The next morning brought a dark sky with angry clouds and hard rain. It was the first day since arriving in Fredonia that Nancy was confined to the house. She stared out the window, hoping that the violent storm wasn’t affecting Hal’s work at the mill. It was certainly complicating her day. She’d hoped to visit Mary and see if she might borrow a couple of eggs for their evening meal, but the rain was coming down in sheets and Nancy couldn’t even see the orchard on the other side of her driveway.
So she scoured the pantry trying to figure out how to make a meal with a cup of flour, one egg, and a small tin of bacon grease.
Her last trip to town had emptied Hal’s purse and she’d only been able to bring home a small sack of flour, six eggs, a slab of bacon and a small chicken. She had made chicken and flour dumplings and had stretched the leftovers for two days. She’d reserved half a jar of leftovers and stored it in the well to keep it from spoiling. So that’s what she had to work with.
And this meal, however paltry, would empty the pantry.
Dread filled her stomach like a deluge of icy water. She’d never experienced such lack. The idea of not having a meal on the table had never entered her mind. The knowledge that many people struggled to put food on their tables made her heart ache. Hal worked nearly all his waking hours and still hadn’t the means to buy even the most necessary items. Until this moment, she had taken her good fortune for granted. She hadn’t known any better.
But now she knew firsthand what that struggle was like — and it was terrifying.
Her father could help financially, but even if she could contact him, she knew that Hal Grayson would never accept the assistance. And so that left Nancy in a dire quandary.
Gathering her sparse provisions, she carried them to the stove. She scooped the bacon fat into a pot, cracked the egg on top and then poured in the flour. She fetched the jar of leftovers from the well and added the contents and two cups of water. Surely she could make something that would pass as stew. While it cooked, she straightened the kitchen and began making a shopping list in her head.
She was standing at the stove stirring the thick liquid in the pot when a clap of thunder nearly startled her out of her boots. Her heart raced and she peered out the window, frightened by the violence of the storm. The branches of the maple and oak trees in the back yard were being whipped by a hard gust and rain. The grass in the field was swept sideways as if combed by the wind. Nancy had always feared storms and had often sought the comforting arms of her father during those events. But she couldn’t run to him now. Not for money, not for comfort. She was a grown woman and a wife, and she needed to act like it. So she returned to the stove and stirred the pot of mush.
A huge flash of lightning followed by another startling clap of thunder rattled the windows and shook the house. She yelped in alarm and dropped the ladle in the pot just as a huge snap sounded outside. Heart thundering, she peered out the window and was aghast at what she saw. That loud sound hadn’t been a clap of thunder but rather the splintering of a large branch breaking off of what appeared to be the oldest tree in their yard — and it had fallen directly on the barn roof.
Captain was in the barn!
And Hal’s woodshop and all his beautiful carvings were right beneath the part of the roof the branch was lying on.
Panicked, Nancy grabbed her cloak and hustled out the kitchen door. Holding her cloak over her head, she rushed towards the barn.
Wind whipped around her, the strong gusts nudging her this way and that as she leapt over puddles and darted around clumps of mud in the yard. Finally, she reached the barn and wedged open the large door far enough to slip inside and out of the out of the storm.
“Captain!” she called, trying desperately to peer through the darkened interior. “Where are you, little one?”
No yowling met her ears, but perhaps Captain’s greeting was drowned out by the storm.
Afraid for his safety, she called out again, “Come on out, honey. I’ll take you inside.”
No movement. No sound. No Captain.
Tears welled in her eyes as she stood for several long moments, no cat in sight. What if he was outside with no shelter?
She lit a lantern and searched, calling his name again and again with no answer. Finally, she crouched down on her knees and peered under the lower shelf of Hal’s workbench. The glow of two eyes peering back at her filled her with relief. “Oh, thank goodness. Come on out, sweetheart.”
Setting the lantern aside, she gently drew Captain from beneath the bench. The poor little tiger was trembling and immediately sought refuge in her arms.
She held him close and rocked him, cooing and rubbing her chin against the top of his head until his trembling subsided and was replaced with a low rumbling purr.
