She grinned. “I’m getting better. Surely you’ve noticed?”
“I was surprised you didn’t succeed today.”
“I did succeed.” She lifted their joined hands. “I just changed the goal.”
His chest rose with a quick, strong breath. “You . . . I . . .” He shook his head. “Pass your exam, Bella Eden. That’s an order. Else I’m going to make the consequence that I won’t hold your hand unless you succeed.”
“Would you do that?”
“It’d be a trial, that’s for sure,” he said. He glanced at the tree. “You know, if it had been me three years ago, I wouldn’t have refused to kiss you. I thought a lot of you then, and even more now.”
“How so?” Bella spent all day, every day encouraging her students. She rarely got any encouragement back.
“Well, you taught yourself to sew. Then, when that wasn’t possible, you taught yourself to teach. Now you’re fighting to keep your place there. A lesser woman would’ve given up.”
His hand slid from her hand to her wrist. Holding it out in front of them, he turned it side to side to study it. Even for a woman, her wrist was delicate. In his hand, it looked tiny. His grasp felt as strong and warm as the splint she’d worn until it was healed.
“My parents warned me that you were more interested in courting me than helping me keep my job,” Bella said.
Adam turned her hand over and pressed his lips to the fine blue veins of her wrist. Her pulse jumped right along with her heart.
“Adam?” she breathed.
His blue eyes were solemn. “You would have to know, with me on the road half the year, that our lives wouldn’t be a carefree paradise. There would be rough patches—missing each other, fearful for each other . . .”
“Sounds like now,” Bella said. “Fearful for the future. Fearful that you won’t be able to come back to Oak Springs.”
“Fearful that I’ll be the cause of you losing another position you love.”
There was no denying the hardships before them if they chose this path. All they could do was pray for God to work His will on the matter.
Although the shade of the oak was nearby, Adam and Bella stood in the sun, knowing they hadn’t earned the reprieve. Not yet. And after a shared smile, they continued on through the world of crops, tests, and conflict.
nine
It was the last day of school, and the town planned to celebrate with a midday picnic, after which the children would go home and prepare for harvest. Bella took one end of a sawhorse while Freda took the other, and they toted it from the carpenter’s shop to the schoolyard. Four more trips, and her wrist wasn’t hurting yet. Not even a twinge. Looking over her shoulder as she walked backward, Bella dodged the kids rolling stumps that they were gathering to make benches.
Another wagon rolled up. Mrs. Whitlock climbed down with the weight of her cloth-covered basket digging into her arm. There would be plenty of food. Everyone was eager to get together to socialize. A last hurrah before they got down to the business of bringing in the wheat.
Bella kept a close eye on the road. Adam had said he was coming. It would be the first time he and her father would meet since the challenge had been made. Would her father behave himself? Would he even come? When she had left the house that morning, he’d been out in the fields with his two field hands, scything down his crops for harvest, even though the wheat for the contest tomorrow was already drying.
“Where are we putting the food?” Mrs. Whitlock asked.
“Inside the schoolhouse. Hopefully the flies won’t be as bad in there.”
Bella and Freda arranged the sawhorse, then lifted a board onto it to make another table. The younger students rolled stumps up to the table—switching them around until two the same height were matched—then dropped a plank over them.
The kids’ excitement was contagious. Any time their parents had occasion to visit the schoolhouse, they thrashed about like eels in a barrel. Bella loved the pride they took in their classroom. She felt it too. But it wouldn’t be her classroom much longer if she couldn’t pass the exam. A stranger would sit at her desk and talk to her children. That room, where she would only be a visitor, would become foreign to her. She couldn’t let it happen.
As she organized the parade of food coming in, she felt that old anxiety about the test rising up again. No, she couldn’t do that. She stretched her back and followed the cursive alphabet that she’d painted over the top of the chalkboard until she calmed herself. Think about good things, she reminded herself. How wonderful it’ll be when I pass the test and am assured a place here as long as I want.
But how long did she want to be here? According to the wager, Adam would be banned from Oak Springs if he lost. Was she willing to leave to be with him?
Oak Springs was her home. Teaching these children was what she was meant to do. But if she felt at home right now, why did she feel incomplete without Adam?
Seeing that everything was in place, Bella gave notice to the ladies, then went to ring the schoolhouse bell.
With the first pealing, heads turned her way. The kids scrambled like mad toward the school door, while most of the men returned to their conversations. She’d spotted Dr. Paulson first. His spotless gray suit and white hair made him difficult to miss in the group of men. They seemed to be hanging on his every word, but they weren’t all farmers. There was Mr. Doris and Mr. Woodward. Neither had any interest in agriculture, but they were both school board members. In fact, that was the school board talking to him. Every single one of them.
Look for the positives, she reminded herself. Like the fact that Adam
