Courting Emma (Little Hickman Creek Series #3)

by Sharlene MacLaren

  o Jon's great relief, the house was as quiet as a bare tree in the dead of winter, but it wouldn't be that way for long. In less than an hour, Eninia's boarders would amble through the door expecting supper. Good thing he smelled a sininier- ing kettle of stew in the kitchen. A glance into the dining room indicated a set table.

  He shut the door behind then. Giving hint her back, she unbuttoned her coat and slipped out of it, hanging it on the coat tree next to the door. The linen scarf went with it. It was impossible not to admire her belted waist, the flare of her narrow hips, and the rest of her shapely form beneath the blue cotton of her dress. To add to his torture, her blond hair fell in graceful curves around her feminine shoulders.

  Lord, give me strength.

  He'd asked her to be his bride, but now he questioned the manner in which he'd done it. Too hasty? Too forward? Too presumptuous? "Perhaps a bit of courting?" Grace had said. Blast! He knew nothing of courting. How did one ease into a marriage proposal? Was there any way to go about it other than straightforward? He loved her; he wanted to marry her. That should be sufficient. And yet Grace's assertion that Eninia felt inadequate beat dully away in his head. Ezra had done it to her, of course, had drilled into her the notion of her insignificance. Though not intentional, his hurtful words and actions had followed her into adulthood, making her believe she neither needed nor deserved the love of a roan.

  Well, tonight that ended. From this day forward, if he accomplished nothing else, he would make her understand this single truth: she had worth. The question was, should he prove it to her with an immediate kiss? He had warned her that he intended to kiss her thoroughly, but now that he'd tucked her away from Hickman's watchful gazes, he suddenly felt the need to wait for the perfect nionient if there was such a thing.

  Eninia glanced at the vacant room where only weeks ago her father lay ailing. Something drew her to the doorway. Jon followed close behind, resolving not to speak without first weighing his words. She leaned in the doorframe and sighed. He placed a hand on her shoulder and breathed deep of her scent.

  Seconds flew by as they stared at the empty room, the single cot with its fresh washed bedding, the unlit lantern on the tiny bedside table, the motionless rocker sitting in the corner. A single rose stood straight as a pin in a crystal vase atop the chest of drawers, the Bible Jon had given Ezra lying next to it. The poignant moment gave Jon pause. With a little imagination, he could almost hear the old fellow's hacking cough, see him hunched over the edge of the bed, his rounded shoulders trembling with weakness. As he'd done a number of times before, he reminded himself that Ezra Browning had passed into his eternal home.

  "There were things I didn't get to say," she muttered.

  "You said everything that needed saying."

  She gave a half-turn and looked into his eyes. Her own shimmered with moistness. It took every ounce of willpower he could muster not to put on his preacher hat and tell her God wanted all her leftover pain.

  "I should have spent more time with him."

  "The time you spent with hint in the end was quality. Ezra Browning was a hard man, and considering everything he put you through, I commend you for taking such good care of him. It was a selfless act, you taking him into your house."

  Her eyes trailed back to the empty bed. "You didn't give me much choice, if you'll recall." Her tone was just shy of facetious, and he smiled.

  Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, he asked, "Can you look back now and see the bigger picture-see that God had a hand in all of it? Starting way back when you were just a little thing?"

  There was a long pause.

  "Think about it, Eninia. If Edith hadn't kept track of Ezra's whereabouts and relayed the information back to Clara, there never would have been a Clara's Boardinghouse back in the seventies and eighties. There never would have been a woman looking out for you while you were growing up, a place for you to kick off your shoes after school, enjoy an afternoon snack, learn womanly things. Maybe you didn't recognize God's love back then, but Clara paved the way for you to know Him by giving you that Bible.

  "If Ezra hadn't written to Edith last spring to tell her he was sick, she might have taken the family secret to her grave, but she recognized the need to share it with Grace. If she hadn't, you and Grace might never have met."

  "And I would still be without a Savior," Emma added. "Grace shared Christ with nie woman-to-woman in those letters she sent." Suddenly, she looked away from the empty cot and tilted her gaze at him. "I see what you're sayin'-about the bigger picture."

  His heart swelled with triumph. "Romans 8:28 says, `And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.' He knew all along what it would take to bring both you and Ezra into the fold, but all the pieces had to fit together first."

  "Yes."

  "God has been looking out for you all your life, Emma, protecting you even when Ezra was at his worst. You lived through it, right? And now you can be a beacon of hope for others who have suffered. You never know how God may choose to use you. Think of the possibilities."

  Her eyes lit with fresh excitement. "It's too much to think about right now."

  He turned her body full around and swung her into the circle of his arms. Wonder of wonders, she didn't even fight him. "Emma, Emma, think about this, then," lie whispered, grazing her earlobe with his lips. "I love you and wish for you to be my wife."

