to be expected when we’re together since he is courting me,” she said cheekily as she arranged roasted chicken pieces on the bread.
“He’s dangerous. More trouble than he’s worth with all the fighting and whatnot. You’re a pretty girl. You should set your cap for a man without those violent tendencies. You never know if he might turn them on you.”
That blanket statement about Silas’s character rankled. Mrs. Agnes didn’t know Silas at all. “Silas is a good man. In fact, I agreed to marry him.”
“When did this come about?” she demanded.
“Just today.”
“Did he give you a ring?”
“Not yet. But his promise of intent is enough for me.”
“Which is all good and well, but you made a promise to my husband in writing to help him out as his nursing assistant and as a teacher for another year. You gonna run into the arms of the first man who offers to take care of you?”
Was that how she saw it? Would everyone else in the community think the same thing?
Is she wrong though?
Yes. And she’d prove it to Mrs. Agnes and any other busybodies who questioned her strength of purpose by keeping her word to Doc—and her promise to herself. If anyone would understand, it’d be Silas.
She sliced three chunks of cheese and aligned them on the bread. Then she wrapped both sandwiches in a cotton dish towel. She popped a wax stopper in the bottle of milk from this morning’s milking and snagged it on her way out. “I’ll be back to make you lunch.”
“If you haven’t given all our food to your intended,” Mrs. Agnes grumbled.
Dinah refused to let that grumpy woman ruin her day—even when her words were something she’d chew over before she shared them with Silas.
Silas’s backside rested against the fence and he held the horses’ reins in his left hand. He grinned when he saw the bottle. “Milk too?”
“I fear it might churn into butter before you get it home if it’s bouncing around in your saddlebag.”
“Maybe. But then I’d have butter to enjoy. Thanks, darlin’. Now c’mere. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
Feeling strangely shy, she complied. She felt a tiny flutter in her belly when Silas’s soft lips touched the center of each of her palms. Then he curled her fingers around the items he’d placed there. “Okay. Now you can look.”
In her right hand was a metal tin of lemon drops. In her left hand was a wide band of grosgrain ribbon the color of a robin’s egg. “Silas. This is so thoughtful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I also bought you a pie tin, but that’s for our household.”
Again, her heart stuttered at his casual use of our household. “Are you sure…”
His gaze snapped to hers. “Are you questioning whether I can afford to buy you little tokens?”
Lord, he was touchy about money. But then again, so was she, since she’d bristled at the very idea of not earning her own living. “No, I was going to say I’m sure you’re hoping I’ll put that pan to good use by learning to bake that sugar pie you’ve been telling me is your favorite.”
It took a moment for his tension to leave and that devil-may-care smile to reappear. “Yes, I sure hope that pie is in my future. Now gimme a kiss that’ll hold me over until I fetch you on Saturday.”
Dinah wreathed her arms around Silas’s neck, kissing him with every bit of joy in her heart. She whispered, “I’ll miss you,” and slipped away, without looking back to watch him leave.
Friday night Dinah was cleaning up the exam room after Doc had reset a broken arm when she heard, “Look who’s been left all alone, cleaning up after the misdeeds of men again.”
She whirled around to see Zeke West leaning in the open doorway, as if posing for a tintype.
If she’d seen him out and about, she might’ve considered him an attractive man. He wore the finest clothes, in the latest style, on his lean frame. He kept his dark beard neatly trimmed and he’d slicked his hair back in the fashion preferred by a railroad muckety-muck, and carried himself in the same manner.
But his eyes had no light in them, the eerie brown giving the impression of endless black holes. When he bothered to show his straight white teeth, he resembled a territorial wolf baring his canines, not a man merely offering a smile.
He flat-out scared her, and that was before she’d seen the aftereffects of his violent