“Eric Magnor had the same idea,” Gar told her with a sharp look.
Leah’s brow raised in appreciation. “Well, as the most prosperous man in town, he surely must be an authority on such things, I would think. They tell me he has nothing but the best in his house and his stable.”
“I suspect he was pulling my leg,” Gar muttered, following her inside the house.
“Flowers would be lovely,” Leah persisted. “I used to be quite handy with such things when I was young.”
A big hand halted her midway across the parlor. “You’re still young, Leah. Don’t make yourself old before your time.”
She turned to face the man she would marry today. “I feel young today, Mr. Lundstrom. Do you like my new dress?” She’d bought it ready-made, with Bonnie’s approval. Daisies flourished against a dark blue background, their yellow centers adding a cheerful touch.
Gar nodded his head. “I couldn’t have chosen better myself,” he said politely.
If he only knew how hard it had been for her to settle for something so sedate it would set him on his ear, Leah thought to herself. She’d yearned for the pale pink dimity with ruffles over the shoulders and around the hem, but she’d turned to the more sensible gingham that would stand her in good stead for a Sunday dress later on.
Her hair gleamed, the color of clover honey, she’d decided in front of the mirror earlier on. Her cheeks were rosy, with no help from pinching fingers, and if her hands trembled just a bit, surely no one would notice.
After all, it was her wedding day. The Widow Gunderson was to be wed in less than an hour, and half the town would be there to celebrate the marriage inside the Lutheran church.
And not a one of them was aware that the Widow Gunderson would be a full-fledged virgin bride.
Chapter Five
She was not to be tucked away in a hidey-hole beneath the eaves, it seemed. The bedroom he led her to was large, with walls nine feet high. A room where a body could look out upon the land from wide windows on two sides. Windows that would catch the rays of the morning sun, allow it to filter through the gauzy white curtains and then hold it close during winter mornings.
Now it lay in shadow, this room that was fit for a bride. The bed was large, topped with a gem of a quilt, and Leah leaned to inspect it, its tiny stitches almost invisible.
“Was it hers?” Her voice held just a hint of censure as she awaited his reply, and Garlan Lundstrom leaned against the doorjamb with indolent ease.
“No. The quilt was my mother’s.”
“Not the quilt,” Leah said. “The bedroom.”
He would not make her wonder such a thing. “She never slept here. She hated the windows. When it stormed, Hulda hid in her closet.”
No hint of mockery touched his words, only the truth about the woman he had married and brought here as his wife.
Leah turned to face him. “Who slept here, then?” Her face held a trace of…what? Dismay, perhaps? Or fear that she had been given his own room as her own?
No, Gar thought, such an emotion would not escape this woman’s thoughts. She would cover it with disdain, or pride or even arrogance. She would not allow fear to give him an edge over her.
“No one. No one has ever slept in this room. It was built for the master of the house and his wife. When Hulda refused it, I moved our things to another, one with a single window. And a large closet,” he added, with dark humor.
Leah paced to the dresser, glancing across the room at its matching chest of drawers. “I only asked for a bed and a place to keep my things. This is more than that.”
She looked into the mirror, and her gaze found Gar across the room. Blue eyes pierced him, questioning his motives. And then she turned to face him. “Where is your room?”
He shrugged and nodded his head toward the hallway. “At the other end of the corridor, across the hall. Beyond the room where I put Karen when we came in. In fact, there are two rooms between us,” he said, bowing his head in a mock gesture of compliance.
Then he met her gaze, and his own was arctic. “I told you I would not expect you to warm my bed. I meant it, Leah.”
She nodded. “I believe you, Garlan Lundstrom.” Her sigh sounded weary, her eyes losing their luster as she bent to pick up the satchel he’d placed on the rug.
“I’ll do that,” he said, almost snatching it from her hand. “Where do you want it?”
She waved at the bed and then shook her head almost immediately. “No, not there. It will soil the quilt.” She looked about distractedly. “There, on the window seat.”
