Mail Order Meals - Kirsten Osbourne Page 0,13

tablecloth done by Monday, and she knew she could do it. She was used to cooking two meals a day for sixty people. How hard could it be to cook three meals a day for one man?

When Doug walked into the house a short while later, he found her sitting, looking around the room. “Is something wrong with the house?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not at all. I just think it would look better with curtains. And a matching tablecloth of course. I don’t know why you don’t already have them.”

“Because I’m a man, and we don’t much care about curtains or tablecloths.”

“That’s probably it. Sit down, and I’ll get lunch.” Taking the bread out of the oven, she dumped it out of the pans onto the counter to cool for a moment. She ladled some stew into two bowls, and then she cut the bread. There was store bought butter in the fridge, but she’d seen a churn earlier. They wouldn’t be eating store bought butter for long, because she’d always preferred to make her own.

Once they were seated, and he’d prayed over the meal, they began the whole process of him eating a bite and closing his eyes to savor the taste once more. She had to wonder if he would still be that appreciative of her cooking after fifty years of marriage.

Chapter 4

Trudie’s afternoon was just as busy as her morning, preparing the evening meal and working in the garden. It was going to take her a couple of days to get all the plants put in, and she wondered if she should do any laundry before she was done. There wasn’t really a way to not get dirt on yourself while gardening.

She was happy with her day’s work when she went into the house to finish up supper. Doug came in just as she was taking the pot roast out of the oven. “Wash up, and I’ll put supper on the table.” She needed to remember to spend some time that evening writing letters to all of her friends she’d promised them to as well as her sisters and her mother.

He washed his hands quickly, and saw that she already had a huge pot of water on the stove for the dishes that evening. He found it impressive how efficient she was with everything she did.

His eyes were wide as she carried a platter full of roast beef to the table, and then she added a bowl of potatoes, and a bowl of carrots, following it up with bread, butter, and gravy. “You made all this just for supper?”

Trudie put her hands on her hips. “I got a letter from a man who told me repeatedly he was hungry. I’m feeding that man.”

“That man has had three good meals in a row, and he finds himself very appreciative of his pretty new wife who can cook, and apparently knows how to plant a garden.” His gaze was on the roast, and he couldn’t seem to stop looking at it. She was mesmerizing him with her cooking.

She shrugged. “I’m a farm girl. Of course, I can plant a garden. I can also take a slingshot and shoot a crow from thirty feet away, so be on your best behavior, Mr. Charleston.” Trudie had always been proud of her skills with a slingshot. Well, anything that needed to be shot actually. She could use a gun and a bow and arrow very well too.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Can you really do that?” He’d never seen a woman who could shoot anything, and he found himself very impressed.

She nodded emphatically. “I can also knock an apple off a brother’s head with my slingshot, but after my ma caught me doing that, I had my slingshot taken away for a week. Then I had to throw apples at people as they drove past my farm. It wasn’t nearly as fun.” Her brothers had actually fought to decide who could put the apple on their head to have her shoot it off. Her mother had not been at all impressed with her.

He paused serving his food. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. And I helped put a snake in a teacher’s desk, tied another teacher in an outhouse and dismissed school...I’m not a woman to be trifled with.” Many teachers had left in the middle of the semesters, and she and her siblings had always been blamed. To be fair, it was usually their fault.

“I can see that. Why did you do