“They are the best hotcakes I’ve tried in a long time.” Emilia shot him a convincing smile. It was almost exhausting to make sure she praised the boys equally. She wondered if this was what it would have been like to have a little brother.
Her mother always said that they had talked about a third and maybe even a fourth child. But for some reason or another, after Mary, she just hadn’t been able to be pregnant again.
Emilia tried to hurry through breakfast because she knew for a fact that the twins were eager to get her out of the house. She found herself surprisingly excited about exploring the farm.
She had only been to a couple of farms back in the city with her mother and sister, when her father was alive. But she had loved the animals and getting to know the little places that were hidden in the mundane chores of life.
“Are you ready yet?” Eli looked as if he couldn’t wait another moment without exploding.
“Children, let her eat in peace.” Carolyn gave them each a stern look. “Besides, there isn’t that much to see on the ranch that Emilia hasn’t seen before, I’m sure. I bet she’d love to come into town with me and meet some people.”
Emilia nearly choked on her last piece of hotcake. “Actually, I would love to see the ranch. And the boys are really looking forward to showing me around.”
“See? She wants to see the ranch. Not go meet some stuffy people in town. That’s boring,” Eli said knowingly, nodding enthusiastically.
Emilia couldn’t help but chuckle at Eli’s comment, despite the fact that Lily looked bothered by it.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll get tired of it and then she’ll come to town with me and the two of you will stay here,” Lily retorted smugly.
“Ma, is that true? Do we have to stay?” Eddy asked his mother.
Carolyn walked up behind the twins and tousled their hair. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, why don’t the four of you run along and I’ll take care of this mess?”
Emilia wanted to stay and help, but she knew that the boys wouldn’t give them a moment’s peace. She also knew by the look on Carolyn’s face that she probably wouldn’t hear of it.
Eli and Eddy rushed on ahead and she and Lily fell behind a bit. Lily wrapped her arm through Emilia’s arm and led her outside.
As they stepped through the door, Emilia paused and took in a big breath of the warm breeze.
Her lungs didn’t hurt like they had only days before, and her head ached a little bit less. Could the weather already be helping her feel better? The constant rain and cold days in Ohio had been getting difficult. While there was a sunny day every once in a while, the dreariness really caught up with a person.
The first stop on Emilia’s tour of the ranch was the barn. It was a large, spacious building with two rows of square stalls on either side of a bit of a hallway.
It looked like someone had recently shoveled fresh hay into the stalls. There weren’t any animals in the stalls, though, and the place began to feel very stifling after a little while. The ladder propped up against the loft almost looked inviting.
The loft only came across half of the barn roof. From the ground, Emilia could see that there was plenty of fresh hay up there for the animals.
She imagined what it would be like to lay in the loft on a cool evening. It would probably be quite fun.
“This is where we play games when we finish our chores. Maybe you can play with us some time.” Eddy was pointing to the loft.
“Maybe.” Emilia had never been very athletic. She’d wanted to be, in fact, it looked fun. But she’d never really had the opportunity. She hated people staring at her, and that was usually what people did when others ran down the center of town.
There wasn’t a lot of time, opportunity, or proper cause for running or playing in town, though the younger children managed it somehow. And when she’d tried to run, she’d coughed.
“Let’s go see the calves.” Eli led them back outside the barn to a pasture on the right side. Three calves were there, chewing their cuds and looking curiously at the visitors.
Their heads only came up to Emilia’s waist if she was standing there beside them. “They’re beautiful,” she cried, then burst into laughter as one of the calves tried to jump on the other and fell over.
“They do that all the time. Derek says it’s because they can’t walk right yet, seeing as they’re little and all.” Eli was almost as cute as the calves as he tried to explain their clumsiness.
“Who’s Derek?”
“He’s coming over to supper tonight. You’ll meet him then. He’s the man who has helped us out with the farm since Pa died,” Lily explained sadly.
“Oh, he sounds nice.”
“He is. He’s great with the animals and he has a friend, George.”
Emilia didn’t miss the way that Lily’s cheeks flushed when she said George’s name. “George?”
“He comes with Derek lots of the time. He’s quite handsome, and he’s building his own ranch.” The way Lily talked about George reminded her of how Mary talked about the piano teacher’s son.
Emilia was surprised to find she already felt equally as protective of Lily as she did her own sister. Maybe it was just that she hated to see any young woman get into a bad situation that she would regret later on.