And there he placed it. Then he looked past its scratched, cracked leather out the window to where one of his hired hands shepherded the cows into the barn, the tricolored, long-haired collie nipping at their placid heels. A surge of pride stiffened his shoulders as he watched his guernsey cattle mill about, waiting their turn to enter the barn, several of them anxious to be rid of their bulging supply of milk.
She was behind him. Gar felt her presence as a cloud of warmth, as he had all this livelong afternoon. She wore no scent that he could name, only the clean, woman smell of her announcing her nearness.
“How many head do you have?” Her words held a note of interest and he seized it, anxious to turn his thoughts elsewhere.
“Twenty-seven all told, only six milkers now. A pasture full of calves, most of them still attached to their mothers. They’ll be crying to get inside soon. I have two bulls, but they’re kept in a separate shed and let out in a well-fenced corral. In the far pasture, I keep the young steers.”
If there was a note of pride in his answer, he would not apologize for it. He’d worked long and hard to build his herd. He’d hired three men to work for him and paid the highest wages in the area for their loyalty and the hard work they gave unstintingly.
“Do you raise horses?” she wanted to know, pressing closer to peer past him at the pastoral scene below. “Are those pigs beyond the barn, there in that pen?”
The afternoon sun was fast falling, and twilight would soon be covering the distinct edges of his buildings, leaving only the lights in the barn to guide the men who worked there.
“Yah, there are two sows and their half-grown litters beyond the barn, where the smell will not reach the kitchen so easily. The horses are in box stalls in a stable next to the cow barn. I have six of them.”
“One is mine,” said Kristofer from the doorway.
Gar swung about from his position at the window, and Leah stepped back quickly, their clothing brushing, hands almost touching.
“Did you take the wagon to the shed?” Gar asked, his words softened for the boy’s benefit.
Kristofer’s head nodded. “Yes, Pa. Benny put the team away, and I brought in the rest of the things from the store.” He looked at Leah with eager eyes and moved closer, his feet shuffling. “I left everything on the kitchen table. I didn’t know where you would want things put.”
She bent her head and offered her hand. Kristofer grinned, his face lit from within. He took her fingers in his and tugged. “Come with me and see Karen’s room. We’ll have to be quiet. Pa laid her down, and she’s asleep in my old bed. Me and Pa washed it down, and we found sheets to fit it and everything.”
Leah glanced at Gar and her look became more reserved, as if with the child she could open that unseen door within her heart and allow him access, but with the man, she must contain those soft emotions. Her brow lifted in question.
“Go ahead,” he said, clearing his throat as the words growled with unintentional harshness. “I’ll bring up the rest of your things, Leah. Where do you want your rocking chair?”
She paused in the doorway. “I thought in the kitchen. There is room by the big window over the porch, I think.”
“Yes.” He watched as they went, this son of his heart and the woman he had chosen to mother the boy. He had never had a woman cause his heart to swell in his chest. He feared this one might do that very thing.
Poor Hulda had come to
him with her bowing and posturing and meek spirit, and he had all but turned from her. He had come to appreciate her housekeeping skills, her cooking and sewing and the care she took of the boy. But there was a lack in their marriage, and he knew that much of the blame could be laid at his feet. He shook off the worrisome thoughts, the regrets that had haunted him over the past months as he’d mourned the woman who had died to give him a child.
A cry split the air as that very tyrant announced her displeasure with something, and Garlan Lundstrom hurried down the hall to join the rest of his family.
“Hush, hush, sweetkins!” Leah had swung the plump little elf from her new bed and held her closely. Karen’s eyes were shiny with tears as she pointed an accusing finger at the wooden crib she’d awakened in only moments before.
“She don’t like her bed, Pa,” Kristofer said with a frown.
“She’ll get used to it in no time,” Leah assured him quickly. “For now, we’ll take her downstairs and let her sit in her basket while I fix something for us to eat.”
