Mail-Order Christmas Brides. Jillian Hart

      Chapter Four

      He glimpsed her through a crack between the curtains, embraced by lamplight, sipping from a cup as she stood in front of the stove, her back to him. Her golden hair was wrapped around her head like a coronet in one long braid. Her yellow dress accentuated her woman’s form, delicate shoulders, slim waist, flaring skirt that draped gracefully to the floor. The light seemed to search her out; like finding like. Gertie was right. The woman did look like a fairy-tale princess out of a book.

       What had he gotten himself into? His stomach clenched with foreboding as he forced his bad leg forward and stabbed his cane into the snow. Airy flakes sailed around him, the first harbingers of a coming storm. He figured more snow to shovel and wrestle through was no hardship compared to dealing with the woman in his kitchen, stirring something in a pan. Gertie loved her. That was what mattered. The only thing that sustained him as he forced his feet toward the house. It was going to be torture to get used to having that woman in his house.

       “Pa!” The door flung open the instant he stomped snow from his boots. A grinning Gertie filled the threshold, her rosebud smile a welcome sight. “Guess what? Felicity let me help make the biscuits.”

       “That’s good.” He cupped the side of her cherub cheek, his dear girl. He saw the tiny newborn cradled in his arms, the gentle toddler wobbling as she took her first steps, the withered child sobbing when the marshal had taken him away. He cleared unwanted emotion from his throat. “I’m sure I’m going to like those biscuits.”

       His words must have carried to the woman because she turned from the stove to greet him with a soft look. Gentle. Something he hadn’t seen outside of his family in a long while and his windpipe closed up. He stared back at her, probably looking like a lumbering fool, unable to say a word.

       “I’m just finishing up the gravy, otherwise supper is ready.” She offered him a sunny smile before turning to the stove. “I used to help out in the dining room where I lived, for a discount of my room and board. I love to cook.”

       “These are the biscuits, Pa.” Gertie pranced up to the table and pointed to a bowl, neatly wrapped in a dish towel to hold the heat inside. “They taste real good. I ate some of the crumbled-off pieces.”

       “I can’t wait to have one.” His voice came out strained and coarse, the best he could manage. He shrugged out of his coat, focusing too hard on hanging up the garment just so he didn’t have to look at the woman. He was going to have to start thinking of her with a name.

       “It was so thoughtful of your sister to start supper.” Her brisk steps went from stove to table, tap, tap, tapping like a dance. “I see she cleaned, too. You have a brother also?”

       He nodded. Took a reluctant step toward the table. “Devin.”

       “He owns the feed store where you work. I have it straight now.” She set two plates on the table and whirled to fetch more.

       His stomach growled harder, the food did look tasty. Thick peppery gravy and a fluffy white mountain of mashed potatoes with butter melting down the peak. Gertie’s eyes shone as she pulled out her chair.

       For Gertie, he found the strength to sit down at the table. A cup of tea steamed beside his plate, waiting to warm him. He peered through his lashes as the woman—as Felicity—added a platter and a bowl to the table.

       “Can I get you anything else? I hope I didn’t forget something.” Her warm pleasantness felt out of place in this sad house.

       “It’s just right, Felicity,” Gertie breathed, still in awe of the woman. “It’s perfect.”

       Do it for Gertie, he told himself again, finding the strength he’d lacked before to offer the woman—Felicity—a half smile. “This looks very good.”

       “Looks can be deceiving,” she quipped, settling into the chair across the small table from him. “I can only hope you think it tastes just as good. Who usually leads the prayer?”

       “I do.” Gertie’s hand crept into his, holding on tight. Her head bowed, her eyes squeezed shut in earnest belief, she began the blessing. “Dear Father.”

       Warm fingers curled around his other hand. The shock of the woman’s touch hammered through him. Gertie’s blessing became garbled, words he could not make sense of as Felicity bowed her head. Lamplight caressed her porcelain perfection, accentuating her beauty. Her hand tucked in his felt dainty, as fine-boned as a bird’s.

       “Thank You so much for my new ma,” Gertie prayed on. “Now everything will be all right, I just know it. Amen.”

       “Amen,” he muttered. He tried to ignore the pinch of regret when he released hold of the woman. His hand felt empty. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her reach for a platter and angled it in his direction as an offering.

       Her gaze did something to him. It pulled at him down deep, and so he avoided it. He did take the roast beef. He speared several slices with his fork, realizing too late she’d given him first choice. He wanted to read something into her gesture; Lolly always had a motive behind every action, but he could not get up the steam to suspect Felicity of the same.

       “Don’t forget the biscuits, Pa.” Gertie slid the bowl in his direction.

       “I won’t.” He added a slice to her plate. “Those biscuits are all I can think about.”

       “Put lots of butter on ’em.”

       “That was my plan.” He chose a couple biscuits from the bowl and cracked them open with his knife. Buttermilk goodness, crumbly and fragrant made his mouth water. At least he would be eating well. Another reason to be grateful for his wife-to-be. “You ladies did a real fine job.”

       “I stirred up the batter.” Gertie dug into the mashed potatoes and spooned a mound onto her plate. “I put them into the oven, too.”

       “She was a fantastic helper.” Felicity reached for the gravy. “I think we make a great team.”

       “Me, too.” With an emphatic nod, the girl thunked the potato bowl onto the table.

       “What do you both like for breakfast? I need to know for when the morning rolls around. Maybe there are some things I should avoid making. Like rhubarb pancakes.”

       “Ick.” Gertie curled her upper lip, eyes dancing. “There’s no such thing as rhubarb pancakes.”

       “Tell that to the cook at the orphanage. A patron donated a sizable portion of rhubarb from her gardens and not one bit of it went to waste. We had mashed rhubarb, chopped rhubarb, minced rhubarb. We had rhubarb in bread, in oatmeal, in meat loaf and stew. The pancakes were the best of the bunch, almost edible.”

       “No rhubarb pancakes.” Gertie laughed. The melody of it rose above the rumble of the fire in the stove and chased the chill from the room. The most beautiful sound.

       “Okay, then I’ll cross that off the list. Anything else? How about charred eggs? Burned bacon?”

       “No, don’t make that, either.” The child’s cheeks shone pink with delight. “I don’t like things burned.”

       “Good to know. I’ll try not to scorch anything.” She swirled her fork in the potatoes on her plate. “Does that mean you like things undercooked? Like wilty bacon? Runny eggs?”

       “Nope.” Gertie nibbled on the edge of a biscuit. “Just do it all the regular way.”

       “I’ll do my best.” She considered the stoic man across the table, head bent, cutting the beef and stabbing it with his fork. He had to be listening. “Any