different when you were on the other end. She’d been able to keep her chin up before, because she had been doing her best. There had been solace in that.
Now he thought she expected his help, that she would accept it. He meant well, but she was afraid of being in a man’s debt. Even in a good man’s debt. Anyone could see that Aiden McKaslin was a good man.
“Ma.” Daisy gave her rag doll a squeeze where she sat on a chair at the round oak table. “Can I get a drink of water?”
“You just had one, baby.” Joanna knew the child wasn’t asking for water, but to be able to get down from the chair and move around. “This isn’t our home, so we have to mind our manners. I want you to please sit there a little while longer.”
“Oh. Okay.” The little girl sighed and squeezed her doll harder.
“Ma?” James fidgeted in his chair and swung his feet back and forth. “I’m awful hungry. Especially for some of that bacon.”
There was no missing the hope on his face. Real bacon. They’d had such a luxury when they had their own little plot of land and their own pig to butcher. Joanna sighed, remembering those times, harder in some ways, better in others. “This is Mr. McKaslin’s breakfast. We ate in the shanty before we came here.”
“I know, but I was hopin’…” He left the sentence dangling, as if afraid to ask the question he already knew the answer to, but wanting to hold on to that hope.
She couldn’t blame him for that. “Maybe there will be a surprise for two good children later on. How about that?”
“Yes, ma’am!” James stopped fidgeting and sat up soldier straight, eager at the thought of a surprise.
“Oh, yes.” Daisy offered a dimpled smile.
It took so little to please them. Joanna’s heart ached as she poured the eggs into the waiting skillet. If only there was something more than another few pieces of saved candy for them. They deserved more than she could give them—at least now, anyway. In a month’s time, there would be fieldwork to do. It was hard labor, and she still didn’t know what to do with her babies while she worked, but at least she could hope for real wages. Hope for a betterment of her children’s lives.
The eggs sizzled and she whisked them around the pan, reaching for the salt and pepper. She surveyed her work in progress. The bacon was crisping up real nice, the tea was steeping and the buttermilk biscuits in the oven were smelling close to done. Cooking for the man wasn’t much of a repayment, but it was all she had to offer.
The back door swung open and there was Aiden, leaving his boots behind in the lean-to and staring at her with shock on his stony face. The kindness she’d come to see there vanished, replaced by a cold blast of anger.
“What are you doing?” His voice was loud enough to echo around the room. He came swiftly toward her, with raw fury and full power. “Get out of my kitchen.”
She’d expected him to be happy that she’d cooked for him, saving him the chore. She kept stirring the eggs so they wouldn’t congeal. “In a moment. I’m nearly done here. I didn’t mean to intrude. I know it was forward of me, but—”
“I want you out.” He drew himself up as if ready for a fight.
Yet she was not afraid of him. She heard Daisy crying quietly at the table and James hop off his chair to come to her aid.
“Outside, both of you.” She laid down the whisk. “Aiden, the biscuits are ready. Let me take them out of the oven.”
“Now, Joanna.” The words came out strangled.
He was not angry at her, she realized. There, behind his granite face, she thought she caught something terrible—grief and sorrow—before that glimmer of emotion faded from his eyes. He stared at her, cold and imposing. He did not have to say another word. His face said it for him. She was not welcome here. Coming had been a mistake. An enormous mistake.
Miserable, she turned away. She had to detour widely to avoid bumping his arm with her shoulder, for he’d planted himself in the middle of the kitchen. Shame made her feel small as she hustled to the door, where her children waited, wide-eyed and silent, in the lean-to.
So much for her brainy ideas. She took James with one hand and Daisy with the other. They tumbled into the blinding sunshine together. Dust kicked up beneath their shoes as they hopped off the last step and into the dry dirt. To the right lay a garden, the vegetables small and stunted, wilting in the morning sun. Duty cried out to Joanna to water those poor plants, for their sake as much as for Aiden’s. She glanced over her shoulder, remembering the awful look on his face.
She could see him in the shadows of the kitchen, standing where she’d left him, his shoulders slumped, his hands covering his face.
She’d never seen a man look so sad. Her feet became rooted to the ground, even though James was tugging at her hand. Something held her back. Something deep in her heart that would not let her leave the man behind.
He’d loved his wife. He really had. Joanna stared at him, transfixed by the shadows that seemed to surround him, by the slump of defeat of his invincible shoulders and the hurt rolling off him like dust in a newly tilled field.
She could see as plain as day what she’d done. Had there been another woman in this lovely house he’d built for her since her death? Probably not. He’d simply walked with no warning into the kitchen from his work in the barn to see a woman standing where his wife had once stood, cooking his breakfast.
Sympathy flooded her. Joanna hung her head, staring at her scuffed and patched shoes dusty from the dry Montana dirt. What she’d done with the best of intentions must have cut him to the soul.
How did she make this right? Would it be cruel to try to stay and work off what she owed him, and put him through this kind of remembering? Or was it better to pack up the children and leave? Which would be the best thing to do? There had been a time in her life when she would have turned to the Lord through prayer for an answer.
Now, she merely felt the puff of the hot breeze against her face and the muddle of agony in her middle. It was strange that Aiden’s hurt was so strong she could feel it as easily as the ground beneath her feet.
“Why’s he so mad, Ma?” James asked quietly, his hand tight in hers.
“He’s had a great loss.”
“Oh. Does that mean he had a funeral?”
“Yes.”
“He’s sad. Like I was when Pa died.” James’s breathing caught in a half sob, and he fell silent.
Joanna had never known that kind of sorrow, one that was deep and strong enough to have broken a person in two. Out of respect for Aiden’s privacy, she turned away. She made her feet carry her forward, past the garden and those tender parched plants, and she did not look back. Although not looking made no difference. She could feel the powerful image of him standing motionless while the bacon popped and the eggs cooked in that lovely kitchen he’d no doubt built with love and his own two hands.
As Aiden set several biscuits on a platter, Finn banged in from the lean-to wearing his barn clothes and a scowl. His brother took one look at the buttery biscuits and the fluffy eggs on the table and shook his head.
“What did I tell you?” he grumbled as he poured himself a cup of tea. “Hooks.”
Guess there was no need to mention who had cooked breakfast. And a mighty fine one, too, judging by the smell of things. He’d loved Kate dearly, but she was not a good cook—not even a passable one. But Joanna, why, she could put his ma to shame in a cooking contest.
“I’m just glad not to have to fix breakfast,” he told his brother. It was partly the truth—close enough—but not the whole truth. It still hurt to remember how she’d been standing at the fancy range he’d ordered in to surprise his wife.
“This is how it starts.” Finn’s