“I’ll carry her,” Gar said abruptly as he scooped the babe from Leah’s arms. Karen fussed for a moment, but her father found a ticklish spot with his index finger and she subsided, giggling and clutching at his shirt.
“How about some bread and jam and a pot of tea?” Leah suggested, striking a match to light the lantern that hung over the round kitchen table.
“I think you’ll find some cold roast beef and cheese in the cooler,” Gar said.
“Cooler?” Leah’s eyes were puzzled as she considered his words.
“Beneath the floor of the pantry, I’ve put steps to a basement. In one wall, there’s a door to an underground room, lined in metal. It holds the ground temperature during the summer. For the most part, it keeps the leftover meat well.”
Leah hurried to the pantry and found a short set of steps going beneath the first floor into a basement area. A window above the ground shed muted light and she looked around her at the shelves that held even more canned goods and glass canning jars. Against one wall, another door opened into the metal-lined room, the temperature there causing her to shiver. A covered dish was on a table, cheese wrapped in a towel beside it, and she picked them up, backing from the dim interior.
“I could barely see down there,” she said, her breathing a bit unsteady as she climbed the eight steps into the pantry proper.
Gar watched her from the doorway. “There are candles in the cooler. Next time you must take down a match or carry a lantern with you.”
“Did you build that yourself?” she asked, brushing past him and placing her find on the table.
Gar shrugged his wide shoulders, and she thought she detected a hint of pride in his bearing. “Yah, I did.”
She sliced meat quickly, cut the cheese in chunks and found a loaf of fresh bread beneath a dish towel on the cupboard. “Who bakes bread for you?” she asked.
“Benny’s wife, Ruth, comes in and does it for us. She keeps us in bread and an occasional cookie,” Gar answered, bouncing Karen on his knee.
“She can’t bake cookies as good as yours, Miss Leah,” Kristofer announced quickly.
Leah felt a flush of pleasure color her cheeks at the child’s sincere words, and she sent him a smile of thanks. Her hands worked quickly at the familiar tasks, and in less than five minutes the family was assembled around the table, the teapot waiting for the big kettle to boil.
Gar bent his head and uttered a short, stilted thanks for the food, and Kristofer heaved a sigh of relief. “I was really hungry,” he said as he filled his plate eagerly. His bread was topped by a slice of beef, and he folded it over on itself and took a bite.
“Let me get you some tea, Kris,” Leah said. “The kettle is probably warm enough for the first cupful.”
As if she could not bear to sit across the table from the big man who watched her so intently, she sprang to her feet and fussed over the teapot. Kris thanked her politely, Gar nodded his own silent thanks, and Karen took a swipe at the china pot, drawn by the roses painted on its round sides.
“Let me take her while you eat,” Leah said, reaching for the baby. Gar nodded his agreement, and she lifted the child from his lap, returning to her own seat.
It was a short meal, Kristofer and Gar hungry and unwilling to spend their time on small talk, Leah poking at the food she had placed on her plate and offering small crumbs of bread to Karen, much to the delight of the child.
“I need to go out to the barn now,” Gar said, pushing back from the table. “There are chores to finish up. The men have been good about doing everything today, but I must lend a hand.”
“Yes, all right.” Leah watched as he left the house, snatching his hat from a hook by the door as he passed. A straw farmer’s hat, not what she’d have thought he would wear. In town, he’d appeared in one that was wide brimmed and made of felt, settling it on his head at an arrogant angle. Now he looked like a farmer, she decided, watching as he tilted the simple straw headgear.
A tall, handsome farmer, she amended. She watched as he strode across the yard to where his barn windows held a welcoming yellow glow from the lights his hired hands had lit within.
Leah looked around her at the kitchen he’d given into her keeping with such a casual touch. As he had given her the whole house the moment they walked in the door together. For an instant she had held her breath, wishing, oh yes, wishing for just a second or two, that he would sweep her up and carry her over the threshold.
