Am I such a horrid person that he can’t be civil to me even for a day? Isn’t there anything about me that he can find to like?
Emily tried to ignore the feelings of hurt and rejection as she mixed the pancake batter while the skillet heated on the stove.
From the loft, Sabrina called, “Ma! Ma, did you see the snow?” She hurried down the ladder, Petula right behind.
“Yes, I saw,” Dru answered.
Sabrina turned toward the kitchen. “Mmm. Flapjacks. I’m hungry.”
“Me too,” echoed her sister.
Emily smiled. “Good, because I made lots of batter.”
“I want six,” Sabrina said.
“Me too,” Petula parroted.
Oh, how she would miss these girls when her time with them was over. She hadn’t known she would feel such love for her charges when she accepted this job.
Feeling the threat of unexpected tears, she returned her attention to the skillet, scooped two pancakes each onto two plates, and set them on the table. When she had control of her emotions, she turned. “Breakfast is ready.”
Sabrina and Petula took their places at once.
“Mrs. Blake?”
Dru shook her head. “I believe I’ll stay here by the fire. My tea is enough for now.” A tired smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. “It’s time you called me Dru. I like to think we’ve become friends.”
A lump thickened in Emily’s throat. “I would like that . . . Dru. And you must call me Emily.”
“Can we go play in the snow after breakfast, Ma?” Sabrina asked before stuffing a large bite of hotcakes into her mouth.
“Not until the storm is over. When it stops snowing, you can go out.”
As if in response, a gust of wind slammed against the house, rattling the windows and whistling beneath the door. Emily poured more batter into the skillet, then walked over to the window to look outside. The steady snowfall of earlier had become a blizzard. There was no earth or sky to be discerned. All was white, the barn obscured by snowflakes driven sideways by the wind. She hugged her arms against her chest.
“How will Mr. Blake find his way back?” She glanced over her shoulder at Dru. “He can’t possibly see.”
“He’ll wait it out in the barn.”
Time passed slowly after that. The girls finished eating, and Emily washed the dishes. All but the skillet. She would wait until Gavin had his breakfast before she washed it. Surely it wouldn’t be much longer before he returned.
Every time the house creaked she looked toward the door. Dru looked too, and Emily knew the woman shared her concern. She tried to hide her growing anxiety from the children, but despite her best efforts, the air was thick with it.
“Ma?” Petula crawled into her mother’s lap. “Is Pa okay?”
“Of course he is. He’s tending the animals, like he does every morning.”
“He’s been gone a long time.”
“He’ll be in soon, Pet. Don’t you worry.” As she stroked her daughter’s hair with one hand, she glanced at Emily.
It was bad enough for the women to worry. Worse yet for the children to be afraid. Emily nodded, communicating her understanding. Then she said, “Girls, it’s time for your studies. If we get our work done now, we can play in the snow when the storm is over. Get your books and slates.” She clapped her hands twice.
“Hurry now.”
Gavin groaned as consciousness returned, bringing with it a terrible throbbing in his head. Was that straw scratching his face? Yes, it was. Why was he lying facedown in the barn?
He rolled onto his back. A horse snorted nearby. Then he remembered.
“If I didn’t need you to pull the wagon,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’d plug you between the eyes right here and now.”
It wasn’t the first time the big workhorse had kicked at him. It was the first time the gelding had connected — a glancing blow to the head that had actually knocked him out.
The barn spun around him as he sat up, another groan escaping his lips.
“You’d make great buzzard feed.”
The piebald looked at him with unrepentant eyes.
How long had he been unconscious? Long enough to feel the cold in his bones. And from the sound of the wind outside, the storm hadn’t let up any. Gingerly he touched the back of his head, finding a hoof-sized lump with his fingers.
“I may shoot you yet.”
Emily tightened the rope around her waist as she repeated the instructions Dru had given her. “Two tugs mean I need you to pull me back. Four tugs means I’m in the barn and you can tie off the rope for us to use to find our way back when Gavin agrees it’s safe.” She tried to sound confident.
She wasn’t confident, of course, but she had to go out into the blizzard anyway. Gavin had been outside too long now. They needed to know why he hadn’t returned. They all needed to know — Dru, Sabrina, Petula, and Emily.
She tightened the knitted scarf around her head and pulled open the door. Snow stung her cheeks as she leaned forward and stepped outside.
“We’ll be back soon,” she called over the wind.
A few steps was all it took for the house to disappear from sight. Emily was surrounded by nothing but white. She held onto the rope for all she was worth as she forged ahead. Her feet sank into drifts of snow, and she stumbled more than once. All sense of direction vanished. There was no up or down, right or left, forward or back, night or day. There was only snow. Snow, snow, and more snow.
Was she still going in the right direction? What if she was lost out here? Panic rose like bile in her throat.
Turn back. Turn back now!
She couldn’t turn back. Dru and the girls were counting on her. Maybe Gavin was counting on her too. She had to reach the barn. She had to find it soon.
For courage, she silently quoted one of Maggie’s favorite verses: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
She pressed on.