  She buried her face against his chest and wrapped her arms around his back. "You really do?"

  "I really do."

  He bent and kissed the hollow part of her throat then drew back to look into her summer-sky eyes. "What do you say?"

  For one heart-stopping second he thought she might turn tail on him. Instead, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his chin. "I suppose I could confess my love for you as well."

  He exhaled a long sigh. "I would like nothing more."

  She picked at something on his lapel. "I have loved you, Jonathan Atkins, for a long time, but it didn't seem possible you could love me back."

  His confidence spiraled upward. "Silly girl. I loved you first. In fact," between each word, lie planted kisses around her lips and along her jaw, "I've loved you since you were a girl in yellow pigtails."

  She pulled back and squinted up at hint. "I was a scrawny kid. How could you have...?"

  But he blocked her words with a sound kiss, one that sent them both reeling, her trembling limbs clinging tightly, him barely able to keep his knees from buckling under.

  The rapid thudding of his pulse was what finally stopped the kiss.

  "Do I have to court you before you'll agree to marry nie?" he asked, breathless.

  "Of course. It wouldn't be proper otherwise."

  He brushed his lips across her forehead. "What would this courting business entail and how long should I persist?"

  An infectious giggle floated upward. "To the first question, flowers, bushels of them; and to the second, years. Years and years."

  He set her back from him. "Years?"

  "Look at the Crunkles. Wouldn't you say they're still courting?"

  If anyone presented the perfect picture of a sound marriage, it was Gerald and Eileen Crunkle. He bent to kiss the tip of her nose. "I see what you're saying. Get married now and continue the courting for decades to come."

  She pushed back and sent him a raking gaze. "Did I say that?"

  "Maybe not in so many words." He angled a mischievous grin at her. "But it sounds like the perfect plan to me."

  Jon and Enuna married the Saturday after William McKinley won the 1896 presidential election. It was also the Saturday after Liza Jane Broughton gave birth to little Amos Benjamin. No one had expected to see her at the wedding, but just five days after delivering the seven-pound bundle, she entered the church on her husband's arni, albeit slowly, baby swaddled in a white blanket, Lill and Molly in tow. They seated themselves in a pew toward the back on the chance that Amos would object to his firs
t-ever wedding ceremony.

  Almost the whole town showed up for the celebration, fully supportive of the preacher marrying Eninia Browning, and Rocky joked later that because the number had surely exceeded two hundred it warranted the preacher having to kiss a pig the next Sunday. Jon's defense, and it was a good one, was that his wedding hardly counted as morning worship, and besides, he was taking his bride to some undisclosed location of which only Grace was privy. If there were to be any pig kissing, he'd announced, Reverend Miller, who was not only marrying him but also standing in for him at the pulpit, would have to do the honors.

  Grace managed to return just three clays before the wedding, carting a wagonload of possessions for setting up housekeeping in Little Hickman. She would stay in Emma's quarters until the couple returned from their honeymoon, for which she had made all the arrangements-seven nights in a first-class hotel in downtown Lexington. Both Jon and Emma balked at the extravagance of it all, but Grace insisted. While Grace was humble and unpretentious on the outside, she made it clear to the pair the gift would in no way break her financially. Her late husband, rest his soul, had invested wisely, leaving her with a hefty bank account. The least she could do was lavish her precious cousin and her preacher husband with a lovely honeymoon. Put that way, Jon and Emma could hardly refuse.

  Upon their return, the couple planned to settle in Emma's spacious quarters, converting Jon's former room into his private library/office, transporting the bed to Ezra's house for Grace's use. Grace intended to stay at the old homestead until the newly hired Lexington Construction Company completed her two-story building in Little Hickman, tentatively fall of 1897. It could prove to be a long, cold winter for the Chicago native, but she claimed to look forward to the peace and serenity, and, besides, she'd said, if the quiet got to her, she could always look in on the newlyweds and the bunch of hooligans who made up the boardinghouse.

  Grace and Rocky served as witnesses to the bride and groom's nuptials. Sarah, rumored to be three months pregnant, fairly glowed as she watched the proceedings from her front-row pew, Seth and Rachel sitting on either side of her.

  Besides the gold, princess-length necklace with the three- dianiond pendant, the bride wore a white cotton gown with Battenberg lace around the scooped neck and a wide silk belt at her tiny waist. The bodice had large tucking and the sleeves were puffy with pleats in the center and cuffs, and straight down the middle of the back were about a hundred or so tiny mother-of-pearl buttons, the kind that required assistance to hook.

  It was a lovely thing, the dress, sewn in record time and with much skill and loving care by Fancy Jenkins. When Grace asked her why she didn't sew for a living, the woman gave a sheepish look and said she hadn't the business sense or the money for setting up such a venture. Grace had pooh-poohed that idea and said when things settled down for her, they would talk.

