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After Adelaide shed all her tears, Kathy laid her on the window seat and wrapped her up in blankets. She hadn’t eaten anything since earlier in the day, but Kathy didn’t worry about that. A little loss of appetite was normal under the circumstances. Maybe she’d wake up feeling better in the morning.
She looked outside, but didn’t see anything of Luke. It was too dark to see anything, anyways. She went inside and ate a plate of supper by herself. Come to think of it, she quite enjoyed a few moments alone since her rush of activity after getting off the train. With Adelaide around, she probably wouldn’t get much time alone. It wasn’t the mail-order marriage she anticipated.
She’d walked into a ready-made family, and now, with the loss of Max and Annabel, she’d wound up with a child to boot. Would she and Luke ever have any time to get to know each other the way married couples usually did before their first child came along?
She shut the door and closed the shutters on the window. The heat of the fire filled the little cottage with a sleepy glow. She sat in the rocking chair for a while, waiting for Luke to come back from wherever he was. But then a little noise caught her attention, and she peeked into the bedroom. There was Luke, sitting on the edge of the bed.
He wiped his face on the cuff of his sleeve but he couldn’t stop himself from sobbing. Kathy sat down on the bed next to him and patted him on the back.
“Don’t pay any attention to me,” he muttered. “I’ll just clean myself up and go out to supper. I know you just worked to make it, so the least I can do is eat it.” He burst into another flood of sobs.
“Don’t worry about supper,” Kathy replied. “Adelaide didn’t eat anything, either. It’s a normal reaction when you’ve suffered a shock like this.”
“No.” He wiped his face again, but the tears still fell. “There’s no excuse for it. A man needs his meals. Gotta keep goin’. I have work to do tomorrow morning, and now that Max is gone, I’ll be doing it all myself. Holy smokes! I don’t look forward to that.”
“I don’t think you’ll be doing much work with your arm like this,” Kathy pointed out. “You might want to lie quiet for a day or two, at least. And Adelaide needs you, too. She needs to see that you feel the same grief she does. You shouldn’t hide your feelings from her—or me. If anyone should see you like this, it’s me. I’m your wife.”
“Wife!” Luke guffawed. “You mean, I have a wife? Heaven help me! What’s this nasty trick someone’s played on me?”
“It’s no trick,” Kathy assured him. “We’re married.”
“Oh,” Luke replied. “I thought maybe this was another one of Max’s practical jokes. Well, I guess it can’t be, because he’s gone, and I’ll never have any more of those jokes again.” He collapsed into tears. Kathy put her arms around him, and he buried his head in her breast and gave vent to his grief just as Adelaide did.
Pretty soon, he sat up and wiped the last of his tears off his face. “I’m okay now.” He snorted. “I’ll just get some sleep, and I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“Do you want me to bring you a plate of supper in here?” Kathy asked. “Adelaide’s asleep on the window seat.”
“What about you?” Luke asked. “Are you having any?”
“I already ate,” Kathy told him. “I thought you were outside somewhere. I looked around for you. I didn’t know you were in here the whole time.”
“If you already ate,” Luke replied. “I think I’ll skip it. I’m not hungry. I’m sorry you went to all the trouble of making it when neither of us is eating. It’s not the way to treat you on your first night here.”
“I don’t mind,” Kathy assured him. “I expected something like this. You’ve both had a terrible shock.”
Luke snorted again. “I heard you out there with her. I heard what you said to her.”
“Why, you little sneak!” Kathy teased. “Eavesdropping on our conversation!”
Luke turned to her, but didn’t smile at her attempt to joke. “You’re really good with her. She needs a woman like you.”
“Right now, she needs just about anyone who will care about her,” Kathy told him. “She’s going to need a lot of love and reassurance from now on.”
“I know,” Luke replied. “But she seems to have formed a bond with you. She’ll need that to take the place of Annabel.”
“I don’t want to take the place of Annabel,” Kathy maintained.
“I know,” Luke replied. “I’m not suggesting that you do. I’m just saying it’s good that she has you to help her. I know this isn’t exactly what either of us had in mind when we agreed to get married.”
“It’s all right,” Kathy told him. “We all just have to deal with the situation. None of us wanted this, and we’ll just have to get used to it and live with it. Of the three of us, I’m the least bothered by this situation. You and Adelaide have a much worse problem to deal with.”
Luke reached up and traced the contour of her cheek with the back of his finger. “You’re good. I’m lucky to have you.”
“And I’m lucky to have you,” Kathy replied.
They both breathed together in the silent house. Luke leaned forward and kissed her delicately. Then the kiss lengthened, and their lips somehow stayed together in a soft embrace.
When Luke pulled back, his eyes sparkled just inches from Kathy’s face in the shadows of the bedroom. “We might not get very many chances like this to be alone together.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Kathy told him. “We just got married, and all of a sudden, we have a child.”
“At least we don’t have a newborn baby,” Luke replied. “Then we definitely wouldn’t be spending any time alone.”
“No?” Kathy asked. “I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”
“I was around when Adelaide was a baby,” Luke replied. “I can tell you, it’s no picnic. We should be grateful we have a nine-year-old. She can go off and entertain herself, and she’ll sleep by herself all night. That will give us a little bit of time to ourselves.”
“We have some time now,” Kathy pointed out.
“I know.” Luke’s lips landed on Kathy’s again, longer this time, and his hands reached out and found their way around her waist. He pulled her against him, and their breath came stronger and heavier with meaning and understanding. The intoxication of being so close to him, of their bodies combining at long last, made Kathy’s head spin.
They paused again, their breath panting fuller and deeper. “It’s not so bad, is it?”
“What?” he asked.
“Having a baby,” Kathy explained. “It’s not so bad, is it?”
“No,” he replied. “It’s wonderful. Would you like to try it?”
“I think I would.”
Luke kissed her again and they fell back together on the bed.
The End
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