The barn seemed to loom out of nowhere, mere inches away by the time she saw it. She felt almost giddy with relief as she touched it with her hands, making sure it wasn’t a mirage. Then she pressed her forehead against the board siding and whispered, “Thank you, God. Thank you.”
Drawing a steadying breath, she felt her way toward where she thought the door should be. Not finding it, she turned and moved the other direction until her hand fell upon the latch. She pulled on the door, but the snowdrift was too high. It wouldn’t budge. She would have to clear away the snow before she could open it enough to slip inside. Using both hands, she scooped and tossed, scooped and tossed, scooped and tossed. It took forever. Despair threatened, but she wouldn’t allow herself to give into it.
By the time she opened the door and stepped into the dark, pungent air of the barn, her hands were stiff with the cold.
“Mr. Blake?”
She remembered to give the four tugs on the rope to let Dru know she was in the barn. Then she untied the rope from around her waist and secured it to a rail near the door.
“Mr. Blake?” she called again.
No reply. Where was he? Could he have tried to return to the house and been lost in the storm? Her heart raced with fear at the thought.
She made her way slowly toward the stalls that held the animals, the dim light of the barn making it difficult to see. She found Gavin in the third stall, his back against the rails.
“Mr. Blake?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t look at her.
She knelt in the straw beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Gavin?”
He groaned, his eyes closed.
She gave him a little shake. “Gavin? What happened?”
At last he looked at her, but his eyes seemed unfocused.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing much,” he answered slowly. “I just got the sense knocked out of me . . . by a horse.” His eyes rolled back in his head, and she had to catch him in her arms before he could top
ple over into the straw.
Twelve
Emily wasn’t sure how much time passed before he regained consciousness again. It seemed like forever. The silence of the barn and the whistling wind from beyond it made the waiting sheer agony. She didn’t know what to do for Gavin. He was obviously hurt or sick, but she had no way of knowing what was wrong. So she continued to hold him, his head on her shoulder, and waited.
At long last he stirred, releasing another long groan.
“Be careful, Mr. Blake,” she cautioned.
He drew slowly back from her, his eyes filled with confusion and surprise. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Another groan, then, “I’m gonna kill him.”
“Kill who?”
“Patch.” He turned the back of his head toward her. “How bad is it?”
She leaned closer and saw that his dark hair was matted with blood. “What did Patch do?”
“I leaned down to pick up the bucket, and he kicked me in the head. Knocked me out cold.”
She gingerly moved his hair out of the way so she could see the wound.
He grunted but didn’t pull away from her.
“It’s hard to tell in this light, but I don’t think you’ll need stitches. Head wounds always seem to bleed a lot. My nieces and nephews taught me that.”
Gavin pushed himself up from the floor. “I take it it’s stopped snowing.” He steadied himself against the top railing of the stall.
“Not yet.” She stood and brushed the straw from her skirt. “The wind is still driving the snow very hard. At least it was when I came to the barn.”
“You came out here through that blizzard?”
“I had to. We knew something was wrong when you didn’t return.”
Moving with care, Gavin walked across the barn to the door. Reaching it, he saw the rope tied to the rail and looked back at Emily.
“We tied it around my waist so I wouldn’t get lost. We can follow it back to the house.”
With a nod, he lifted the latch and tried to open the door. It barely moved.
She followed him across the barn. “I cleared away the snow so I could get in. It can’t be covered over already.”
“You’re wrong about that, Miss Harris.” He looked toward the loft. “We’ll have to go out through the loft.”
“Through the loft?” Her heart thudded as she sank onto a nearby storage bin, her frantic pulse pounding in her ears. He couldn’t possibly expect her to jump from up there.
Gavin hadn’t seen a snowstorm like this one this early in the year since he’d settled in Idaho. In December and January, plenty of times, but never in October.
He closed the loft door and returned to the ladder, stopping at the edge to look down. Emily hadn’t moved from the storage bin. Even from up here he could see her shivering as she hugged herself.
“No sign of it stopping yet.” His head throbbing, he lowered himself down the ladder. “And my guess is that rope of yours is under a foot of snow already.”
She nodded, misery written on her pretty face.
“Come over here,” Gavin said, motioning with his hand. “We need to warm you up.”
She rose from the bin and moved toward him, her arms still folded across her chest. When she reached him, he placed his hand on the small of her back and steered her toward the stall holding Sabrina’s calf.
“Wait here,” he commanded.
In the tack room at the back of the barn, he grabbed several saddle blankets. On his return trip, he took the lantern from its hook and carried it with him to the stall.
“Hold this.” He handed her the light.
With his boot, he kicked straw into a pile in the corner, then made a nest in the center of it. Afterward he placed one of the blankets over the bed of straw and smoothed out the wrinkles as best he could.
“Come on in.”
“Mr. Blake, I — ”
“Don’t argue with me, Miss Harris. Look at you. You’re shivering so hard I can almost hear your teeth rattle.”
When she drew near, he took the lantern from her. She lifted her eyes to meet his, and he felt his gut tighten. Vulnerable. Sweet. Uncertain. Fearful. There was something about her that made him want to —
He gritted his teeth and willed the incomplete thought away. “Go on. Sit down on that bed of straw and pull those other blankets over you.”
