sanctification, despite how real it had felt that night at the tent meeting.

  Sniffing back a wad of hot tears, she flicked the reins against the horse’s rump, urging the mare to a trot. If, as Naomi Davis believed, Lucinda was not a true Quaker and didn’t belong with the Serenity Friends Meeting, then what was there to hold her here?

  The image of Will’s face drifted unbidden before her mind’s eye, setting her heart trotting faster than Star’s feet. She sighed. So far, no amount of rug weaving or visiting Mercy had managed to diminish her uncomfortable reaction to Will. And he hadn’t helped, insisting on stopping by the cabin every few days to inquire about her health and comfort. Indeed, she’d made the trip to the store for groceries so he’d have one less reason to stop by her house.

  Aside from her own disquieting feelings about Will, even more troublesome was her growing sense that he felt the same about her. And what if they should make a match? Her child would need a father. But Naomi and Simeon would doubtless stand squarely against Will marrying outside the faith. Will, too, would expect Lucinda to attend Meeting. And Lucinda would not sit in Meeting and falsely pretend a connection with God she no longer felt.

  As she came to the spot where her lane converged with the road, Star turned unprompted onto the narrow path that led up to the cabin. “No.” Lucinda surprised herself by speaking aloud. It would be better for both her and Will if she simply accepted Esther’s offer and moved back to Kentucky.

  The mare whinnied and bobbed her head as they rounded the curve in the lane that led to the front of the cabin. When the house came into view, Lucinda’s heart turned a somersault. Will’s mule, Bob, stood hitched to a flatbed wagon. But more remarkably, the cabin’s front door stood wide open.

  Lucinda reined Star to a stop behind the wagon. What could Will be up to that required the door to be open? And why would he go into her house without her there? Eager to learn the answers to the questions burning in her mind, she scrambled down from the buggy and headed to the front porch.

  At the open door, she stopped, stunned. Will stood in her front room with a wrench in his hand, constructing something that looked suspiciously like a loom.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  At a sound near the open doorway, Will looked up and his heart catapulted into his throat. Lucinda stood as if frozen in place, her eyes growing to the size of silver dollar pieces. This was not the way he had envisioned presenting her with her new loom.

  “I hope thee doesn’t mind me letting myself in.” Could he have thought of anything more stupid to say? Of course she minded. Otherwise, she wouldn’t still be standing there with her jaw practically scraping the floor. He wouldn’t blame her if she turned tail and headed to Serenity to get Sheriff Brewster.

  “What—what is that?” She finally stepped into the room, but her unblinking eyes never left the loom.

  “It’s a rug loom. See?” In what seemed even to him a ridiculous demonstration, he swung one of the moving parts of the contraption. After two hours of work, he prayed he had the thing put together correctly.

  “For me? Thee got this for me?” Lucinda, who’d given the loom a wide berth as if afraid it might come to life and pounce on her, inched closer.

  “Yes.” Despite a chill breeze blowing through the open door, sweat broke out on Will’s forehead. How could he explain why he had let himself into her house and built a loom in her front room without sounding overbearing, crazy, or both? “I thought thee might like to weave here instead of walking to Mercy’s. I mean, in case it snows and thee can’t…”

  She reached out and touched a timber as if to assure herself that the thing was real. Then she turned and looked at him. Straight at him. Tears welled in her eyes, and panic grabbed Will’s chest like an iron fist. She hated it.

  “Please, do not be distressed. If thee does not want it, I promise I will have it gone within the hour.” He moved to begin loosening the closest bolt. “It was wrong of me to—”

  “Oh no!” She reached out her arms toward the loom in a protective motion. “I do want it. But I cannot accept such a gift. It is too dear. And I—I cannot pay thee for it.” Her voice wilted, and Will’s heart seized.

  “Thee owes me nothing.” He dropped the wrench into his toolbox with a clatter. “I am repaid by knowing that this loom will keep thee home safe and out of the weather.”

