to the counter and struggled to lift it, blowing out a pent up breath when Caleb grabbed it and set it down beside the others. “Thanks.”
He gave her a tiny smile and grabbed a large pot from a stack that sat on a small table near the stove. “Amanda eats like a hundred-pound boy most days so I always make extra.”
Agatha laughed from the other room. “I don’t know where the girl puts all that food skinny as she is.”
“Neither do I.” Caleb filled the pot with water. Rebecca watched him, noting how much water and oats he was using, and committed them to memory. When the pot was on the stove and heating, Caleb showed her where everything else was.
By the time Amanda joined them, the oats were ready. Caleb set a jar of honey on the table and a small container of some spice, then dished up Amanda a bowl. He sprinkled the spice onto the oats. “What was that?”
“Cinnamon,” Amanda answered when no one else did.
“Oh, right,” Rebecca said when they gave her curious glances.
She’d never been a fan of oats. The ladies in the orphanage made them thick and pasty and they’d only given them the smallest drizzle of honey to sweeten it. Spices were something they never used at the orphanage so curiosity made her eager to try this one.
They settled in to eat and Rebecca sprinkled in the cinnamon and honey and took a small taste. The flavor exploded on her tongue and she had to force herself to not shovel the oats into her mouth like she was starved. They were the best thing she’d eaten in years. She wasn’t sure if it was because it was hot or the fact she'd covered it in copious amounts of honey and the spice, but after living off stolen bread and the occasional wedge of cheese for so long, it tasted divine.
They ate in silence, not that she minded. She didn't know what to say to them anyway. When Caleb finished and stood, saying he would be late for work, he opened his mouth like he was going to say something to her but closed it before doing so. Agatha and Amanda saw him off. He looked back at her before stepping out the door and those butterflies taking up residence in her stomach did a somersault. That was new. She’d never met a man who caused a reaction like that with nothing more than a look. Maybe staying and playing the part of a doting housewife wouldn’t be such a hardship after all.
Agatha and Amanda disappeared down the hall when Caleb left, their dirty bowls still sitting on the table. She sat for long minutes staring at all the breakfast dishes and when neither Agatha nor Amanda returned, she sighed. “I guess the mess is yours to clean,” she said to herself before standing.
Maybe being a wife isn’t as grand an idea as I first thought.
A smile he couldn't hold back stayed on Caleb’s face the entire way to the livery stable. Diana being there to help around the house pleased him but this was the first morning he’d gone to work without already being tired. After cooking and cleaning and making sure everyone was good for the day, he'd walk across town feeling weary and run down. Today he wasn’t. Sure he’d still ended up cooking, but he hadn’t minded. Not today.
Diana had seemed so lost standing in his kitchen it was hard not to take pity on her and help with breakfast. She’d watched him light the stove as if she’d never seen it done before and looked at the bag of dry oats much the same way. He wondered then if she even knew how to cook.
With the inconsistencies—her saying she was tall and thin with brown hair—and her only standing five foot if even that, and her apparent confusion on how to fix the oats—he was betting she didn’t know the first thing about cooking, which begged the question, had she lied in her letter?
Maybe she was afraid no one would want her if she couldn’t cook.
That was probably true. Had he known, she would have been the last of the ladies in the advert he’d have picked. He’d needed a wife for very specific things and cooking was one of them. Had he known Diana couldn’t cook—assuming she indeed didn’t know how—he would have never picked her and what a mistake that would have been. Cooking skills or not,