Eden

She moved quickly, attempting to rise even as she spoke an apology. “I’m sorry, John. I should have already started your breakfast, but I thought to get dressed first and—”

“Not to worry,” he cut in swiftly. “Just get dressed and come out to the kitchen.” He stood before her and his hand lifted, his index fingers pointing to the stacks of clothing on the dresser, where he’d placed them early this morning. He turned then to face her and his voice took on a teasing growl.

“I’m hungry, girl. It’s past time for breakfast. There’s work to be done, and time’s a’wastin’.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE SIGHT OF THAT WIDE palm extended to her sent a chill of unwarranted fear through Katie and she hovered, drawing her legs up, bending her head to shelter it on her knees, making herself as small a target as possible. Even as she heard his exclamation of consternation, the words that resounded from the walls, she knew that she had cowered for no reason. She knew in her heart that he had only offered kindness, yet his voice sounded harsh in her ears.

“What is wrong with you, girl? You act like you’re scared to death of me. I just brought you a cup of coffee from Berta’s kitchen to give you a head start on the morning. I left it on the table.” The look he bent on her was full of concern and when he knelt before her, his hands trembled as he held them aloft. “I wouldn’t strike you, Katie. I told you last night—”

“I know, John. I just…” She could not speak the words that would tell him of the fear she carried within her soul, that the sight of a man’s big hands struck her to the core with panic, that she had thought, just for a moment, that he would use his fists against her softer flesh.

“Ah…damn, Katie.” He touched her knee, then her hand where it lay, fisted tightly there on her thigh. With gentle care, his fingertips touching the flesh as if he handled something precious, he looked into her face. “I’m sorry I scared you thataway, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to come at you so quick. I was just going to suggest that you might wear a flannel shirt of mine so’s you’d be warm enough to come out to the table and drink the coffee I brought. I’m sorry, Katie.”

Hot tears could not be held back and she shed them without any attempt at hiding the evidence of her shame. “Don’t feel you need to say that to me, John. I was still half-asleep, and I was already scolding myself because I hadn’t gotten up early, when I told you I’d cook for you and keep your house. And then I got in here and couldn’t find my things and I was—”

“There’s time enough to eat, Katie. I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, his grin appearing as if he recognized that he must lighten her mood somehow.

He stepped back to the kitchen, retrieving the coffee cup from the table, then returned to where she sat and knelt at her feet, offering her the hot brew he’d brought for her.

“Take a sip, honey. Don’t burn your tongue, now. Just sip it a little. That’s the way,” he said softly as she held the cup with her fingers enclosing his, tilting the cup toward her mouth and taking the hot coffee into her mouth.

“Thank you, John.” She tried to smile, tried to reassure him, but her voice broke on the words and she felt shame that she had started off this day on such a sour note.

He waited until she had taken hold of the cup fully, then rose and reached for a hook on the wall where he’d hung a clean shirt, bringing it to her and holding it before her. “Stand up, Katie. I’ll help you put this on to keep you warm.”

She did as he asked, taking a last sip of coffee before she put the cup on the table and rose to stand before him. She dropped the quilt to the bed, feeling almost naked in the all-enveloping nightgown she wore and knew a moment of thanksgiving as he helped her don the shirt, as if he understood that she was not at ease before him with only her nightwear covering her.

He pulled the collar together, straightening the yoke over her shoulders, and his hands remained there at her throat, his gaze sweeping her length, from where her pink toes curled against the braided rug beside the bed, to the flush that rode her cheeks as she suffered his appraisal.

He bent a bit, touching his lips against her forehead. “There now. Let’s go into the kitchen. Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable there. I’ve built a good fire in the cookstove and it’s nice and warm.”

She walked beside him, her hands full with the coffee cup, unwilling to mention the casual gesture he’d made. She’d received two kisses from this man in less than a day, and her mind boggled at the thought.