She knew that her mother had been happy with her marriage. The few times she’d talked about Emilia’s father, Emilia knew her mother had loved him. And yet, she had still ended up with an unfortunate event happening to her.
Emilia didn’t know exactly how her father had been admitted to the asylum, or why. Her mother didn’t like to talk about it. She knew about the rumors, that her grandfather and uncle had been responsible, but she was beginning to question that the more she thought about it.
“Do you want to?” Eddy was tugging on her hand.
Emilia forced herself to come back to the present. Many people had told her that when she stared off into space, it was strange and made them uncomfortable. She would have to stop doing that if she wanted things here in Texas to be better than back home.
“Do I want to what?” she asked kindly.
“Pet them.” Eddy glanced toward the calves, who were standing once more.
“I’d love to.”
“Come on, let’s climb over the fence.” Eli reached his hand out toward hers.
Emilia eyed the fence cautiously. She wasn’t sure that climbing it was the best idea. She started to open her mouth to say so, but before she could, Lily pulled her toward it.
“Come on, you can do it.” Lily gathered her skirts in her hand and swung a leg over the fence. Before Emilia’s eyes, she deftly scaled the thing, landing smoothly on her feet on the other side.
“I-I don’t know. My dress is heavier.”
“That’s okay. You can do it. It’s easy.”
Emilia still felt uncomfortable, but somehow, the idea of going over that fence seemed a little better than disappointing the three sets of eager eyes before her.
“O-okay.” She pulled her skirts up slightly, the way that Lily had. She placed one of her shoes up unto the first rung of the fence and then lifted her leg over. This was easy.
As soon as she thought it, though, she regretted it. Her foot slipped and she tumbled down to the ground. It didn’t hurt physically, but her pride certainly took a blow.
Eli, Eddy, and Lily all rushed down to help her through fits of giggles. At first, Emilia thought they were laughing at her, but as they helped her up, she realized she was laughing, too.
There was no malice or ill intent in their laughs. They were simply having fun. Emilia looked down to see that her dress was smudged and stained with mud.
She didn’t care, though. Somehow, it didn’t really matter. She followed the boys over to the calves, which were easy to catch and seemed to even enjoy being petted. They nuzzled Emilia’s hands with their cool, wet noses, looking for something to eat.
“We feed them early in the morning
so that the cows will give milk to us, too,” Eli was explaining. “Derek taught us that it’s okay. He says that they get used to it.”
Emilia was wondering more and more who Derek was. He seemed to be really important to the entire family. Emilia was starting to look forward to meeting him that night.
So far, she had met a lot of kind people since she had left Ohio. Things hadn’t been as hard as she thought they would be. Or maybe she was just trying to pretend they hadn’t been. The ache in her chest was still there, growing with every moment she was away from her mother and sister, but the people around her were doing a good job of distracting her—at least, in some ways.
“Come on, let’s go see the horses. Have you ever ridden one?” Eddy pulled her toward the fence which, this time, she was fairly certain she was ready to tackle.
“No, I haven’t.” Emilia had a feeling that she was going to see and try a whole lot of things that she had never done before.
Chapter 8
“Do I look okay?” George asked, giving Derek an elbow in the ribs.
“Of course, you do. Why would you care, anyway?”
George shrugged. “You never know when you’ll meet someone special.”
Derek rolled his eyes. His friend was certainly his opposite. Derek never worried much about his appearance, and this was just like any other night for him. He would help with the chores before dinner and meet the Carsons’ niece. After all, it made little difference what this niece thought of him.
“Come on, pick up the pace. We’re going to be late.” George was riding just ahead of him. The sun was dipping low in the sky. It was the normal time he usually went to do the chores at the Carsons’ place. He rarely missed a night.
While he knew that the boys could probably handle the chores on their own if necessary, there was something about being there that he’d gotten used to and enjoyed.
Maybe it was the fact that what was left of the Carson family made him reminisce about what he had always wanted in a family of his own.
Eddy and Eli were very similar to himself and his brother. Their personalities were a bit conflicting, and yet they had one advantage that Derek and his own brother never had—no one was pitting them against each other.
The ranch came into view and Derek noticed nothing different. Everything was in place and no one was inside. He hadn’t really expected anything else. Maybe the cousin hadn’t come.