“I know, sweetie. It sounds terrifying outside. I’ll bet that branch breaking through the roof scared you sideways. Poor baby. You’re all right now. I’ll take care of you.”
As she held Captain close to her breast, Nancy looked around, seeking any damage to the barn. The branch had broken clear through the roof and was poking inside a foot or more. The damage appeared to be far enough from Hal’s woodworking that nothing had suffered water damage. Not yet anyhow.
She placed Captain out of the way and then hurried to move a few pieces that might become damaged with the continued rain. Deciding there was nothing else she could do to protect Hal’s work, she retrieved Captain, tucked her cloak around him, and headed to the door.
Sheltering Captain, she forced open the door enough to slip outside and then rushed back across the mud-soaked yard and into the house.
Nancy dumped her cloak at the door and settled Captain in the kitchen in a crate of scrap fabric she’d found in the attic the previous evening. She dried off, plucked a piece of chicken from the stew and set it on the stove to cool. She gave Captain a dish of water and the piece of chicken. She would gladly give him her share. While Captain devoured his meal, Nancy went about finishing her chores, hoping Hal would return home soon. The barn roof needed his attention — and she needed his comforting arms.
Hal trudged up the muddy street, exhausted and frustrated. The storm had made soup of the mill yard and slowed his work to a crawl all day, and so he’d shut down the mill in the late afternoon. The pressure to finish up an order that was already a week late was mounting and tying his gut in knots. He walked with his head down and the collar of his coat turned up against the rain. Thankfully the raging storm that had pounded the mill all day had abated to a fine mist as he walked up the drive to his home. Still, when Hal lifted his head, he came to a dead stop, shocked to see a large branch from their maple tree lying on the barn roof.
He rushed down the drive, afraid of the damage the branch had caused to the roof and possibly to his woodshop and the many projects staged there. He couldn’t afford to lose even one of his pieces, nor could he afford any further delays with the projects he was working on. Addison had been extremely understanding of Hal’s circumstances, but Addison was a businessman and would be forced to find himself another apprentice if Hal couldn’t deliver pieces on time.
Miraculously, the barn door had remained closed against the storm. A hard gust would often wrench the door open while he was working. Fixing the door was another job he’d been neglecting.
Hal ducked inside and quickly surveyed the barn. The branch was indeed lodged in the roof, but upon examination, Hal realized he could saw the branch into pieces and pull the remaining piece back through the hole it had created. The roof, however, would need to be patched straightaway.
As he looked around the woodshop for something with which to patch the roof, he was relieved to see that none of the pieces were damaged. Some pieces, however, had been relocated.
Was it possible that Nancy come out and moved some of the pieces out of the path of the rain?
As he looked around he decided that she must have seen the branch on the roof and had come out at the height of the storm to rescue his work. Gads! Even he had taken refuge beneath the mill lean-to during that wild twenty-minute frenzy of whipping wind and slashing rain. Hal shook his head, filled with admiration and affection for his daring and beautiful wife.
After climbing onto the roof and seeing that very little of the rain had dripped inside, Hal decided to wait for the drizzle to abate before removing the limb. The sky was clearing and a hint of late day sun was trying to peek through the gray sky.
He slogged into the house, determined to eat some supper before he tackled the barn. Yet another unexpected delay that would prevent him from finishing his current project this evening. He opened the door, wiped his boots, and crossed the parlor to the kitchen. Nancy was at the stove, peering skeptically into a pot of what appeared to be stew. The look on her face suggested she didn’t like what she saw, but Hal knew better than to ask if anything was amiss.
The instant she caught sight of him her head came up and her eyes filled with pleasure. “You’re home!” She rushed to him and circled his waist with her arms, pressing her head against his chest. “I was terribly worried about you.”
Stunned, Hal stood stock still for a minute. “I… ah, I was worried about you, too. The storm did more damage here than at the mill.” He clasped her shoulders and eased her away enough to see her face. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, but he could see the stress the storm had caused her. She’d been alone during the howling and thundering storm and had likely heard the branch crash onto the barn. Of course she was shaken. A feeling of intense tenderness washed through him and he pulled her back to his chest, cradling her in his arms as he thanked her for rescuing his work in the barn.
