“Daddy!” Rose exclaimed, scandalized. “It’s not proper to kiss a lady that way. Miss Emily said—”
“It’s all right, Rose,” Emily interrupted, a little dazed and dreamy.
“But you said public displays of grand affection between men and women are never acceptable.”
“Well, this isn’t public.” She looked at Luke’s mouth. “And anyway, I think I’ve been wrong about some things.”
A broad grin lit up Luke’s face. “See you later, Emily.” His gaze lingered on her a moment and then he pushed Rose out the door ahead of him, before she could say anything else.
~~*~*~*~~
Luke Becker was a happy man. Even while he used a corn hook to pull down the charred, crumbling remains of the henhouse that he could barely afford to rebuild, he felt like smiling. Even though it had started raining again and he was going to be soaked before this day was done, he couldn’t stop the grin from coming. He had his daughter working beside him and a smart, pretty wife in the house. Why shouldn’t he be happy?
“Rose, let’s pile all the ashes we can into the wheelbarrow.”
Rose worked with a little shovel. He didn’t plan to let her stay out here very long. He just wanted to spend some time with her and let her feel included.
“Some of this is still hot. And—and there’s dead chickens in there, Daddy.”
A different warmth filled Luke at the easy way Rose once more called him Daddy. Maybe Emily was right. He didn’t have to understand all the secrets of a young girl’s heart, but spending time together would go a long way to healing the rift between them caused by Cora and the last few years of pain. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t of his blood. With the way she looked at him, he knew that he was right not to tell her he wasn’t her real father. He was her father in every way that mattered.
He straightened and watched to make sure she didn’t venture beyond the edges of the wreckage. “I know, you leave them be. I’ll take care of them. Be careful not to burn yourself—we’ll pour water on the pile again after we have a load ready to take to the garbage heap.”
He’d gotten only about four hours sleep, but he felt like he could climb mountains and conquer the world. It reminded him of how he’d felt when he thought he’d won Belinda’s heart all those years ago. But it was different this time. Emily loved him. She had told him so. He hadn’t had to pry it out of her. She’d volunteered her declaration with sincere passion. He felt a little guilty that he hadn’t been able to tell her he loved her too. His heart wasn’t ready for that, not now anyway.
He hoped it would be someday.
~~*~*~*~~
Luke was tired, wet, and dirty that afternoon when he heard the sound of wagon wheels in the drive. He’d been able to clear out a good portion of the henhouse debris, and had sent Rose inside when he began collecting the dead chickens. Now he turned to see Chester Manning on the high seat of his own farm wagon, dressed in oilskins. Luke waved and the farmer pulled his rig up to him.
Chester’s weather-seamed face reflected his astonishment. “By God, Luke, looks like that storm last night dealt you a dirty hand. Did you lose anything else?”
Luke leaned on the handle of his rake. “No, but I was worried for a while.” He gestured at the scorched barn wall.
Chester nodded. “I heard that wind tore the roof off the outhouse at the Purcells’s place. I guess Cyrus was busy in there at the time.” He grinned and Luke laughed as he pictured three-hundred-pound Cyrus Purcell, sitting in the outhouse at the moment the roof took flight. “‘Course,” Chester added, “that don’t compare to this. Can you rebuild before fall?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
“Well, try not to worry too much. Once folks hear about it, they’ll pitch in to help. You know I will. I also heard talk the log bridge over by the cemetery is getting pretty shaky. You know the town council voted not to spend a dime to fix that damned thing last summer when they should have. With all this rain, I’m worried that someone will get killed before they let go of the purse strings.”
This wasn’t good news. “If that bridge washes out, all of us in this neck of the woods will be cut off from town. That creek underneath is just deep and swift enough to be a real danger.”
Chester made a disgusted gesture. “I know, I know. You’d think the council would have to pay for the repairs out of their own pockets.”
“When the weather dries out, we’ll have to go to the meeting and put some pressure on them to rebuild it. It’ll probably be all right until then. It’s seen a lot of rain and ice storms.”
