Disappointed, Karlee sat down at the table with her bowl in hand. Finally, someone had asked her to stay, and she couldn't even remember saying thank you to him.
“What's the matter, Carrot Top?” Wolf lowered his huge frame into the chair across the table from her. A twin, dressed in white, climbed on each of his knees. “You sorry you didn't get to cook breakfast?”
“No. I only wanted to talk with Daniel. And please don't call me Carrot Top.” Once, she thought, I'll ask him nice once. “I hate that name. I don't call you Rootbrain or Tree head.”
She smiled at the twins, wondering if anyone usually brushed their curls before church. They were so beautiful, so perfect, like an angel mirrored before her.
“I'll try to remember.” Laughing, Wolf fed one twin a biscuit half topped with jelly. “As for Daniel, if he were here you could talk to him, but there's no guarantee he'll listen… or answer. From the stories his brothers tell, he never put more than a few words together in his life. Seems May, his wife, was the only one he ever really talked to.”
“But he's a preacher.” She thought about how hard it had been for Daniel to say all he did last night in her room.
Wolf nodded. “He's more a teacher. Always studying and writing papers. When he started preaching, folks said he would look straight down at May on the first row and talk to her like there was no one else in the church. They say his words were blessed, making a body feel closer to Heaven just from listening.”
Wolf buttered another biscuit and handed it to the twin on his left. “I ain't one to get within shouting distance of a church, but those who do say he still stares at the third place on the first pew like he was talking the whole time to his dead wife.”
An invisible icicle slid along her spine. “That's spooky.” She didn't want to think the man who'd held her last night might be a little mad. He hadn't said a word of comfort, but when he'd touched her he'd made her pain and loneliness go away.
“Maybe.” Wolf scratched his head. “I seen so much during the war, I ain't saying nothing's spooky now days.”
Karlee leaned closer, her breakfast completely forgotten. “Like what?” She'd lived with her aunts when the conflict ended. They'd allowed no stories of war told at their table. And this man, who looked like he might be the first person she'd ever met to have fleas and not mind, would never have been allowed in the aunts' house.
The corner of Wolf's lip lifted at her interest. “Once,” he whispered as if afraid to continue too loudly, “I saw a Yankee private, his head blown half off in battle, get up and walk off the field like he was out for a stroll.”
Karlee leaned closer. “What did you do?”
Wolf straightened. “I cocked my rifle and followed him for a spell. Pretty soon, he stuck his hands in his pockets and started whistling.” Wolf paused, his bushy eyebrows dancing.
“And?” Karlee couldn't wait.
“Well, I circled around the Yank, not wanting to shoot him in the back unless I had to. The sight of his face, half-missing from the cheek up, blood sloshing out with each step, stopped me cold. I never seen anything like it.”
Karlee closed her eyes, almost smelling the blood.
Wolf's Southern voice was low and slow as it drifted to her. “ 'Course, I can't be positive, him only having one eye and all, but I think he winked at me as he passed.” Wolf stared directly at her and winked. “I guess that proves Yanks don't need more than half a brain.”
Karlee jumped to her feet as she realized he'd been pulling her leg.
Wolf had the sense to look alarmed amid his chuckling. “I didn't mean nothing,” he mumbled as fast as the words could fight their way past the mass of hair around his mouth. “I was just joshing.”
She took a deep breath and pushed aside the thought of hitting him with the frying pan again. “Well, I'm more gullible than most, I guess.” She straightened, deciding not to fight the war all over in this kitchen. “But Daniel did talk to me last night. In fact, he asked me to stay.”
One eyebrow shot up. “The truth?”
“Truth. I've been asked to remain and help.” Karlee nodded once. “In fact, he wants me to stay as long as I like.” She added the lie for good measure.
“Well, I'll be. The only woman Daniel has let within a hundred miles of him is Willow. She took over the twins' care at birth. Every other woman you would have thought was poison.”
“Willow?” She remembered Daniel saying someone named Willow sometimes slept on the bed in the twins' room. “Where is she, now?”
Wolf set one of the twins down gently. “We all thought Willow had a mountainsize heart and a child's mind, but there was enough woman in her for one man to love. She married one of the Buchanan boys last fall and will be calving by summer. They live down by Big Cypress Bayou in a house full of relatives. I'm sure you'll meet her. She doesn't let more than a day pass without dropping by to see the twins. You'll probably see her in church this morning.”
Karlee glanced at the open window, trying to guess the time.
Wolf read her mind. “Daniel will ring the bells when it's time to start for church.” As if drawn by his words, a bell began to toll.
“I'll be saying good-bye,” Wolf mumbled as he stood. He picked up his rifle as though it were an extension of his arm. “The twins are all yours.”
“But where…”
He moved to the door. “Just follow the bells, and you'll find the church.” He vanished without another word, not bothering to close the door behind him.
Karlee stared at the twins. One was crying because Wolf left, the other was busy spreading grape jelly from her finger to her white dress.
“Twins!” She hated not calling them by name. “Want to go to church?”
They scattered like baby chicks at the first sound of thunder.
“Twins!” Karlee shouted as she darted one direction, then another, not knowing which girl to chase first.
The bell tolled again.
“Come here, girls.” Karlee tried not to panic, but the children were like rabbits rushing just out of her reach. “Don't be afraid to go to church.” She reasoned.
Laughing, they used the long table as an escape tunnel. They weren't afraid. They were playing a game with her. A game she had no idea how to win.
Ten minutes later, she struggled out of the house with a firm grip on two little hands. Forget combing their hair or washing off jelly. She had to find the church before the bell stopped ringing.
The twin on her left was crying, begging to be turned loose with the earnestness of a condemned man being led to the gallows. The girl on her right pulled at Karlee's fingers one at a time, hoping to work free.
“We don't want to go!” the child shouted. “You can't make us. You're not our dad. You're just a cousin. We don't have to go with you!”
Karlee kept moving.
Since the day she settled in with her old maid aunts, she'd seen very little of children. The aunts made a point of never inviting anyone to tea who brought a child too young to hold a cup properly and sit quietly. All her knowledge of children lay deep in memory when she had been too young to do a full day's work and was assigned to watch younger cousins as she traveled from place to place.
She thought about the alternatives available. She could stop and have a talk with the girls, only what would she say? Or she could turn back and allow them to win, only what would the preacher say if his own daughters weren't in church? If she spanked them, Daniel might not believe in hitting his children. If she didn't, they most likely would out-yell the church bell at any moment.
Karlee stopped in the middle of the walk. She twisted the girls in front of her and knelt to their level. The mirrored angel had been replaced by tiny creatures with red runny noses and open hatred in their eyes.
“Stop crying and yelling!” she ordered.
The twins didn't seem to be listening.
“Stop this right now, or I'll tell your father.”
In one gulp of breath, both girls quieted.
“You'll really tell?”