Foolish woman! To even desire such a thing. This was to be a marriage for their mutual benefit. It would be far from a love match. She had known that from the start. Leah would cook and clean and make him a home where there had been only loneliness for six months. He would bring her the food to cook, praise her skills and bask in the warmth she provided.
“Miss Leah?” Kristofer called her name from the doorway, one hand holding the screen door ajar. “Pa tracked in something awful. You better sweep it up before it gets ground into the carpet. Ma always had to get down on her hands and knees to brush it out.”
Leah blinked and looked to where the boy stood. Clumps of dried dirt littered the doorway, and beneath the table a layer of the same marred the wooden floor. “Don’t you and your father know how to stomp your feet on the porch?” she asked, frowning as she caught sight of the trail across the kitchen, scattered bits of the yard showing the path Gar Lundstrom had taken on his way across the room.
Kristofer grinned. “Ma kept a rug out here, but I guess it got lost. Mrs. Warshem scrubbed the floor for us yesterday, so it would be clean for you, but it won’t stay that way for long.”
Leah’s frown was heartfelt as she sought the broom from the corner of the pantry. The first order of the day tomorrow would be to find a throw rug for the porch. She’d be jiggered if she’d spend her days cleaning up after a man’s dirty boots.
The moon was high in the sky as Leah settled Karen in her crib and covered her with a light quilt. She left the window open from the top so that the draft would not blow on the child, and left the door ajar. The hallway was dark and she stepped carefully as she sought her room, a soft glow from beneath its closed door guiding her steps.
The knob turned in her hand and she stepped inside the lovely haven Gar had designated as her own. Leaning back against the paneled door, she surveyed the expanse of her private place. He’d carried up her boxes, stacking them against the far wall, next to the closet door. Now he was in another part of the house, this house with five bedrooms upstairs and four rooms below.
A house such as she had never thought to call home. She blinked, releasing twin tears that slipped down her cheeks. She smiled at her foolishness. To weep when all was so perfect. To feel a sense of emptiness when her life was going to be filled to the brim with work and play and…almost all that being a wife entailed.
“Leah?” From the other side of the door where she leaned, a gruff voice spoke her name, and she straightened, brushing at the errant tears before she
turned the knob.
“Yes?” She stepped back, allowing him entry. He paced to the center of the room, then turned to face her.
“I thought we should set up some sort of schedule tonight. There is no sense in waiting until morning to let you know how things will be.” His words rang with assuredness, and she watched him with half-shuttered eyes, wondering at his meaning.
“Do you want breakfast before or after you do your chores?” she asked, willing to be pliable.
“Coffee before I go out to milk, then breakfast afterward. I like a big meal, bacon or sausage or even a pork chop when we have them on hand. Eggs, oatmeal, and bread toasted in the oven.”
She considered him in the light of the candle on her bedside table. He was dressed in his pale shirt, smoothed inside the waistband of breeches, which were tucked into boots. Suspenders clasped the trousers, holding them tightly to his well-formed body, and she allowed her gaze to slide his length—quickly—lest he think her brazen.
“A big breakfast. All right, I can do that. And when would you like this big breakfast served, Mr. Lundstrom?”
His hand waved with an imperious motion. “When the chores are finished. You can ring the bell on the porch when it is about ready and then hold it in the oven until I come in.”
She nodded slowly. “I see. I am to cook a big breakfast, and then, if you don’t show up to eat it while it is still hot, I am to keep it edible until you can tear yourself away from your cows long enough to devour it.”
He looked at her from beneath lowered brows. “I think you mock me, Mrs. Lundstrom.”
Leah swallowed. He’d called her by his name, a name he’d given her only today. She leaned back against the wall, suddenly finding her knees to be made of something other than bone and muscle.
“Yes, I suppose I was,” she conceded. She nodded her head and looked at the floor near his feet. Those big feet that wore boots that were shedding bits of dirt wherever he walked.
The Midwife Page 7