Suddenly, a muffled bleating noise came from inside of Chester’s big oilskin jacket.
Surprised, Luke looked up at the scarecrow of a farmer and laughed again. “Say, Chester, what’s going on under there?”
The man unbuttoned his coat to produce a snowy lamb. “Jennie told me what happened to that other lamb I gave you, and I felt bad for not pickin’ out a better one, especially since it was a pet for Rose. Sometimes those little mites are weak and need special tending. I wanted to make it up to her. I’ve got Mrs. Luke’s butter, too. You know, she’s a mighty fine woman, your wife. Jennie and me are real pleased to have her givin’ our girls some refinement. She’s a blue-ribbon lady, and she’s got a good heart, too.”
Luke was touched by the gesture and by the compliment. He took the squirming lamb from Chester. “Thanks very much. I know Rose will appreciate it.”
Just then, Emily appeared on the back porch and waved at them both. She looked both simple and elegant standing there in a lavender dress and her white apron, and Luke thought his shirt buttons might pop off with the pride swelling his chest. “Mr. Manning, come in for coffee won’t you?”
“I’d really like to, ma’am, but my wife’s waitin’ for me.”
“Next time, then. And bring the family, too.”
“I sure will, ma’am. I sure will.”
“Give them our best,” she called.
He turned the wagon around in the barnyard and headed off for home.
Holding the lamb and the butter, Luke watched him go and then his gaze shifted to Emily on the back porch.
Yes, indeed, Luke Becker was a happy man.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The rain continued off and on through the night, but neither Luke nor Emily noticed it much. After dinner, time seemed to drag at a snail’s pace. Emily washed the dishes while Rose dried, and Luke found a half-dozen reasons to come into the kitchen and brush past his wife at the sink.
When they’d finished the dishes, Rose wanted to spend time in the barn with Luke and the new lamb, which she had named Lucy.
“Lucy? What made you think of a name like that?” he asked her, helping her fill the lamb’s milk bottle.
“Miss Emily has been reading A Tale of Two Cities to me. It’s a book about some kind of war in France. A revolution, she said. People get their heads chopped off in something called a gee-o-teen. Anyway, there’s a lady in the story named Lucy Mannett. I just like the way it sounds, I guess.”
Luke scratched his head and looked at the lamb in her little pen. “Okay, Lucy it is.” He had been a lousy student, himself. He couldn’t remember a single book from his brief schooling. It wouldn’t be long before Rose was better read than he was. He chuckled to himself. Maybe Emily would tutor him as well. He had a quick image of laying naked with her, their limbs intertwined, his hand cupping her breast while she read to him in that prim school teacher voice she sometimes used. He reined in the thought and added more hay to the lamb’s pen while he tried to focus on his daughter’s rambling tales of all she would do with Lucy at her side.
After bedding down the lamb, Rose wanted to look at patterns so she could plan to make a couple of new dresses over the summer. She and Emily sat at the kitchen table, and Luke brought in a farm journal and joined them. The quiet ticking of the kitchen clock, the homey smell of brewed coffee and the lingering aroma of the pot roast Emily had prepared for dinner added to the sense
of family, of belonging that filled Luke. He’d worked hard for this dream, and here it was in his grasp, sitting at his kitchen table. His daughter’s dark head was a sharp contrast to his wife’s pale hair. Why had he ever thought blond was not for him? He’d been a blind fool, that was why. Beauty came from within, just like a man’s true character showed in the way he treated his family and provided for them, not because of where he came from.
Once in a while, Emily and Rose would burst into giggles, glance at him, and mutter about how maybe they should be looking at new frock coats instead. He tried to look stern and uninterested, but it was hard with his heart in his throat. He tried to refocus on his farm journal, but that was just as hard when all he could think of was later tonight. Now and then, his eyes would meet his wife’s across the top of the pages, and they exchanged urgent, unspoken promises that would be fulfilled later, after Rose went to bed, which seemed forever in coming. The anticipation was exquisite for Luke. He now knew how smooth her cream-colored skin was, he’d threaded his hands through her wheat pale hair until it draped her shoulders in wild abandon. He knew that he could make that cultured voice catch, then call his name on a deep earthy cry.
