Her mother headed for the garden gate. “It wasn’t Ginger. It was Bay who—”
“How did Bay know Marshall asked me to ride home with him?” She crossed her arms obstinately. “I’m not going to, of course.”
Her mother raised her brows under her broad-brimmed hat. “Marshall, is it? Your stepbrother Will’s friend? Nice-looking young man.” She made a clicking sound between her teeth. “And from a good family. I’ve met his grandmother, Lynita. Faithful woman. Knows how to work hard and live with joy.” She opened the gate. “A good choice for a suitor, Lovey.”
“He’s not my suitor,” Lovage called as the gate swung shut, leaving her alone in the garden.
* * *
The following morning, Lovage made her way back to the garden, hoping to beat the full heat of the day. Her mother was letting out the seams on one of her dresses, and the younger girls had taken over the task of cleaning up the kitchen and starting the chicken and dumplings for the midday meal. Lovage had offered to plant the new seedlings Benjamin had bought, and to finish weeding around the fish pond.
Family breakfast had been as noisy and satisfying as Lovage remembered. She approved of her mother’s new house, especially the large kitchen with its attached, open dining room. Benjamin’s twenty-two-year-old twins, Jacob and Joshua, who were apprenticed to a cabinetmaker, had built a fourteen-foot oak trestle table. The table provided enough room for all of them to eat together and this morning her brother, Jesse, who was ten, had declared it the finest dining table he’d ever eaten at.
How she’d missed Jesse’s mischievous face in the months they’d been apart. He was brown-haired like her and her father, with green eyes, and his own special lopsided grin. That morning, Benjamin had promised to take Jesse to look at a pony for sale and the boy was so excited he could hardly sit still for grace, let alone eat his bacon and eggs. It was clear to Lovage that Jesse was very fond of his stepfather, and soon would begin to think of him as simply his dat. It made Lovage sad to think that eventually her little brother would barely remember their own father. She knew it was best for Jesse; it was just hard, no matter how much she liked Benjamin. But as her aunt Jane said, “Life moves on for the living. My brother is in heaven and beyond those earthly cares. You can’t stop change. You may as well embrace it.”
Lovage gazed out over the garden. It had rained sometime in the night, and the soil was wet. The garden smelled deliciously of mint, sage and rosemary. Finding her rhythm in planting, Lovage soon discarded the digging trowel and used her fingers. She hiked up her skirt to keep the worst of the mud off it and knelt on a folded-up burlap bag as she carefully transplanted each basil and tarragon seedling.
Herbs preferred cool weather, so July wasn’t the best time to put them in the ground, but Benjamin probably hadn’t realized that when he’d bought up the remainder of the neighbor’s greenhouse herb stock. Her mother wouldn’t have wanted to discourage him by rejecting his gift, so Lovage was determined to do her best to save the seedlings.
On her hands and knees, with her skirt hiked up, she planted most of the tray. Then, when she had to stretch to reach the last of the open area in the bed, she reached too far and slipped on the wet topsoil. She went down on both elbows, throwing dirt onto the bodice and sleeves of her dress, as well as liberally covering both arms, elbow to wrist, with wet soil. “Atch!” she exclaimed, and spat the dirt from between her lips.
“You okay?” came a male voice from behind her.
Lovage froze, not knowing who the voice belonged to, though it seemed familiar. Then, realizing what she must look like, sprawled in the herb bed, covered in mud, she scrambled to rise. “Ya,” she called, “I’m fine. I...” In her effort to get up, she succeeded only in slipping again and falling forward into the dirt again. “Oh!” As she went down, her right hand flattened a small seedling, while her elbow took out two more. That was when a pair of strong male hands closed around her shoulders and lifted her to her feet.
“You sure you’re all right?” he asked.
She whirled around. Mortified, cheeks scalding, she raised her gaze to look directly into Marshall Byler’s amused eyes. “Oh,” she breathed.
“Oh,” he said, managing, somehow, to make it sound flirty.
“What...what are you doing here?” she sputtered, taking a step back from him. Out of his arms. She glanced down at her dress and bare feet covered in dirt, and then back at him as she shoved her skirt down where it had gotten tangled in her apron. Which was now also muddy.
He grinned and offered her a big blue handkerchief from his pocket. “You’ve got mud on your forehead,” he informed her. “Right here.” He tapped his own forehead in the center. “I can get it for you if you—”
“You’ll do no such thing.” She snatched the handkerchief from him and dabbed at her forehead.
“And...and your nose,” he said helpfully, pointing.
Lovage rubbed her nose furiously with the blue fabric.
He tipped the broad brim of his straw hat as if to get a better look at her. “To answer your question, I came to check on my harness. One of your sisters sent me out here to ask you. Bay, I think?”
Lovage huffed. “I told you it would be five business days. Bay could have—” She suddenly realized that Bay had sent him out to the garden on purpose. Ginger was probably in on it. And their mother, as well, for all she knew. She blushed even harder and went back to scrubbing her nose with his handkerchief. “Bay shouldn’t have sent you out here. She could have looked up the work order. You only dropped it off two days ago.”
“A good thing for you she did send me, because I don’t think you would have managed to get up anytime today.” He grinned, indicating the wet spot in the garden. “Not the way you were slipping and sliding in that mud.” Then he laughed, the sound deep and infectious.
Lovage didn’t want to laugh. She knew that if she did, he’d take it as encouragement and continue his flirty talk. But she couldn’t help it. She looked down at her arms and dress again and began to laugh, sounding not like herself, but oddly enough, more like Ginger. “I think I would have managed,” she said, when she could talk again. “I’d have made it to my feet by noon.”
His blue eyes danced. “Suppertime at the latest.”
Still chuckling, she walked over to the pond, knelt and washed the worst of the mud off her arms. Next, she dipped her feet in, one at a time. Marshall watched as she wiped her wet hands on a relatively clean place on her apron. “Better?” she asked.
“Somewhat,” he conceded.
“Goot.” She met his gaze and it took her a moment to break free of it. “But you’ve made the trip for nothing.” She shrugged. “I told you the harness wouldn’t be done for at least five business days.”
“Ne.” He held up one finger. “I remember exactly what your words were. You told me to come back in five days. You didn’t say the harness wouldn’t be done today.”
“But it isn’t.”
He made a show of appearing sad, thrusting his lower lip out in a pout. “A pity. I need it.”
“If I could have fixed it for you, I would have, but it isn’t what I do. Ginger and my stepbrothers, they’re the harness workers. Benjamin has other work orders, people who came before you. They need their harnesses and halters and bridles, too. It wouldn’t be fair to fix yours out of turn.”
Lovage glanced back at the muddy mess of an herb bed. She’d have to salvage as many of the plants as she could. But she wasn’t about to attempt it with Marshall as a witness. She turned away and walked down the path toward the gate, hoping he would follow. Hoping he would leave.
“So...what