  At that her lips pressed into a straight line, and he knew he’d said too much. He groaned inwardly. He should have heeded Proverbs 13:3. “He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.”

  “So thee bought this to keep me home.” There wasn’t so much as a hint of question in her flat tone. Staring at the loom, she pressed her fingertips against her lips, hiding her expression.

  “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me.” Befuddled, he gathered up his remaining tools scattered around the floor. He needed to leave before he angered her any further.

  A sputtering sound escaped from between her fingers then a full-blown giggle burst free. “Poor Will.” Grinning, she gave him a piteous look. “Thee does not know me as well as thee thinks.”

  Will fought the urge to take her into his arms and declare that he would like to learn to know her better. But that could never be.

  The mirth left her face, replaced by a smile so sad and sweet it made his chest ache. Then she stepped toward him, and his heart pounded like a bass drum. “Thank thee, Will.” She placed her hand on his forearm, sending tingles dancing up to his shoulder. “The first rug I make on this shall be for thee.”

  Abandoning all caution, he took her hands into his and gazed into her cinnamon-colored eyes. “Lucinda.”

  “Will!”

  At the harsh male voice, they both turned toward the open doorway to face a nearly purple-faced Simeon.

  Chapter 7

  Will touched his fingertip to the wood to check if the varnish had dried. When he felt no tackiness, he reached for the can of varnish on the shelf above the workbench and then drew his hand back with a sigh. Another coat of varnish would not improve it. Nor would varnish improve his mood.

  Though pleased with the finished project, he almost hated seeing it come to an end. As long as he had something to keep him busy, to concentrate on, he managed to keep his anger in check. So he wasn’t particularly pleased when Amos closed the mill at noon to make needed repairs, sending Will and the other workers home early.

  At the memory of Simeon’s actions last week, Will’s simmering rage boiled again in his belly as if his insides were a cauldron. He’d been but an instant away from declaring his affection for Lucinda when Simeon had appeared at her door. Determined to protect her from any embarrassment, Will had insisted that he and Simeon take their conversation, which eventually escalated to a heated argument, outside away from the cabin and, he’d hoped, beyond earshot.

  Though pride was sinful, Will couldn’t help feeling more than a tinge of it. In the face of Simeon’s demands that Will leave Lucinda’s home immediately, he had stood his ground. Simeon had left in a huff, while Will stayed to carry in Lucinda’s groceries and put her horse and buggy away in the barn.

  But the worried look Will had seen on Lucinda’s face after Simeon’s departure told him she had indeed heard the argument, including Simeon’s complaint about th
e money Will had spent on the loom.

  Guilt lashed at his heart. The last thing he had wanted was for her to feel that she was to blame for the contention between his brother and him. He also hated that she might feel indebted to him or his family in any way.

  The anger pulsating through him exploded, and he kicked the empty metal bucket near his feet clear to the other side of the barn. It smacked against the mule’s stall with a clatter, causing the animal to jump and bray in protest.

  A small measure of his frustration eased, Will blew out a long breath. “Sorry, Bob,” he muttered and then looked up at the cobweb-covered rafters. “I know, Lord, I know. Proverbs, chapter nineteen, verse eleven. ‘The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.’”

  With that thought, part of another scripture—Luke 6:37—came to mind. “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”

  Turning back to the piece of furniture he’d just finished, Will’s heart throbbed painfully. In truth, no one, including Simeon, stood more in need of Lucinda’s forgiveness than Will did. But she couldn’t forgive him without knowing what he had done.

  He picked up the ragged length of quilt he’d used to cover the object since beginning work on it and carefully swathed the varnished wood. Next week was Christmas. The moment he gave her this might be the perfect time to confess fully his transgression. At the thought, an icy chill slithered down his spine. Did he have the courage to face losing what small measure of affection Lucinda felt for him?

  Leaving the barn, he stepped toward the house and groaned. He’d sooner stay out in the frigid December air than enter the chilly atmosphere that now held sway inside his home. Simeon and Naomi hardly spoke to him anymore. And when they did, their words held little warmth.