She skittered away from him.
Smart girl.
When she was covered with the saddle blankets, Gavin hung the lantern on another hook nearby, turning up the flame as high as it would go, then led the calf over to Emily. With a little encouragement, he got the calf to lie down close to her.
“He’ll throw off some body heat,” he explained without looking at her. “It should help warm you.”
The blustering wind whistled around the corner of the barn. A horse blew dust from its nostrils. Another stomped its hoof. The calf curled into a tight ball, making the straw rustle as he buried his nose against his belly.
Gavin felt their isolation. They might have been the only two people in the world. One man. One woman. Alone together.
He moved to the opposite side of the stall and slid to the floor, hugging his arms around his chest. If he were a praying man, he would definitely be asking God to bring the storm to an end — and soon.
Emily was cold and scared. Scared of staying in the barn while the storm raged. Scared of the thought of being lowered out of the hay door in the loft or worse, having to jump.
“It’ll be all right, Miss Harris.”
She looked across the stall at him. His face was hidden in shadows — the light from the lantern falling upon her and not him — but she took comfort in his presence. She took even more comfort knowing he hadn’t fallen unconscious again.
“I’ve waited out my share of blizzards. It won’t last much longer.”
How could he be sure? Still, she appreciated his attempt to reassure her.
“Put your hands on the calf. That’ll help warm them, and then the rest of you will start feeling warmer.”
She did as he suggested. “I hope Dru won’t be too worried about us.”
“That woman’s got a lot of faith in her God. I imagine she’ll trust him with us too.”
Emily nodded, drawing even more comfort from that thought than from Gavin’s presence. “I guess I should do the same, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry for letting my fear take over.”
“I’d say you didn’t let fear take over, Miss Harris. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be out here in this barn, and I might still be unconscious.”
Warmth at his unexpected praise spread through her.
He chuckled softly. “I bet you didn’t foresee anything like this when you decided to take a job as governess.”
She smiled. “No, I didn’t imagine this.”
He said nothing more, and although she couldn’t see his eyes, she was certain he watched her. The silence stretched out, and the air felt thick between them. Emily remembered when she’d touched his hands in front of the fire last night. She remembered the strange feelings that had caused her to go to her room, to get as far from him as she could.
It was almost as if . . . as if she were attracted to him. As if she wished —
No! She felt no such thing. He was a married man. Married to a woman she considered her friend. Besides, he’d been beastly to her from the first day they met. She had no reason to be attracted to him.
And yet —
Covering her mouth, she drew in a little gasp of air as she squeezed her eyes closed.
No . . . no . . . no. . .
Gavin said, “Listen. The storm’s over.”
She heard him stand and leave the stall. Only then did she dare open her eyes. Only then did she realize the wind no longer blew, that snow was no longer being driven into the side of the barn.
His footsteps told her he was in the loft above her head. “Dru,” she heard him call. Then, after a short wait,
he said, “We’re all right. Miss Harris is here with me.”
Dru must have said something, but Emily couldn’t hear her.
“No. Stay inside,” Gavin continued. “We can manage. I’ll dig things out later.” Silence, and then his voice was directed toward her. “Miss Harris, we can go now.”
Emily stood and brushed straw from her skirt and plucked it from her hair. Then she leaned down and stroked the calf ’s muzzle. “Thanks for keeping me warm.”
“Miss Harris?”
“I’m coming.”
She climbed the ladder, but forgot to be afraid. Heights were the least of her problems now.
Dru watched from the window as Gavin used the rope on the pulley to lower Emily from the hay door to the ground. She saw the wary expression on Emily’s face as Gavin untied the rope from around her waist, saw the awkward way she leaned away from him, as if trying to escape his touch. As they made their way toward the cabin, Emily stumbled in the deep snow, but Gavin caught her by the elbow before she could fall. He let go as soon as she was steady.
Dru let the curtain fall back into place and went to the door. Snow spilled into the house.
“Brina, bring some towels to wipe up the snow. Pet, are the blankets ready?”
“They’re ready, Ma.”
“Bring them to me.”
She opened the door wider as Gavin and Emily took the last few steps to reach the house.
“You must be frozen to the core,” she said as she took Emily’s arm and drew her inside. “Take off your coat. We’ve warmed blankets by the fire.”
Emily did as she was told, and very soon Dru had her wrapped in a warm blanket and seated next to the fire. At Dru’s insistence, Gavin was soon seated beside her. Neither of them said a word. Neither of them looked at the other. They didn’t seem angry, but tension crackled between them.
Dru felt a flutter of joy. It was happening. What she’d hoped for from the beginning was happening. They were attracted to each other. Attracted and resisting it — because of her. Gracious. She hadn’t considered that she would be an impediment while she was alive, although she should have. Gavin was a principled man, and Emily was a virtuous young woman. How was she to nurture their growing affection in these days or weeks before the Lord took her home while still preserving their honor? How was she to help them fall in love so that after she was gone . . .
Robin Lee Hatcher Page 8