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.”
Rose squirmed in her chair but said
nothing. Cora could read the horrible truth in her granddaughter’s
averted gaze.
She felt cut off at every single turn.
By God, Luke and his new wife would fix it so that Rose forgot her
own mother and had nothing more to do with her grandmother. Well,
she wouldn’t stand for it. She’d bring her girl back to her hearth
and her arms if it was the last thing she did today.
She stood over Rose and put her face
in the little girl’s. “Let me tell you something about your Miss
Emily, Rose. She may be fancy, but she likes to gossip, just like
the rest of us. She told me a secret that your father told her. I
wasn’t supposed to let anyone know, especially you. But I think
your mama would want me to tell you. She was going to tell you when
you were grown up a little more, I’m sure. ”
Rose stared at her fearfully, the
half-eaten cookie on the plate in front of her forgotten.
“What?”
“
Your Miss Emily told me
that Luke Becker isn’t your real father.”
“
W-what do you
mean?”
“
Just what I said. Luke
isn’t your father and Emily Becker is the one who told me so. Your
real father was a wonderful man, a doctor from Portland, but he
died before you were born. Your mama was a respectable widow but
Luke badgered her until she finally relented and agreed to marry
him. He said he’d take care of her and be a father to you.” Cora
shook her head. “He acted like I couldn’t take care of my own
child. He’s been pretending to love you all this time.
Lying
all this time. I
never knew it. He’s just a stranger. The only person around here
related to you by blood is me. And I’ll always love
you.”
A look of abject terror filled Rose’s
face, and the bloom faded from her cheeks. Cora felt a twinge of
remorse about that, but in the end, it would all work out for the
best. Thank heavens Rose was too upset to ask for more
details.
“
I don’t believe it! I am
too his daughter. Daddy wouldn’t lie like that. He loves me—he told
me so!”
Cora feigned great regret. “I wouldn’t
have thought so, either. But that’s what Emily told me. You trust
her, don’t you?”
“
N-no, I mean, yes,
but—”
“
Oh, Rose, honey, I know
this is awful news.” She reached out and stroked the girl’s
shoulder. “Don’t you think you should stay here
tonight?”
But Rose jumped up from the table,
sobbing. “N-no. I need to go home! I need to find out why—” She ran
out the back door, faster than Cora could move.
Cora went to the porch and called
after her. “Rose! Come back here!” But all she could see were
Rose’s dark braids flying behind her as she ran down the
road.
Another twinge rippled through Cora’s
bulky frame, this time one of worry. But the girl would be all
right. Cora may have started a mighty big fight, but in the end
she’d win. Luke had no legal right to keep Rose and when the truth
came out, she felt certain that Judge Clifton would see it the same
way.
~~*~*~*~~
Luke pulled the wagon into the road
that led to the house. Behind him was a load of fresh-planed lumber
to build the new henhouse. Bill Whinters, who owned the sawmill in
town, agreed to give Luke credit until harvest time. He hated going
into debt, but they had to have chickens and eggs, and credit was a
fact of a farming life. Luke took a poorer grade of lumber to keep
the cost as low as possible. And he’d made a deal with Bill to give
him whatever he could salvage from the fallen oak. That helped keep
the price down too.
The planks in the wagon had some knot
holes in them but he figured it would be cheaper to patch them than
to pay the difference for first quality wood. After all, chickens
would be living in this place, not the family. If Luke kept the
weather and predators out, that would be good enough.
The whole transaction had taken longer
than he’d expected, and he knew Emily would be putting dinner on
the table in a few minutes. He had just enough time to take care of
the team and get washed up.
As he pulled around to the barn, Emily
came rushing out to meet him. She was dressed in a soft,
fawn-colored dress and she’d pinned her braid into a pretty knot at
the back of her head. At first he thought she was just giving him
another enthusiastic greeting—he could get used to those really
fast. But her expression told him something else was going
on.