Unthinking, he reached out and wiped the smudge away with his thumb. Her skin was as silky and warm as it looked, and all at once he smelled cinnamon again, as if she were the sweet treat he was meant to savor. Embarrassed by the thought, he stepped back as her face turned pink.
“You’ve given them every reason to be happy,” he said. “A good home, a warm welcome. And what child wouldn’t want to live over a bakery?”
She smiled then, brightening the room, lifting his heart. “Sure-n they say that the way to a man’s heart is down his throat. That must be twice as true for children.”
She gathered the food and a jar of preserves and headed for the door before Michael could stir himself to help. He thought she was right about Ciara and Aiden—good cooking and kind words would go a long way toward healing their hurts, helping them see the love their sister was trying to offer.
A shame it would take more than a bakery to make him ready to take a chance on love again.
Maddie sat at the table, watching Michael, Ciara and Aiden tuck into the ham steaks, fricasseed potatoes and biscuits she’d prepared. She’d wanted to do more, but she’d barely finished her work in the bakery before changing to go meet them. Still, by the pace they lifted their forks, they were running a race and expected the loser to face a firing squad.
“Were they so stingy with the meals aboard ship?” she asked, fingers toying with a biscuit.
Aiden wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It was terrible! They only let us eat twice a day, and nothing but biscuits, biscuits, biscuits.” He made a face and dived back into his potatoes.
Ciara wrinkled her nose. “Hard biscuits too. Nothing like these.” She lifted the remaining half of her biscuit daintily, rubbed it in the blackberry preserves Catherine had helped Maddie put up and stuffed it into her mouth.
Maddie tried not to cringe. She’d have to work on their manners, if they’d allow her to teach them anything.
Michael had been silent much of the meal, though he’d eaten plenty, as Maddie had expected. Now he sighed almost longingly as he laid down his fork. “I’ve dined at a few restaurants in New York. None of them ever served biscuits as good as these.”
Maddie’s face warmed. “It does my heart good to hear my work appreciated.” She winked at Aiden. “Now, let’s just hope the fine citizens of Seattle agree with you.”
“If they don’t agree, they’re stupid,” Aiden said, shoving back his empty plate. He glanced up at Maddie. “When do we get sweets?”
Michael gazed at the wall, but he wasn’t fooling her. She’d seen the light in those blue eyes when her brother mentioned sweets. Like the loggers and miners around Seattle, he must have a craving for sugary things. That also boded well for business.
She rose and went to the sideboard for the tin she’d filled earlier that day. “I’ll have cinnamon rolls ready when you wake tomorrow,” she promised Aiden. “For now, you’ll have to make do with gingersnaps.”
She brought a dozen to the table, and Aiden grabbed a handful before slipping from his chair.
“I’ll just take these to my room for safekeeping,” he said.
Ciara shook her head as he scurried from the table. “The rats will get them before you do, silly.”
“There will be no rats in my establishment,” Maddie called after him, “and I’ll be thanking the Lord for that.” She fought a shudder at the memory of the beady eyes and pointy snouts she’d seen on occasion in New York.
Ciara reached down and brushed her fingers against a gray tail that was peeking out from under the table. “Amelia Batterby would not stand for it,” she said with great surety.
Maddie met Michael’s gaze across the table and caught him smiling.
Ciara climbed from her seat. “I’m going to my room. You may call me when breakfast is ready tomorrow.”
There went Her Highness again. Michael must not have liked the stance any better, for he spoke up, with a look at Maddie. “What about school? Don’t Ciara and Aiden need to attend?”
Ciara turned to stare at him, and Aiden shot out of his room.
“They have a school here?” he asked, wide-eyed.
“Indeed we do,” Maddie told them, feeling a tug of pride at her adopted city. “In the Territorial University no less.”
She waited for Ciara to protest the unorthodox arrangement, but her sister seemed to fold in on herself. “I don’t want to go to a university.”
“I do,” Aiden announced, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’ll get to play with bigger boys.”
“It’s not like that,” Maddie explained. “There aren’t enough students of an age to be studying at the university, so the president opened a grammar school.” She was only glad the president was no longer Asa Mercer, for she hadn’t been impressed with him and his grasping ways when he’d brought her and her traveling companions out to Seattle earlier that year. She rose to gather up the dishes.
“Let me,” Michael said, rising as well. He took the dishes and carried them to the sideboard. It was a gentlemanly gesture, but she thought he was merely trying to keep himself too busy to jump into the middle of the conversation.
“I still don’t want to go,” Ciara insisted. “They’re probably mean. Isn’t there an Irish school?”
So that was the problem. Back home, because of the violence, many of the Irish children had learned at their parents’ knees or in groups in a crowded flat.
“No Irish school,” Maddie told her. “No German school either. Here everyone learns together.”
Ciara’s scowl said she didn’t much like that idea.
“It’s a new world we’ve come to,” Michael said. He opened his mouth as if to say more, than clamped it shut again and resolutely turned his face toward the sideboard.
“Indeed it is,” Maddie said. She moved to his side, pointing to the bucket of water waiting for the dishes and then the kettle steaming on the stove. With a nod, he set to work.
Now there was a rare man. Maddie couldn’t help the thought as she returned to her seat and gestured her siblings toward the chairs on each side of her. Da had been good about helping with the children, but her stepmother had been the one to labor over the stove, the dishes and the laundry, even though she worked cleaning houses for the wealthy folks uptown during the day.
Now Ciara returned to the table reluctantly, Aiden with unabashed curiosity.
“Perhaps we should be deciding on some rules,” Maddie said as they took their seats. “We already agreed there’d be no playing on the skid road.”
“You said that,” Ciara grumbled.
Maddie ignored her. Impossible to ignore was the way Michael looked to Maddie with a nod as if encouraging her to continue, or the sight of his muscles as he took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves for the washing.
“I expect you to attend school, do your best,” she told Ciara and Aiden, trying not to think about the man standing behind her with his arms up to the elbows in water. “The quarter started in September, but I’ve made arrangements for you to join the class on Monday.”
Both her siblings paled at that. Maddie pushed on.
“I expect you to be helping around here as well. Aiden, I’ll show you how to pump the water and bring it in. I want a filled bucket in the kitchen and up here. I’ve friends who keep the woodpile stocked, but you’ll need to