words broke off as he stepped closer and she lifted wide eyes to him, as if seeking out his thoughts. She was warm, smelling like soap and beef stew and woman, a combination he found irresistible. All of his good intentions fled as his head bent and his lips touched her cheek.
“Thanks for making my dinner and washing my clothes, honey. You’re satisfied with so little, I forget sometimes that your needs are easily met. But, know one thing, sweetheart. You don’t have to work so hard. I don’t want to see calluses on those pretty little hands.”
She watched his face as he spoke, and then drew her hands up between them to look at her palms, a frown on her face.
“I don’t have pretty hands, John. I’m used to hard work, and I know my hands show it, but that’s all right. I just want to do what I’m doing. I’m happy here with you.”
He took her palms in his, moving her back from him so that he could better see the small fingers and the roughened flesh he held.
“You’ve worked too hard during your life, Katie. I can see that by looking at you. And that’s all well and good, but it’s in the past. From now on you don’t have to work yourself to a frazzle. Just so long as you take good care of me, and keep my house clean and my meals cooked, I’ll be one happy man,” he said.
She looked puzzled at that and he relented, smiling a bit as he touched the end of her nose with his index fingertip. “You’ve got lots of years ahead of you to learn how to look after me, Katie. I’m planning on keeping you here for a long time, at least until you find yourself a good man and set up housekeeping in a place of your own.”
She shivered, her skin pale and her words put a lie to his prediction. “I don’t intend to ever get married, John. I didn’t see anything in my years out there at the Schrader farm to make me yearn for that sort of life. I’ll be happy to work for my keep and stay unmarried for the rest of my life.”
He sat down at the table and watched her as she readied his meal. “Haven’t you ever thought of having a family of your own, Katie? Children, maybe, and a husband to take care of you?”
The look she shot his way was dark. “I can take care of myself. And from what I’ve heard, it takes a man to help make babies, and that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I’ll stay as I am, thank you.”
If she wondered at the sassy grin he offered her, she did not question it or the words he uttered. “One day, you may change your mind.”
And thus she missed the measuring look he aimed at her as he spoke and the laughter that he muffled for her benefit.
CHAPTER SIX
THE NEXT FOUR DAYS passed quickly for Katie, bound up in the discoveries she made in John’s cabin. An extra sheet from his closet was cut up and hemmed to make curtains for the bedroom window, and she begged thread, a needle and pins from Berta to accomplish her goal. Her stitches were fine, her skills honed by years of darning stockings and mending trousers, not to mention the few items of clothing she’d made for herself to wear over the past couple of years.
Mrs. Schrader had not been enthused about the art of sewing and by dint of hard work and much stitching and then tearing out and redoing, Katie had learned how to put together two pieces of fabric and sew a fine seam. Curtains were a joy to make, she decided, especially when she knew John would be pleased with her efforts.
Berta contributed a dowel rod and together she and Katie tacked it into place over the window and the curtains were duly admired over a cup of tea, Berta’s praise for Katie’s skills falling on grateful ears.
John’s thoughts on the subject were more than she’d expected, for he told her that they would find a bolt of material in the general store that she could use for the kitchen, where curtains were sorely needed. She agreed with enthusiasm and made her plans accordingly, mentioning to John that a piece of oilcloth would look well on the kitchen table. A suggestion he agreed with, his pleasure in her plans for his cabin obvious.
She looked forward to the evenings spent before the fireplace, when John spoke to her of the cattle and horses, of the men who worked with him, and occasionally of his past. He came from a big family, his father still alive, although his mother had been buried several years ago. He had several brothers and a younger sister, he told her, all of them miles away, but close to his heart.
She envied him, a quiet sort of emotion that took nothing from his joy in his family, but a yearning for someone to call her own. John was fast becoming her friend, she thought, but she yearned to know that someone, somewhere might think of her as their family, perhaps the way John cared for his father and the brothers and sister he’d left behind. And yet, there was in her relationship with John, more than mere friendship, for she found herself yearning, on occasion, for a touch from him, perhaps his hand on her shoulder or his lips against her forehead, something he seemed to find pleasurable.
His touch was a comfort, his arm resting across her shoulders sometimes before he left the cabin in the morning to work in the barn or out in the pastures. But better yet were the infrequent times that he smiled at her and his gaze touched her with a heated warmth that went beyond his other gestures of tenderness. He’d placed his lips against her temple or cheek more than once, as a gesture of affection, and she cherished those small touches, aware that her presence in his home pleased him.
Today, after ironing his clothes and straightening his dresser drawers for the third time, she’d cooked a light meal for their supper, knowing he’d rather eat more heavily at noontime. And after the third trip to the window to look out into the twilight, she began to wonder where he could be. He’d told her he could usually be counted on to come in for his supper before darkness fell. And the sun had set already, making it necessary to light the lamp over the table.
She’d begun to fret, unable to think of what might have happened to make him so late, hearing the sounds of men walking to the house, their voices calling back and forth. And still, John was not to be seen.
Until, like a silent spirit in the night, he was behind her in the kitchen. She’d just turned back to the stove, rescuing the beans cooked with bits of ham before they burned, stirring the creamed potatoes one last time, deciding to give up and slide the whole meal into the oven to stay warm.
His hand was on her shoulder, his voice a whisper in her ear and she dropped her spoon on the floor with a clatter, turning to him, a cry of surprise and relief on her lips.
“John. Where have you been? I didn’t hear you come in. I’ve been worried. When it got dark and you weren’t home yet, I thought something had happened to you.”
Her words spun a web of caring about him and John drew her into his arms, not caring that he might be pushing her in the wrong direction, unable to halt his movements as he lifted her chin with one forefinger and pressed his lips to hers. For the first time yielding to the temptation she so unwittingly offered. For up until now he’d eased his growing need for her with tender, brief kisses against her temple, her cheek.
And yet, there was a boundary over which he would not cross, would not make Katie think he thought of her as more than a friend. She was a woman, and though her behavior was that of an innocent, he knew only too well how a woman could lure a man into her web. And the thought of ever again being enthralled by a female was not one he harbored for a moment of time.
That Katie was of the same ilk as Sadie had been, he didn’t believe, yet she was a female, a woman with the duplicity of her gender, no doubt. Hadn’t she already brought him