His shirt hung to her knees and she was thankful for its protection, even though she wore a full-length gown beneath it. She pulled it together in the front before she sat in the kitchen chair, covering her legs with the fullness.

“You surely wear big shirts, John,” she said, her fingers smoothing a wrinkle as she looked down at the plaid garment.

“I’m a big man. My mama said I’d have to be to grow into my feet when I was just a young’un. I always had the biggest shoes of all my brothers, and they teased me about it, till she told them that I’d be the tallest of the bunch when we were full grown.”

“And are you? The tallest, I mean?”

“Yeah. And I’ve still got big feet, but so long as they make boots in my size, I figure I’ll be all right.” He looked down to where she had wound her feet around the chair legs. “Yours are bitty little things, girl. But then, you’re not much bigger than a minute yourself. I guess it all works out, doesn’t it?”

She had begun to relax, John realized, her smile brighter, almost as if she were comfortable with him, he thought, and for that he was grateful. That this girl feared him was not to be borne. He’d thought his assurances to her last night would be enough to soothe her fears, but perhaps the terror she’d suffered and the pain she feared ran too deep, and only time would give her the confidence she needed to deal with him. And God only knew what Schrader had done to put the fear in her eyes. Another question he would need to find an answer to.

“Drink your coffee, honey. I’ve got to go out to the barn and get things under way for the day. Those men are working on the stalls and taking care of the livestock, but there’s fencing to be mended and cattle to be checked on today. It’s been pretty cold out there for well over a week. ’Bout time for another thaw, but we still had ice on the watering trough this morning.

“There’s hay to deliver to the steers in the south pasture, and we need to be watching the cows that are getting ready to drop their calves soon. But I’ll send the men out to handle that. I’ll be working in the barn for today, close enough to hear you if you call me.”

It was the longest speech he’d made in a month of Sundays, he thought as he fed her all the information he thought she might need to get her through the morning. He wanted her to know his routine, wanted to assure her that he would be nearby if she needed him.

She looked beyond him, out the window, where the morning sky was overcast, but the promise of sunshine hovered just beyond the clouds. “Looks like we’re going to have a nice day anyway,” she said, her mind working rapidly as she made her own plans. “I’ll cook up some eggs for you right quick. And later on, at noontime, I’ll have dinner ready for you. Will that be all right?”

“Sounds good to me. Get those eggs cooking. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

He let himself out the back door and she made haste to locate a skillet, then found a crock of eggs in the pantry. A bit of butter sizzled in the skillet and she whipped eggs to a froth in a small bowl, pouring them into the skillet quickly.

The room was quiet, his deep, masculine tones but a memory, and Katie went to the window to watch as he strode toward the barn. Two men stepped out from the wide, double doors and waved at him, calling words she couldn’t hear, and then she caught the drift of their laughter as they slapped John on the back and went with him into the big building.

In just a few minutes, he was back and she slid his scrambled eggs onto a plate and found a loaf of bread in the pantry, slicing it quickly and locating the butter for his use. He ate quickly, intent on heading out to work, and she was silent, watching him and buttering a slice of bread for herself.

“I don’t want you working too hard today, Katie,” he admonished her as he rose from the table. “I think there’s plenty to cook in the pantry, and I’d like you to just settle in this morning. All right?”

She nodded, watching as he left the cabin and then made tracks for the bedroom. Her own clothing wasn’t nearly as warm as John’s shirt, but she sought out the plainest of the new dresses he’d bought for her and slipped it over her head, carefully buttoning the bodice and sliding a new petticoat and a pair of drawers beneath it. Back in the kitchen once more, she washed in warm water from the reservoir on the stove, thankful for the fire he’d built for her comfort.

While getting dressed, she’d noted a basket in the bedroom where he’d apparently tossed his soiled clothing for the past several days, and she sought out a container now to use as a washtub. In the small entryway hung a galvanized bucket, larger than a milk pail, not as big as a bathing tub, but a good size nevertheless.

