shadows lingering in the corners that made her wary.
“What’cha doing?”
Rebecca squealed as Amanda jumped down beside her, bypassing the three steps and jumping them instead. Holding a hand to her heart, she scowled at the girl. “You gave me a fright. Don’t do that!”
Amanda grinned, her blonde curls dangling around her shoulders. “Sorry. Pa doesn’t scare easily, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get him to jump even a little bit. I didn’t think you would either.”
Rebecca’s heart stopped pounding after a few deep inhaled breaths. “It’s fine,” she lied, as she set the lamp on a nearby table against the earthen wall. “I don’t like dark spaces so I was already jumpy.”
“My Ma didn’t like the dark either. Or that’s what my Pa said.”
Rebecca eyed the girl as Amanda grabbed the edge of the table and jumped up to sit on it, her legs swinging back and forth. “What happened to your mother?”
“She got sick and died when I was little. I don’t remember much about her other than her hair was blonde like mine.”
“Oh, well, that’s too bad. I don’t remember my mother either.” Rebecca stilled, wondering if Diana had mentioned her parents when conversing with Caleb. She hoped not, or she’d just made a major mistake.
Clearing her throat, she changed the subject. “So, what do you want for supper?”
Amanda shrugged her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter to me. As long as I don’t have to cook it, I’ll eat anything.”
Couldn’t we all?
The many shelves were lined with jars filled with vegetables. Long strings of braided onions hung from nails that stuck out from the wooden shelving, and several baskets held potatoes, dried meats, and fresh slabs of salted pork. Everything she needed was here and the abundance of food made her feel gluttonous. Now all she needed to do was pick something and heat it up, right?
“Pa likes chicken pie,” Amanda said. “But it's too late to kill a chicken and get ‘em plucked and cooked."
Kill a chicken? As much as she liked to complain about the orphanage, she was grateful the nuns never made the kids do all the work there. Now that she thought about it, she had it easy growing up. Well, aside from the fact she had no family, and no one wanted her.
She shook away the melancholy thought. “Well, I don’t know how to make a pie so it wouldn’t matter if I had the time or not.”
“Oh, suppose not.” Amanda swung her feet again while studying the food lining the shelves. “There are a lot of eggs. Those are easy enough to make.”
She nodded. How hard could it be to cook an egg? “Um, how should we fix them?” At Amanda’s raised eyebrow she hurried and said, “I mean, how does your Pa like them? How exactly should I make them?”
“Doesn’t matter how. Long as they’re cooked, he’ll not care.” Amanda tilted her head, her brows drawing down. “You do know how to cook, don’t ya?”
She laughed and said, “Of course, I do,” so fast, she knew it sounded as insincere to Amanda as it did to her. Amanda stared at her with a raised eyebrow. Rebecca sighed, her shoulders drooping. “Don’t tell your Pa, okay? I’m sure he’ll be madder than a hornet if he finds out.”
“Probably. If there was one thing Pa hated to do around here, it was all the cooking. I helped when I could but he didn’t like me near the stove when it was hot. Getting someone to do all the cooking was one of the reasons he ordered a wife from that periodical.” Amanda jumped down from the table and headed to the corner. “I’ll keep your secret though.” She grinned and reached into a basket of potatoes. “I’ll not let Pa send you away for not knowing how to cook. We’ll just fake it until you figure it out. If I can do it, you can too.”
Relief rushed through her so fast, the tightness in her shoulders eased. “Maybe you can show me what you know how to fix.”
“I can do that.” Amanda grabbed an onion from the braided string they hung on and tore one loose. “Grab those potatoes. We’ll get something hot on the table for Pa. He won’t care what it is.”
Following the girl back up the steps, Rebecca hoped she was right.
Standing before the front door, Caleb knew there was a hot meal waiting on him inside. He could smell cooked onions and bacon and if that’s all