Finally, eight chimes tolled on the mantel in the parlor and they could legitimately shoo the girl upstairs without making her feel as if they were trying to get rid of her.
Luke waited in his bedroom while Emily made sure that Rose was safely tucked in and dozing off. He washed at his washstand, and then washed again, wondering what was taking Emily so long.
When at last she stepped out into the hall, he pulled her into his room and closed the door. They fell into each other’s arms and showered a score of kisses on one another. As desperate and impatient as secret lovers meeting for an illicit tryst, they let their hands seek and stroke and unbutton. Lips met lips and brows and throats as each item of clothing fell away until they lay naked on Luke’s bed.
He kissed each of her knuckles and then placed her hand over his pounding heart. “Can you feel it beating for you?” he whispered.
“Yes.” Emily moved her hand and kissed the throbbing place just left of the center of his chest. “Yes.”
Shyly, she took his hand and pressed it to her breast. “Can you feel mine?”
“Not yet, but let me keep searching,” and his fingertips grazed her soft flesh with exquisite tenderness, working magic and leaving trails of gooseflesh in their wake. Soon the search was given up in pursuit of more urgent pleasures, and though rain pelted the windows, they both forgot about anything else but each other.
~~*~*~*~~
The next morning, Emily saw Rose off for her last day of school. She stood on the back porch and waved to her, glad that the rain had finally let up a bit, because the girl was wearing her new dress. Rose wanted to show it off to her grandmother. Somehow, Emily didn’t think Cora would appreciate that, but she said nothing to discourage her. Cora was a grown woman and she would have to come to terms with certain facts, including the one that Emily was now Luke’s wife and was here to stay.
“Have a good day at school, and don’t forget—come home by four o’clock.”
“I won’t,” Rose called back over her shoulder.
What a difference the last couple of months had made. When Emily first met Rose, she was a sullen troublemaker who refused to take any interest in trying to look nice or be the daughter that Luke so wanted. With just a little help from Emily, but a lot from him, they’d turned Rose around to walk down the path toward becoming a decent, mannered young lady. She marveled at how much her own expectations had altered since that first day at the dock. She realized that some of the things she’d been taught were important, such as the value of reading and improvement of the mind. But others were silly or didn’t apply to all circumstances, as she’d once believed. What did it really matter if a mourning dress had a pleat or a touch of embroidery within the first month of a death? If one took off one’s gloves during a formal call, would the world really end? These rules and many others like them had been ingrained in Emily and she had trouble letting go of them. But after living on the farm, seeing the hard work Luke did from dawn till dusk to provide for them, then spending the night in his arms, well, she’d come to understand relationships and responsibilities were just as vital as some rules.
She realized that having a gracious nature and generous heart were more important lessons, and they were what she wanted Rose to learn.
Emily waited until Rose disappeared around the bend in the road, as proud as any mother could be.
Then she went back to the kitchen and to Luke.
~~*~*~*~~
“Grammy!”
Cora heard Rose’s voice before she reached the front door. She looked outside and saw her precious duplicate of Belinda running up the road toward the house. It was almost as if her own daughter had returned from the grave. She hurried to the door and went out to the porch.
“Rose! Isn’t this a nice surprise!”
Rose ran to her arms, the child she had missed and so yearned to have under her own roof to take away the sting of loss and betrayal. “Today was the last day of school so I came to visit after it let out.”
“That’s just grand. Come on inside. I’ve got lemonade and some cookies that I baked a few days ago.” Cora’s farmhouse wasn’t as nice as Luke’s, but that was fine and dandy with her. She didn’t have some bossy new wife telling her what to do over here. Rose followed her into the kitchen. “Set down at the table, honey, and tell me all the doings.”
“Well, the henhouse burned down the other night during the storm.”
“Lordy!”
“Yes’m. Lightning hit the oak tree and it fell into the henhouse. We poured buckets of water on it until it started raining.”