“How bad is it?” she asked, seeming in no hurry to remove herself from his embrace.
Truth was he was in no hurry either. Holding her in his arms was surprisingly fulfilling. He lowered his head and inhaled the floral scent of her hair. He wanted to press his lips to the silken strands and bury his face in her hair. For one wild moment he considered doing so, but Nancy was seeking his comfort, not romance. And so he eased her away and said, “Actually, it’s not too bad. I’ll need to saw the branch in pieces to get it off the roof and I’ll have to patch the hole where it broke through, but that can wait until after supper. What’s in the pot that smells so good?” he asked, hoping to turn her thoughts away from the storm that had upset her enough to throw herself into his arms.
As if she suddenly became aware of her actions, she whirled away and focused her attention on the bubbling pot. Keeping her face turned from him, she said, “Sit down and I’ll fill a bowl for you. After supper, I’ll help you repair the barn.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said, taking his usual seat at the head of the table.
“I didn’t ask if it was necessary,” she said, placing a bowl in front of him.
Hal was beginning to learn that arguing with Nancy about anything was a losing battle, so he bit his tongue and prepared to savor his meal.
Nancy sat opposite him. After giving thanks for their meal, they dug in.
The stew was a good bit thicker than he expected, but he scooped a heaping portion with his spoon and brought it to his mouth. The scent of bacon filled his nose and made his mouth water. He was starving. He blew once on the hot spoon and shoved it into his mouth – and froze.
Gads! How could something that smelled so good taste so bad?
He clamped his mouth shut, smiling as he forced himself to swallow the unappetizing glob of whatever she’d prepared. He honestly had no idea what he was eating. It tasted like flour and grease.
“It’s delicious, Nancy,” he forced out of his lips as he spooned another bite. She smiled at him and dipped her spoon in as well, taking a bite as he forced another into his mouth.
Her eyes rounded and she clapped a hand over her mouth. She glanced from him to the kitchen door and back to him again before bolting from the table. She flung open the door and spat out the gooey mess. “Argh. This is terrible!” Nancy wiped her mouth on her apron, her eyes tearing. “I’m so sorry, Hal. I thought I might be able to make a meal from what we had in the pantry, but I’ve created an unappetizing mess. I’m sorry, but I simply could not swallow that disgusting stuff.”
Hal had taken advantage of her rush to the back door to spit his mouthful back into his bowl. But it was seeing his petite, beautiful wife spitting a glob of mush out the door made him laugh until his stomach hurt.
“It’s not at all funny, Hal.” She sniffed and glared at the gummy mess in her bowl. “I have no supper for you.”
“It’s alright, Nancy.”
“It’s not alright. What are we going to eat?”
“We have apples left, do we not?”
“Two.”
“Then that shall be our supper.”
“But that’s not enough.”
“It will be plenty for me. But if you need more perhaps you can borrow a couple of eggs from Mary. I’ll find a way to return them to her tomorrow.”
Nancy’s upset seemed fade and she shook her head. “There’s no need for that, Hal. After tasting that vile stuff, I’m not at all hungry. I’m sure an apple will taste lovely later, though. If you like, I’ll help you with the roof now.”
He couldn’t leave her in the kitchen with the potful of mush feeling she’d failed him, and so he said, “I’ll be glad to have a helping hand. If we go now we can enjoy a bit of sunshine before it sets for the day.” With that he hooked his arm around Nancy and guided her out the door.
When they reached the barn, Hal adjusted the ladder and climbed back onto the roof. While he sawed the limb into smaller pieces, Nancy milled about below, clearing smaller branches that had come down and chucking aside the scraps from the limb.
“What else can I do to help?” she asked.
“Nothing.” Hal looked down and saw her looking up at him, her pretty white throat exposed to the waning sunlight, tempting him to place a kiss in the hollow above her collarbone. “I can manage this now. Go back inside and I’ll be in when I’m done.”
He saw frustration and determination cross her face as she planted her fists firmly on her waist. “As long as you’re up on that roof risking your neck, I intend to stay right here.”
