Just for him.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. This quiet, unassuming woman had him tied up in knots every time she so much as looked his way. He wondered if all men felt this way after marriage.
“What have I done to deserve such a nice visit?” he asked as she stood silhouetted against the bluffs to the south.
“I came to fetch you for lunch.” Her gaze flicked from him to the wood stacked nearby. “Is that firewood?”
“It is.” He turned, pride pushing his shoulders back as he watched her take in all he’d cut so far. Celia pushed her lips together. Before she could start chewing on the lower one, he asked, “What is it?”
“Well . . .” She ran a hand over the topmost piece, the last one he’d cut. “The cookstove is only so big. And the fireplaces not much larger. So . . . well . . .” She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.
“It’s too big.” A wave of frustration rolled through him. He’d spent the entire morning, plus a few hours yesterday, chopping and chopping and chopping the wood he’d found stacked behind the house. All to find out he’d done it incorrectly.
“I’ll show you. If you want,” Celia said hesitantly.
He pushed out a breath and nodded without saying a word. All the pride he’d felt was flattened, as if it had been run over by a wagon.
Celia took one of his logs, laid it just so on the block of wood he’d found in the barn and correctly assumed was for chopping logs. She raised the axe, and then, without hesitation, split the wood clean in half. “There,” she said, setting the axe down. “That’s the right size.”
He nodded again, too embarrassed to thank her. She must think him utterly useless. But then she smiled at him, and it wasn’t pitying at all. It was genuine, as if she were glad he was here.
Jack found his voice again. “I thought I might finish up the wood that was already here before I begin work on anything else.”
She nodded, as if his reasoning was perfectly acceptable.
In reality, Jack hadn’t yet worked out how exactly to do many of the other items she’d mentioned. He figured if he spent a day or so on the wood, he could then make an excuse to go to town and ask around for help. Asking Celia seemed the obvious solution, but just the thought of it made him feel ten times worse than her picking up the axe and showing him the right way to chop firewood.
No, he’d much rather keep his dignity intact and find help in town.
“Why don’t you come in and get a bite to eat?” she asked.
Jack didn’t need to be asked again. He left his gloves on the stack of wood and followed her inside, only to find the place transformed. Not only had she swept out every speck of dirt that had been on the floor, she’d also dusted, made a soup that smelled heavenly, baked a loaf of bread, and offered him butter that she’d only just churned that morning.
“How do you accomplish so much?” he asked, slathering a slice of bread with the butter.
Celia laughed, and the sound made him lean back in his chair, completely at ease for some reason. “I grew up on a farm. I’m used to this life.”
Now it made sense—why she’d kept this place instead of selling it. “Well, Mrs. Wendler, you’re quite the industrious farm girl.”
She blushed some at his use of her new name, and he busied himself with taking a bite of the bread, else he start thinking of more things to say to make that color rise in her cheeks again.
“The cow needs milking each morning,” she said. “I’ve always done it, and I’m happy to continue, unless you’d like to?”
Jack couldn’t fathom milking a cow. “Oh no, please carry on. I’ll feed them.” He said this as if he knew exactly what that entailed.
Celia hid a smile behind her soup spoon. “Like you did this morning?”
“This morning? Was I . . .?” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
Celia nodded. “Each morning and night. Don’t worry, I fed them last night and this morning.”
“Oh.” Yet another thing he didn’t know. And this one could have had dire consequences, if Celia hadn’t gone out to do the milking. “Of course. I’ll be sure to do that from now on.”
But truthfully, as he stirred his soup, Jack wondered how many other things needed doing that he didn’t know about. Things Celia might assume he did know, but when she found out he didn’t, it would be too late. What other disasters might be in the making?
“Please excuse me a moment. I need to . . .” He jerked his head to the back door, indicating the general location of the privy. But really, he just needed to escape the house and the suffocating feeling that he was the one who’d let them down. Who would make it impossible for them to survive the winter.
Outside, he leaned against the railing of the back porch, gulping deep breaths of cold, wind-driven air. The bluffs sat out there, past the pile of firewood, the outbuildings, and the fields, all-seeing and ancient. They likely knew all there was to know. But how could