“I bet Mrs. Becker raced around like a blame-fool female running from a mouse!” Cora hooted, enjoying the mental picture.
“Oh, no, Grammy, I worked the pump and she took the buckets to Daddy. We all helped.”
“I guess that means Luke doesn’t have to gather the eggs from the hens anymore. He probably wasn’t too happy when he had to take over that job.”
Cora was anxious for the news, certain things couldn’t be going well for Luke. After all, he’d kicked her out and let that city-bred priss stay. He’d come here to plow Cora’s kitchen garden and even though she needed it to be done, she hated that he was the one doing it. She’d made it a point to ignore him the whole time he was out there and didn’t bother to say hello or goodbye. He knew he’d made a big mistake sending her home. He knew. And she hoped he was stewing in his own juices over it. Cora put a chipped plate of gingersnaps in front of Rose and poured her a glass of lemonade. Then she sat across from her and leaned closer, putting her elbows on the table. “How’s that etiquette teacher getting on now that she has to do all the cooking and cleaning?”
Rose took a sip of lemonade and made a puckered face. Sugar in lemonade just ruined the flavor, in Cora’s opinion. The girl dropped her eyes to the tabletop.
“Come on, honey, you can tell me,” Cora urged, encouraged by her reluctance. “I knew you wouldn’t be cows in clover once I was gone. Are you getting enough to eat? Can that woman make decent soap?” Without Cora there to intervene for Rose, Emily was probably making her do all kinds of crazy things in the name of good manners.
“We have good food, Grammy. We’re getting along all right.”
Cora straightened in her chair. “Well, there aren’t any oysters on the half-shell out here in Fairdale. That’s probably the kind of snooty, fancy food Mrs. Becker wants.” She’d read about oysters once in a women’s periodical, but she really didn’t know what they were. Some kind of fish, it had seemed. “But she’s making you do silly things like walk with a book on your head, and bawling you out for using the wrong fork, isn’t she?”
“Um, no Grammy.”
Well, if the girl wanted to lie to protect the woman, there was nothing she could do about it.
“Look, she even
helped me make this dress.”
Cora sat fully back. The dress was as plain as an iron skillet and had none of the ruffles and flounces that Cora so loved. “Oh, she did.”
Rose’s face lit up like a Christmas candle. “Yes, and we don’t use homemade soap anymore. Now we have store-bought soap. It smells so good, and it even floats in the water so you don’t have to search for it!”
Cora led Rose along, asking more questions, trying to get a sense that life at the Becker farm had deteriorated since she’d gone. That Emily Becker was just a tall, skinny thistle with a lot of thorns. But Rose found nothing bad to say about her. She chirped along as happy as a bird.
“Miss Emily braids my hair and she’s reading a book to me. And Daddy and her are always smiling at each other, like they have some happy secret.”
A dark-red anger began to grow in Cora, the same burning resentment she’d felt when Luke had run off Tilson and when she’d had to live with Luke’s new wife. Mrs. Becker was just perfect, wasn’t she, Cora simmered.
She pushed herself away from the table. “I’d better get supper going if we’re going to eat. You’re staying for supper, aren’t you?”
“No, I can’t this time. I promised I’d be home by four.”
“Who did you promise?”
“Miss Emily.”
So Mrs. Becker would even steal the chance for her to have supper with her own grandchild. Well, she’d see about that. “Then maybe you can come and stay with me for the summer now that school is out. How would that be? You could go home and pack up some things, and come back tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Well, but I have my lamb to take care of, and I want to hear the end of the story Miss Emily is reading to me. Then we’re going to make another new dress for me.”
“I thought that lamb died.”
“Cotton did. But Mr. Manning brought another one for me. I named her Lucy and I have to stay home to make sure that nothing happens to her.”
Cora sent her a reproachful look. “You care more about a blame-fool lamb and a—a storybook than spending time with your Grammy? What about your poor mama, Rose? I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t ever think of her anymore. Mrs. Becker probably even rearranged the parlor, and uses your mama’s special things willy nilly.”
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