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Authors: Linda Lael Miller
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while Izannah carried the rest of the dinner to the table and Emmeline assembled her composure.
“Come away from that window and eat your dinner,” Izannah said when the meal was ready.
Vaguely amused at the turnabout—it was usually she who gave orders and cooked—Emmeline obeyed, taking her customary place at the table. Izannah even offered grace, which was a relief to Emmeline, who felt reticent just then about approaching the Lord for any reason.
“I bet Mr. Hartwell would enjoy a meal like this,” Izannah said, buttering a slice of bread. “But of course he’s gone home already, hasn’t he?” She tried to be subtle as she eyedEmmeline’s disheveled hair, puffy eyes, and nightclothes, and failed.
“Yes,” Emmeline replied evenly. “Mr. Hartwell has indeed gone home.” Picking up a fork, Emmeline forced herself to smile. “You really are quite a cook, Izannah. This chicken smells delicious.”
“Thank you” was the girl’s response. “But I know flattery when I hear it. You’re only trying to change the subject, so I won’t ask why you’re in your nightclothes if you’re not even sick, or why Gil paid me to stay away from my own house all afternoon. As if I couldn’t guess.”
Emmeline continued to eat, for she hadn’t had breakfast and the day, though only half over, had been a long and arduous one. “You must content yourself,” she said grudgingly, making no effort to sustain her smile, “with your own speculations. Why should you be different from the rest of the town?”
“I don’t understand why you don’t just go and live with him, or ask him to move in here, with us,” Izannah pressed. Tenacity was one of her foremost qualities, a trait that would no doubt serve her very well in the wide world, but was nevertheless trying in Emmeline’s kitchen.
“Even if the situation was that simple, which it most assuredly is not, I wouldn’t simply move out and leave you all alone in this house. As for asking Mr. Hartwell to live here, well, I don’t happen to want to, and besides, he wouldn’t come anyway. Not with that stiff-necked pride of his. No, he’d never leave his ranch.”
Izannah smiled like a cat with feathers sticking out of its mouth. “You’ve given the matter a great deal of thought, it seems to me.”
Emmeline glared at her cousin. “I had seven years to consider the matter,” she answered, spearing a drumstick from the platter of chicken.
“Do you believe that Mr. Hartwell was really and truly shanghaied?” Izannah asked mildly, still undaunted.
Emmeline recalled the smooth, thick scar tissue she’d felt under her fingers when she’d stroked Gil’s back, and her appetite was gone. Surely receiving such savage punishment changed men in very fundamental ways, breaking some, making others bitter or cruel.
“I believe it all right,” she said.
“Then why don’t you take him back?”
Emmeline could not bring herself to admit that she’d tried, and been rebuffed. “It’s more complicated than that,” she told Izannah with conviction in response to her latest question, but in her heart of hearts, she had plenty of questions of her own.
4
G IL STOOD ALONE AT THE FOOT OF HIS OWN GRAVE, PONDERING the many paradoxes of life—and death. It is not given to every man, he thought with grim amusement, to read his name on a marble tombstone.
Heedless of the copious summer rain, as soft and warm as an angel’s tears, Gil noted that Emmeline had elected to bury him in the family plot, facing the judge’s resting place. This touched him deeply, for Emmeline was a woman to whom family was vitally important.
It was the empty space next to his own, though, that tightened his throat and twisted his heart into a painful knot, for she had plainly reserved that spot for herself. Emmeline must have loved him when she’d commissioned that stone, he realized, and with such devotion that she would have gladly lain beside him throughout eternity.
He wondered, with
“Come away from that window and eat your dinner,” Izannah said when the meal was ready.
Vaguely amused at the turnabout—it was usually she who gave orders and cooked—Emmeline obeyed, taking her customary place at the table. Izannah even offered grace, which was a relief to Emmeline, who felt reticent just then about approaching the Lord for any reason.
“I bet Mr. Hartwell would enjoy a meal like this,” Izannah said, buttering a slice of bread. “But of course he’s gone home already, hasn’t he?” She tried to be subtle as she eyedEmmeline’s disheveled hair, puffy eyes, and nightclothes, and failed.
“Yes,” Emmeline replied evenly. “Mr. Hartwell has indeed gone home.” Picking up a fork, Emmeline forced herself to smile. “You really are quite a cook, Izannah. This chicken smells delicious.”
“Thank you” was the girl’s response. “But I know flattery when I hear it. You’re only trying to change the subject, so I won’t ask why you’re in your nightclothes if you’re not even sick, or why Gil paid me to stay away from my own house all afternoon. As if I couldn’t guess.”
Emmeline continued to eat, for she hadn’t had breakfast and the day, though only half over, had been a long and arduous one. “You must content yourself,” she said grudgingly, making no effort to sustain her smile, “with your own speculations. Why should you be different from the rest of the town?”
“I don’t understand why you don’t just go and live with him, or ask him to move in here, with us,” Izannah pressed. Tenacity was one of her foremost qualities, a trait that would no doubt serve her very well in the wide world, but was nevertheless trying in Emmeline’s kitchen.
“Even if the situation was that simple, which it most assuredly is not, I wouldn’t simply move out and leave you all alone in this house. As for asking Mr. Hartwell to live here, well, I don’t happen to want to, and besides, he wouldn’t come anyway. Not with that stiff-necked pride of his. No, he’d never leave his ranch.”
Izannah smiled like a cat with feathers sticking out of its mouth. “You’ve given the matter a great deal of thought, it seems to me.”
Emmeline glared at her cousin. “I had seven years to consider the matter,” she answered, spearing a drumstick from the platter of chicken.
“Do you believe that Mr. Hartwell was really and truly shanghaied?” Izannah asked mildly, still undaunted.
Emmeline recalled the smooth, thick scar tissue she’d felt under her fingers when she’d stroked Gil’s back, and her appetite was gone. Surely receiving such savage punishment changed men in very fundamental ways, breaking some, making others bitter or cruel.
“I believe it all right,” she said.
“Then why don’t you take him back?”
Emmeline could not bring herself to admit that she’d tried, and been rebuffed. “It’s more complicated than that,” she told Izannah with conviction in response to her latest question, but in her heart of hearts, she had plenty of questions of her own.
4
G IL STOOD ALONE AT THE FOOT OF HIS OWN GRAVE, PONDERING the many paradoxes of life—and death. It is not given to every man, he thought with grim amusement, to read his name on a marble tombstone.
Heedless of the copious summer rain, as soft and warm as an angel’s tears, Gil noted that Emmeline had elected to bury him in the family plot, facing the judge’s resting place. This touched him deeply, for Emmeline was a woman to whom family was vitally important.
It was the empty space next to his own, though, that tightened his throat and twisted his heart into a painful knot, for she had plainly reserved that spot for herself. Emmeline must have loved him when she’d commissioned that stone, he realized, and with such devotion that she would have gladly lain beside him throughout eternity.
He wondered, with
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