  It would seem Grace Giles had more than a new restaurant on her mind for Little Hickman.

  One week before the wedding, a postcard came from Billy Wonder addressed to the entire town. In it he stated he'd found a ladyfriend in Georgia to whom he'd grown quite attached. He never had made it down to Florida, he'd said, and after having met Millie Grunder, a dancer who'd once traveled with the circus but now taught ballet at a downtown studio, chances were good he'd remain near Atlanta for the winter months. Folks always gave a chuckle when they stopped to read the postcard George Garner had pinned to the corkboard right next to the wanted posters. Billy Wonder and Millie Grunder? How strangely conical.

  Would wonders never cease, Eileen Crunkle commented after reading about the unlikely pair.

  After a long afternoon of celebrating in the schoolhouse, student desks pushed back against the walls to accommodate tables of food, cakes, and pies, a large crowd assembled around the newlyweds, who'd changed into their traveling clothes and had seated themselves in a rented carriage parked in front of the boardinghouse. The hired driver from Lexington, donning black suit and top hat, sat tall in his seat, all business, awaiting orders to proceed up the road toward the big city.

  "I've never ridden in anythin' so luxurious!" Emma gushed. In the glow of the lowering sun, folks could see the blush of pink stealing across her cheeks.

  "Miss Emma looks like royalty sittin' up there," Wes Clayton remarked.

  "Ain't Miss no more," corrected Harland, pulling at his long white moustache and looking particularly pleased.

  Eninia's boarders closed around the conveyance in a protective air. "Guess we don't need to tell the preacher to look after ar landlady," Gideon said, a waggish look washing over his features. A rare smile eked past his thin mouth. "Seein's as he's been givin' 'er the eye fer some time now."

  Chortles rose up all around.

  The reverend pulled his bride tight to his side and grinned. "Didn't know I was that obvious." His eyes had fastened to his one and only as he spoke.

  "You best get a move on 'fore ya embarrass us all by kissin' 'er in plain sight," Charley issued, taking a step back, his move prompting everyone else to do the same.

  "I s-seen 'eni kiss a'ready," Luke announced.

  Emma whirled on her seat and looked at the lad, eyes round as saucers. "You did not."

  "D-did too. I was hidin' 'round the c-corner, and you was b-by the w-w-wash machine."

  "Luke Newman, that's spying," Emma scolded.

  When the crowd of onlookers started laughing, Jon motioned to the driver, and just like that, he set the team of horses in motion. Last-minute felicitations sailed through the air as the carriage jostled up the road, leaving everyone in a swirl of dust.

  Grace Giles and Fancy Jenkins swiped at tears, the Callahans and Broughtons exchanged knowing smiles, and Iris Winthrop leaned into Clyde and gave an audible sigh, as the whole of Little Hickman celebrated with the happy couple.

  A mile up the road, the driver passed a little cemetery where a fresh marked grave bore a simple, engraved message.

  EZRA BROWNING MARCH 1, 1840-OCTOBER 6, 1896 "WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN CHRIST SHALL NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. 99

  -JOHN 3:15

  orn and raised in western Michigan, Sharlene MacLaren attended Spring Arbor University. Upon graduating with an education degree, she traveled internationally for a year with a small singing ensemble, then came home and married one of her childhood friends. Together they raised two lovely daughters. Now happily retired after teaching elementary school for thirty-one years, "Shar" enjoys reading, writing, singing in the church choir and worship teams, traveling, and spending time with her husband, children, and precious grandson.

  A Christian for over forty years and a lover of the English language, Shar has always enjoyed dabbling in writing-poetry, fiction, various essays-and freelancing for periodicals and newspapers. Her favorite genre, however, has always been romance. She remembers well the short stories she wrote in high school and watching them circulate from girl to girl during government and civics classes. "Psst," someone would whisper froin two rows over, and always with the teacher's back to the class, "pass me the next page.

  Shar is a regular speaker for her local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) organization, is involved in KIDS' HOPE USA, a mentoring program for at-risk children, counsels young women in the Apples of Gold program, and is active in two weekly Bible studies. She and her husband, Cecil, live in Spring Lake, Michigan, with Dakota, their lovable collie, and Mocha, their lazy fat cat.

  The acclaimed Through Every Storm was Shar's first novel to be published by Whitaker House. Courting Emma completes the trilogy of the Little Hickman Creek Series, which also includes Loving Liza Jane and Sarah, My Beloved. Her new trilogy, The Daughters of Jacob Kane, will be released in 2009.

  You can e-mail Shar at smac@chartermi.net or visit her website at www.sharlenemaclaren.com.

 

 

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