In moments she had scooped warm water from the reservoir on the side of the big cookstove into it, then added soap from under the sink to make suds. His small clothes and shirts were readily doused in it, and she allowed them to soak while she made the bed and washed up the dishes.

The corner posts on the back porch were a handy place for a short line to hang clothes on, she decided, and searched out a length of rope from the pantry, stretching it from one end of the porch to the other, tying it as high as she could reach on the square posts that held up the porch roof.

Hanging on a nail in the pantry, she found a small scrub board, and she brought it to the washtub, using it to good purpose on his clothing. In an hour, the line she’d strung held John’s clothing, his trousers and shirts and the bits and pieces of his underwear. Her own drawers she washed and hung behind the stove on the back of a chair, unwilling to allow them to flutter in the breeze where any passing ranch hand might see them.

A dresser stood against the outside wall in the bedroom and she sorted out the clothing she found there; John’s supply of drawers and denim trousers were folded neatly and stacked closely. Emptying one drawer to make room for her own sparse assortment, she took time to brush all the wrinkles out of the things John had purchased yesterday at the general store, her hands careful as she handled the fine fabric of the chemises he’d chosen for her.

“I feel like a real housewife,” she whispered softly to herself, aware that the sweeping and cleaning, scrubbing and folding that occupied her morning were enjoyable because of where she was, and who she was tending. John was a kind man, still a man, but with qualities she had not seen before in the one man who had made up her limited experience.

John would be easy to do for, and she sensed that he would appreciate her work on his behalf. Returning to the kitchen, she found a broom in the pantry and set to work on the dust that hid in the corners. A bit of cardboard served as a dustpan and she dumped the residue into the fireplace, noting that John had built up the fire for her comfort before he’d left the cabin.

A sharp rap from somewhere near the back door brought her out of her daydreams and she looked up to find a middle-aged lady watching her through the window. With a quick smile, Katie opened the door and faced her visitor.

“I’ll bet you’re Berta,” she said quickly, opening the door wide, so that her welcome would be evident.

“I sure am, honey. And you’re John Roper’s hired help or I miss my guess.”

“I’m Katie,” she said, pulling a chair from the table and offering Berta a seat. “I can make some coffee right quick, if you’d like, ma’am. After all, you sent me a cup this morning, early on.”

“I figured you could use a bit of a lay-in your first day here,” Berta said. “I make a big breakfast for those men, and there’s always enough to go around.” She’d carried in a burlap bag with her and now she bent to open it and began removing its contents. “Here’s some potatoes and carrots for you and a sack of onions, too. I figured John might not think of getting them from the general store, and I’ve got bushels full in the fruit cellar under the house. I expect you’ve already found the food from the kitchen garden I put up last fall. I brought a few jars over and put them in the cupboard for you, along with that crock of eggs in the pantry.

“And here’s a couple of jars of beef I cooked up and canned when we butchered last fall,” she said, bending low to pull more from the burlap sack. “There’s pork in the smokehouse and fresh ham in the lard barrel in the cellar, but beef don’t keep good thataway. I just can it up every year, and in between butcherings I have plenty to cook with.”

Katie was awed by the generosity before her. “I never saw so much good food in one place in my life,” she said, her eyes lighting with glee. “I can fix John some dandy meals out of all that.”

“He told me this morning that you could cook and clean, but I knew there wasn’t much here in the way of stuff to fix for dinner today, so I raided the fruit cellar and brought a few things I figured you could use. There’s always more eggs in the henhouse and milk in the pantry, or the milk house out back. Or else fresh from the barn if you know how to milk a cow. But the men keep the new Guernsey milked morning and night for the house, so you can just have them bring you some ever couple of days.

“Oh, and here’s some butter, too,” she said quickly, searching the bottom of the sack. “It got a little flattened, but it’s wrapped up good. I must have set a jar of beef on it.”