Gid’s response veered from relief—glad Daniel had shown up, “because Bob and Ed are sicker than I thought and the good Lord knows I could use some help, for I can’t take care of their farm and get my own started at the same time”—to consternation: “What were you thinking, playing with my ax, Freddy? I don’t go around experimenting with your spinning wheel. Serves you right, getting your head bashed. No, I don’t want to hear how you were trying to help. Keep your hands to yourself!”
Daniel frowned. “That’s enough, Gideon. Your sister did a fine job with the hickory. What happened to her could have just as easily happened to you or me.” In a kinder tone, he continued, “Listen, I’ll take over the Weldses’ chores, so you can start clearing.” Then he scanned me critically. “I’m worried about your injury, Harriet. Do you think you might recover better under Mrs. Gale’s supervision?”
I prodded my head and winced. “Probably,” I said reluctantly. I’d rather have stayed with him. But my head did hurt like hell. Plus, a day or two at Phin and Marian’s place would give me a chance to talk to Rachel.
We decided it was too late to travel. The trip would have to wait until morning. I didn’t mind. I liked the idea of spending the night in the woods, warmed by the campfire and with the stars overhead, while Daniel and I savored our reunion.
In the end, I didn’t stay awake long enough to eat supper. While Gid started going on about his homesteading plans to Daniel, Fancy pranced my way. I turned on my side to pet her, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. I woke at dawn in a different location—the lean-to—with a sore crown and a breathless curiosity. Had Daniel carried me here?
The trip to the Standen-Gale homestead held none of the tedious discomforts of the previous travel. Even with an aching head, I couldn’t help but enjoy the eastward journey. I rode behind Daniel and of course had to wrap my arms around his waist (how else was I to keep from falling?), and of course I rode astride (why not, when I wore britches and didn’t have to worry about my skirts scrunching up to my thighs?), and of course I rested my cheek on Daniel’s broad back (I had a bruised brain, for heaven’s sake).
When we were almost there but not quite, Daniel (whose heart and breathing, so easily discernible under my nuzzling face, had been picking up tempo until both sped at a spanking pace) suddenly reined in his horse.
He twisted and muttered an apology and something about head injuries and taking care but not being able to wait a blasted second longer: all of this crammed fast into a frantic moment. Before he kissed me.
And I kissed him back.
And then, for some time, we kissed each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Perhaps it was for the best that we reached our destination during the noontime meal, when the three children were making a ruckus at the table and Phineas had returned to the cabin to dine and tease Rachel, and Rachel, slapping food onto his plate and stomping back to the hearth for the children’s soup, was retorting with vehement sass.
Mrs. Gale was obviously too harassed by a houseful of shenanigans to notice on Daniel and me the evidence of yet more naughtiness: flushed faces, bruised lips, mussed hair.
She had her hands full. I doubted the fairness of adding myself to her worries. But after our exchange of greetings and Daniel’s account of my concussion (delivered with averted eyes and a blush, probably because he had recently forgotten all about my injury), she said, “You were right to bring Freddy here,” then ordered, “Molly, move over next to Adam. Make room for our guests.” A moment later, her fingers were gently parting my hair. “Ouch,” she breathed over my head. “That’s a good-sized bump. You oughtn’t to be sitting up, Freddy. Let’s get you into Phin’s bed.”
This was a berth in the wall opposite the door. Phineas observed my appropriation of his sleeping quarters with a complacent nod, then, peeking at Rachel out of the corners of his eyes, asked, “Are you sure you didn’t bump your head on purpose, Freddy? You must be missing your beloved something awful to go whacking your head with a tree limb.”
Daniel frowned. I realized I hadn’t explained this recent development, sham though it was, in young Freddy’s life.
Mrs. Gale sighed. “Could you please, for two blasted seconds, keep your trap shut, Phin?”
I added my own glare in the direction of the troublemaker, then glanced at Rachel, fully expecting her to counter his teasing with a flattening comment.
What happened next, I didn’t expect. If his expression was any indication, neither did Phineas. Nor Daniel, nor Mrs. Gale, for that matter.
Rachel, as sweet as honey, gazed at me lovingly, set aside the soup ladle, flowed my way, fluttered open the quilt that had been neatly folded at the bottom of the bed, swooped it above me, and as soon as it settled, leaned down to tuck it entirely around my person. I felt like a swaddled infant, and a panicking one, at that, for throughout these tender ministrations she was murmuring, “I’ve missed you terribly, Freddy. It was a real trial, watching you leave, and though it pains me—fairly tortures me—to know your poor head’s aching, I can’t help but be glad you’re back, and I promise I’ll make your convalescence a pleasant one.”
I gaped, Phineas scowled, Mrs. Gale smiled and turned back to the table, Daniel shook his head in bewilderment—and Rachel, after patting my cheek and pecking my forehead with a kiss, twirled back to the hearth, delivering a triumphant smile to Phineas on her way.
*
“Use this one.” I tapped Ephraim’s forefinger. “From the ground now. Good. See? You’re getting the hang of it.”
Ephraim, Marian Gale’s oldest, examined his marble’s promising new position. Besides playing with the baked clay balls, there wasn’t much to do. Not today. The April wind had picked up during the night, my fifth one with the family, and swept in an early morning thunderstorm. Rain continued to pelt the roof. I was grateful that Phineas, long before my arrival, had finished the walls. Unchinked, the cabin would have filled like a leaky boat.
A wind coursed down the chimney and split the flames with a hiss. Wood crackled, and the earthy scent of roasting potatoes wafted through the room.
“Would you show me how to hoist again?” Six-year-old Ephraim’s blond head gleamed in the firelight. Adam, Marian’s four-year-old second child, and Molly, for a while longer the youngest at two, nodded into the little hands propping up their chins. They were splayed on their bellies across the floor.
Marian stood at the table, stirring the big bowl’s contents with one hand while rubbing her lower back with the other. “Don’t let him pester you, Freddy.”
Phineas’s sister liked me. I could tell. It wasn’t hard to fathom why. Minding my sisters for most of my life had taught me well. Here, as in Middleton, I’d taken over some of the childcare, playing marbles with the three little ones, trimming their hair just the previous day, telling stories, and making a kite and showing them how to fly it.
“You’re better at occupying them than Phin is,” Marian had told me during the washing, my third day here. We had all moved outside to work under the cloudy sky, with Phineas building a fence, Marian finishing the wash, Rachel scouring the edge of the woods for wild asparagus fronds, and Ephraim and me hanging damp clothes on the line. After adjusting the laundry basket to the side of her burgeoning stomach, Marian had glanced in the direction of the field where her brother was dragging a pile of rocks on a stoneboat toward the beginnings of the new fence. “Come suppertime, he starts teasing and gets them so wild they can’t fall asleep. Then he complains they’re keeping him up.”
Matthew and Luke had done much the same with my sisters. “Typical of a man to roughhouse, then whine when the children won’t settle the second he’s tired of the games.” I’d cleared my throat. “Most men, anyway.”
She’d eyed me for a moment, then headed for the stream, saying without turning, “But not you, Freddy. You’re not at all like most men.”