Hal grinned. He loved her spunk. And he knew she was still dwelling on the inedible meal she’d prepared, so he thought he would set her mind on another track. “If you keep up this obstinate streak, I’ll cart you into the house and lock you in the bedroom.”
Nancy’s eyes rounded. Then she laughed, which is exactly what he’d hoped for. “I don’t believe for one minute, Hal Grayson, that you would do that since you refuse to set foot in our bedroom!”
She had turned the tables on him so swiftly and with such impact that Hal felt his face heat. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to set foot in the bedroom. He wanted to, but Nancy deserved to be courted first, and so he’d been tamping down his growing desire for his beautiful wife to allow them time to become better acquainted — and to explore the obvious attraction they felt for one another.
Bantering and playing with each other was simply another way of deepening their relationship, but sometimes Nancy’s witty repartee hit too close to home.
“What are you going to patch the hole with?” she asked, gazing up at him with her hand shading her eyes. The sun was at his back giving him a view of her face and her white smile. She was enjoying their play, and he was enjoying the fact that he’d put that gorgeous smile on her face.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Look in the barn and see if you can find a board about a foot wide and maybe eighteen inches long.”
“At your service, milord.” She executed a deep, ridiculously beautiful curtsey that made him laugh. Flipping her skirt aside, she spun on her heel and ducked into the barn.
Hal finished sawing the limb into pieces and extracted the last of the debris from the hole.
Just as he was about to climb down, Nancy returned with an old piece of barn siding that had been leaning against a stall in the back of the barn. “Will this work?” she asked, stepping onto the bottom rung of the ladder to hand the wood up to him.
He inspected the board and then the hole and determined it would be sufficient to create a temporary covering.
“I think this will work nicely. But I need to figure out how to seal the board to keep the water out,” he said, more to himself than to her.
“Do you have patching compound I can fetch?” Nancy asked, standing at the bottom of the ladder.
“No, and that’s got me perplexed. I need some pine tar or something that will create a seal the rain won’t wash away.”
“Well, perhaps you can use the stew I made for supper,” she said. “I still can’t get the grease out of my mouth.”
Hal gave a shout of laughter and immediately clamped his mouth shut. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her feelings, but gads her comment about the thick, greasy goo was so appropriate he couldn’t stop laughing. He held his mirth inside, but his shoulders shook from the effort.
“I know you’re laughing, Mr. Grayson. I can see the smirk on your face and your shoulders are shaking.”
Her twitching mouth and the laughter in her voice was his undoing. Hal laid the board on the roof and let loose with a belly laugh.
Her own light laughter filled his ears and the air around them.
Hal leaned over the edge of the barn, gasping. “You won’t hold this against me, will you?”
“Not if you won’t hold my supper disaster against me? It was awful stuff, wasn’t it?” She wiped away tears of laughter.
Suddenly, the fact that they had a hole in their barn roof and no supper to eat didn’t seem so bad. They still had the ability to laugh in the face of dire circumstances. They had each other.
“Perhaps you should fetch your mush and I’ll see how well it holds a seal.”
Nancy shook her fist at him. “Keep this up and I’ll serve it to you for breakfast in the morning.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I’m saving my apple for breakfast. But you’re welcome to have the stew for your breakfast,” he said in jest. He watched as she continued to smile and again thought to himself how beautiful she was — and how he wanted to make her laugh every day.
Together they completed a temporary repair to the roof. Hal ran to Tuckers and borrowed a bit of pine tar from William and a couple of eggs from Mary. Then they secured Hal’s tools and closed up the barn. Hal accompanied his wife back into the house, determined to spend a few minutes with her before heading to his woodshop. He’d rather spend the evening with her, but they were in desperate need of funds. He needed to finish one of his projects tonight so they could eat tomorrow. But the possibility of that seemed frighteningly slim.
And so he thanked Nancy for her help and the laughter and returned to his shop, his thoughts still on his wife. The more time he spent with her, the more intrigued and enchanted he became. She invaded his thoughts and his dreams. Even at times when he needed to focus, his thoughts strayed to his wife: her smile, her stubbornness, her industriousness, and her gentle beauty. He was thoroughly enchanted with her and was going to court his wife.