Bowing her head, Aven shook water from her fingers. “I don’t know what to do,” she finally whispered.
With a cool touch, Cora lifted Aven’s chin. “Don’t you be hard on yesself. A girl all on her own learns to survive, and I’ve a hunch you seen a lot in your days. Lord knows you’re far from home.” She touched Aven’s shoulder, and it was a motherly comfort. So tender and sure that Aven’s throat tightened again. “He done frightened you last night and you ain’t need be ashamed of that.”
Aven unwound the bow that tied her apron and pulled it loose.
“And if it’s after Thor that you’re worryin’, rest in ease that the man done been through a whole heap worse.” She smiled a little. “He already on his feet again.”
Nodding, Aven tried to hold on to that, but it was more than the wound of his body. It was something deeper. “I questioned his character. I made presumptions of his intentions that were far from the truth. He had been drinking . . . and was so forceful that I—I . . .”
Cora pulled Aven near and wrapped her up in a tight hug. The sensation was startling, so rarely had she been held this way. Emotions washed over her until she was crying again. Aven used her apron to wipe her eyes.
“He a good man,” Cora said softly. “But as you might’a seen, he a broken man trying to bind himself back up with the one thing that be tearin’ him down. It’s the same thing that put his pappy in the ground, and it was a loss that shook us all. When Jarle Norgaard lost his wife, he didn’t know how to come back from that amount of broken. And Thor . . .” Slowly, Cora shook her head. “He walkin’ that same rutted path. He know what the Good Book says ’cause he reads it. He know he ain’t supposed to put his trust in anything but the Lord.”
The pump dripped as slow and steady as Cora’s words.
“But a man gotta want it. Ain’t nobody able to want it for him.” Her face pinched with sadness. “It a cryin’ shame what Thor be doin’ to himself, but if you ask me”—a light hit her eyes and a smile of hope played at the corners of her mouth—“ he got some fight in him left. It ain’t too late yet. He don’t have to follow his pappy all the way to the grave.”
Aven clung to those words. “You believe there’s such hope for him?”
“Yes, child. But he need us. He need people. It may seem elseways ’cause he pushes ’em away. But he do that ’cause most don’t take the time to hear him.”
So Thor was giving up. And why wouldn’t he? When others treated him the way she had. Assuming him a wretch when he’d simply been fighting past a voice that wouldn’t work. Twisting her fingers together, Aven glanced to the house, then back to Cora. “Please tell me what I can do.”
“Just look at him.” Shielding her face from the rising sun, Cora stepped a touch nearer. “Look at his eyes, his face. See him. See him and be patient. You’ll never wonder.” She squeezed Aven’s hand, holding it in her cool one. “Spend but ten minutes gettin’ to know Thor Norgaard and you’ll forget he silent. You’ll learn and hear things that most men don’t even know how to speak.”
SEVEN
Leaning over the edge of the wagon, Thor counted the empty buckets he’d just loaded. Each pail would hold three gallons, and he needed at least eighty gallons of berries today. With the patch nearest the pond drooping with ripe fruit, and with his blackberry wine a favorite in these parts, it was time to cash in on that.
Thor fetched another load of buckets from the north end of the cidery. The pledge they paid on this farm was on 327 acres of Sorrel land. At the cost of $3.25 an acre, no light load. He and his brothers had grown lax after Da’s death, so with a few hundred still owed—not to mention eight dollars a month interest—it was time to pay it all off.
With Jorgan to marry next month, he knew his brother agreed.
They still had need of supplies to finish the west cabin, and since Haakon had blown up the chicken coop the year before and Jorgan was building a new one closer to the garden, they’d added more to their tab at the mercantile than they should have. It was high time they learned a little more responsibility. Today it would start with the berry patch.
Fearing he’d forget to secure the cidery, Thor shoved the heavy door closed, then barred and bolted it. The iron lock used a key that only he and Jorgan had access to.
Thor hefted the next stack of buckets over the side of the wagon, then using his thumb, slid it up the rims to tally each one. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty—
A touch at his elbow made him startle. Jerking his arm away, he turned to see Aven.
Her eyes were wide as she took a step back. “Oh dear. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head, though his heart was in his throat. He hated when people did that. Did they think he could hear them coming? Aven swallowed hard, and Thor shot out a breath. With his pulse slowing, he nodded for no other reason than for her to see that it was alright.
Jorgan had told him that her husband had been a drunkard. Much as Thor was. Did that frighten her about him? Thor knew little of Aven. Even less of Benn. But learning of his deceased cousin’s struggle was enough for Thor to be vexed by warring emotions. First had come anger that a man would let an addiction rule him even in the confines of marriage. A bond where a woman chose to be wholly abandoned and honoring to her mate, and where a man promised to cherish and care for her. Following that had been a stab of sympathy because Thor knew what a battle it was—the pull of the bottle each and every moment of each and every day.
Who was he to judge? Would he not be the same in marriage?
Aven was still watching him with uncertain eyes. She was walking on eggshells around him, wasn’t she? He wasn’t helping that just now. Thor reached into the wagon and lifted out his board with the papers clipped to it. After loosening the top list, he flipped it over, then jotted a few words. He handed the board and paper to Aven.
I give you reason say sorry a lot.
Was that a little smile? Visibly easing, she looked from him to the wagon. She gripped the edge and peeked inside. Her eyebrows rose at the sight of so many buckets, but she didn’t say anything. A soft chain encircled her throat. So delicate a necklace it might have been missed. She smelled of baking bread just as Ma once had. While Ida baked plenty, this was an aroma Thor hadn’t smelled since he was a boy. Cardamom. Part of a Norwegian recipe that Ida never made because Ida didn’t know it. Thor hadn’t realized he’d missed the scent of Ma’s bread until it lifted from Aven’s flour-dusted apron.
She smiled at him, and he swallowed hard. Thor glanced around. It was just the two of them. A rare thing for him . . . especially with a woman. What did men usually do in this instance? He thought fast, and it dawned on him—they usually made conversation.
Thinking to try that, he wrote something more, but Aven’s head whipped to the left. Thor looked over to see Haakon striding down the porch steps. Haakon spoke to her, and she angled away to respond. The world silent again, Thor scribbled out his phrase and lowered the board and pencil into the wagon. When he glanced at Aven she was watching him again and seemed regretful. Because he’d set the paper aside? Surely not. She had Haakon to talk to.
Thor stepped around the wagon and made sure the backboard was secure. Haakon climbed up to the seat even as Aven moved back. Perhaps she had some things to do with Ida. Thor wasn’t sure, but with her shielding her eyes to watch them, might she want to get away from the house for a while? She’d yet to see much of the area, and they could use the help.
He signed the idea to Haakon, feeling more than ever Aven’s watch of him. Haakon shook his head and signed back that they were going swimming afterward.
So? They could go swimming with manners.
When Thor mentioned that to his brother, Haakon shook his head again.
Aven’s mouth moved with a question. “What are you two saying?”