His arms around her made his writing sloppier. What happen—you and Haakon? He lowered the notebook so she could see it.
While he’d had no doubt that Aven had wanted Haakon’s advance to cease, he hadn’t yet asked her how it had begun. Her brow furrowed with thought, then gently she spoke. He couldn’t see her mouth, so he touched her jaw, turning her face toward his.
She started again—telling of how she had informed Haakon when they were last at church that she wanted to be Haakon’s friend and his family but nothing more.
Her heart had to be all kinds of broken. Thor knew how dearly she’d cared for Haakon. How in a way she had loved his brother. Though Thor believed Aven’s affection and desire to be squarely his, there was a piece that she hadn’t quite been able to tug free of Haakon’s grasp.
Haakon had that way about him, and Thor had watched her every day . . . working to put Haakon in the place of friend and brother. An effort on her part, but he thought no less of her for it. Love was not as simple as it was often made to seem.
If marriage were easy, there wouldn’t be vows.
Writing swiftly, he put all that to paper. Aven watched, and when the last was before her, a tear slipped and fell. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes.
Aven gripped his neck, bringing herself high enough to press the side of her face to his own. When she looked at him, he watched her speak. “Such a vow is one that I long to make to you, Thor.” Her brown eyes searched his, urgent and honest.
Sitting outside her door last night, he’d ached for the very thing. To be able to hold her close, watch over her in slumber, and not have a barrier between them. While the yearning was a fire inside him, so startling was the wish upon her own lips that he responded in Sign before he realized his error. He took her hand, spread open her palm, and used his finger to slowly draw out the letters. S-A-M-E F-O-R M-E.
She smiled as joy filled her face. Aven burrowed into him and moved his arms around her so she was wrapped up. Thor closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to her shoulder. Briefly he clutched tight—and it was a satisfaction unlike one he’d ever known. For it to be just the beginning was a goodness he didn’t know he would find.
He ached to ask her now, but he wasn’t ready yet. This wasn’t the kind of question he wanted to write on a woman’s palm. If God could strengthen him through another few nights away from her, he would have a way.
There was a softness to this quilt that she hadn’t noticed before. Aven gripped an edge of the calico backing and nestled it beneath her chin. Lying here in bed, she didn’t need to turn away from the wall to know that Ida had placed a tray of tea on the nightstand. The aroma of peppermint and honey was as gentle as Ida’s footsteps had been.
Warm and purring, Dottie lay against her side. Such comforts. Last of all, the necklace in hand. Aven twirled her mother’s delicate chain around her fingertip once more, then let it unravel. It spilled like a dull gray puddle on the crisp sheet and Aven plucked it up. She rose slowly, stiff from having lain still for so long. The light from the window told her that it was nearly midday. Aven slipped the necklace back on and snapped the tiny clasp into place. Ida had told her to rest all she needed and for now, these hours abed, laced with thoughts and prayers, had infused her with a gentle dose of strength.
Sounds and murmurs filled the house below—the planning and preparation for the wedding tomorrow. So as not to be seen by her groom, Fay was to stay with Cora for the night. Aven had volunteered to spend this day at work with Ida in the kitchen. A fine feast there was to prepare, and Aven had been looking forward to the baking of breads and the roasting of meat. She glanced to where her apron hung beside the dresser. To simply rise and put it on shouldn’t be so hard. Which made it all the more difficult to keep tears in check when Fay entered, knelt beside the bed, and took Aven’s hand in her own.
“I ask you to come with me, Aven.” Her blue eyes brimmed with gentleness. “It would be good for you to get out of this house, and I would dearly love your company tonight. Come with me to Cora’s. I know it’s not so easy to leave troubles behind, but if you let us, we will spoil you fiercely.” Fay rose enough to sit on the bed beside her. “And before you fret, Ida has insisted that she has a handle on everything.”
Fay went on to explain that Ida had enlisted a crew of neighbor women to help her with the preparations. “There are so many women coming I think Ida might be at a loss for how to keep busy.” Fay winked.
These dear women.
Fay slipped a strand of hair behind Aven’s ear. “Please come?”
’Twas quite the coaxing . . . one that spurred Aven to dress and, with Fay’s help, tuck a few overnight items in her carpetbag. Spread across the opposite bed was Fay’s dress for tomorrow, fresh white stockings, new garter ribbons, and her finest shoes, newly polished. All would be waiting for her return in the morning.
Aven had much healing to do yet, but she sensed the first step on that road was to follow Fay out of doors and down the lane to Cora’s. To loop her arm with the bride-to-be and see what fancies the evening held. A little merriment would surely do her spirit good.
Thor saw them along, as much for his assurance as Aven’s own, she suspected, and when they reached Cora’s quaint cabin, the very woman was standing on the porch, waving. Tess and Georgie were at her side. Al had made himself scarce, so it was the happy chatter of women and the smells of a cooking supper that greeted them.
Thor nodded his farewell, and Aven watched as he headed back down the lane. He had yet to vanish from sight when Georgie took Aven’s and Fay’s hands and tugged them forward. “Come in! Come in!”
At first Aven feared she’d overcrowd the place, but Cora had made room for them all as though they’d been scheming this since dawn. All through the hours that Aven had been abed, clinging to prayers of hope even as she turned her mother’s necklace ’round her hand.
Tess took their satchels and wedged them beneath a cushioned chair, sending two kittens to scamper into a new hiding spot. Aven scooped one up and nestled it close. The kitten stayed by her side all evening, even as Tess and Fay braided ribbons together for the morrow and while Georgie fawned over the notion that Fay was to be a bride.
The girl inquired some as to what that entailed, and conversation of a gentle nature followed. All vague enough of an answer that Georgie then asked why Fay would ever want to share a room with Jorgan. The accompanying giggles it seemed were not to the kitten’s liking. But they were indeed to Aven’s.
Laughter, it turned out, was rather good medicine, because by the time a comforting supper of broth and bread was dished up and passed around, Aven’s heart was lifted.
While Georgie didn’t seem to grasp what was so amusing, she did inquire after Thor. “What I also ain’t gettin’ is that if Mr. Jorgan be wantin’ to share a room with Miss Fay, why Mr. Thor not be wantin’ to share a room with Miss Aven. Seems to me they like each other about the same.”
“Oh, don’t you fret over Thor one bit,” Cora insisted. “He aimin’ to share his room. He just ain’t got the nerve to ask her yet.” She winked in Aven’s direction.
Seeming satisfied with the answer, Georgie followed her mother’s bidding to dress for bed. Georgie wriggled free of her outer clothes, then slid a linen nightgown over her shift. Tess helped her button the front, and when the girl was ready for bed, she settled in close to Aven.