They led their horses to the hitching post and tied them there before knocking on the door. Carolyn greeted the two men with the usual bright smile on her face. “Come in, come in. I’m so glad you came.”
Derek hung his hat by the door and suddenly felt fidgety, from the energy in the room. He could hear everyone talking and laughing in the kitchen.
George seemed to be waiting for him to go first, so he did. He paused in the doorway of the kitchen and spotted Carolyn’s niece immediately. She was sitting with Eli and Eddy on either side of her and was deep in conversation with them as if they had known each other all their lives.
She was much frailer than he’d expected her to be. Her pale skin looked as if it hadn’t seen the sun in years. It gave her a fragile air as if she didn’t belong out here in the west.
Her blond hair fell in one long braid down her back, where bits and pieces had worked themselves loose, and her cheeks looked pink with energy.
She reminded him of a porcelain doll that would break if you held it the wrong way. Her resemblance to Carolyn was quite striking, however, and he imagined that she was the visage of her aunt when she was but a young woman.
“Emilia, this is Derek and George,” Carolyn introduced. “They are a huge help around the place. They live on the ranch right next to us.”
Emilia stopped what she was doing and looked up. Something like confusion and then shyness passed through her eyes.
She stood and walked around the table, then extended her hand in greeting. “Nice to meet you.”
Derek shook her hand gently. She had a firm grasp, but her hand was as small as the rest of her, nearly getting lost in his large grip.
“H-how was your trip?” Derek found himself searching for words, despite usually being able to strike up a conversation with nearly anyone.
“It was nice. Thank you for asking.”
“Now that introductions are done, let’s sit down and have some dinner,” Carolyn suggested. “I’m sure everyone is starving.”
“We didn’t do the chores yet,” Derek protested. He felt a little uncomfortable about enjoying dinner without doing something to deserve it, first.
“Nonsense, the boys already did that before you arrived. Sit, please. Tonight is just to enjoy each other’s company.” Carolyn motioned to the empty seats beside the boys. Derek wasn’t about to argue, so he obediently took a seat and George followed suit.
Lily and Emilia were sitting opposite them. Derek watched the way Lily looked uncomfortably at George. He knew that the girl liked his friend. George, on the other hand, seemed oblivious, even though his demeanor, in general, was flirtatious.
“So, tell me, how is your cabin coming along, George? I do believe that you’ve been working on getting it built for a while,” Lily asked, obviously trying to make eye contact with him.
“We um, cut some logs today. It should be done in time for winter, not that it’s any different here in good ol’ Texas. Do you get snow where you’re from, Emilia?” George asked, redirecting Lily’s attention.
“We do, indeed. Ohio has a lot of rain and it snows heavily in the winter. It’s quite unbearable sometimes.” Emilia’s voice was soft, like the sound of a bird’s sweet song on a cool day.
He was surprised to hear she was from Ohio. Derek knew little about the origins of the Carson family. He did know that Carolyn came from Ohio. In his mind, though, he had figured that her niece would be from her husband’s side.
He had obviously been wrong in that assumption. Emilia looked so much like Carolyn that she could nearly be her daughter. Derek’s gaze rested on Lily for a moment.
In fact, Emilia looked more like Carolyn than Lily did, in a lot of ways.
“So, will your family be joining you here in Texas?” Carefully, Derek watched Emilia’s reaction. He couldn’t exactly just ask her what was wrong with her, as George had put it so bluntly.
“No, no, they won’t.” Sadness touched Emilia’s features.
“So why did they send you here?” George pressed. Derek kicked his friend under the table. He had planned to go about it in a more sensitive manner.
“I, um…”
“Her mother sent her because she was hopeful that the weather would make her a bit stronger. It will, don’t you think? People flourish out here.” Carolyn reached over and squeezed Emilia’s hand.
Derek’s sympathy went out to her at that moment. He could tell that Emilia was very uncomfortable with the way the discussion had begun.
She looked as if she wished she could disappear, or that the floor would open up and swallow her.
“I, um, how do you like Texas so far?” Derek’s own attempts at conversation seemed to be getting clumsier by the minute.
“It’s nice,” she said, looking relieved. “Hotter than I’m used to, for sure.”
George was scooping roasted vegetables and beef into his mouth as if he’d never eaten before. “This food is delicious, Mrs. Carson. You sure do know how to cook.”
An Enduring Love to Heal Her: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 7
