Just Above a Whisper (26 page)

“May I hold him?” Maddie offered, almost pleased that he was upset and she could comfort him.

“Certainly. He needs to eat, so you might not have a great time.”

As soon as Alison said this, they all heard a knock on the front door.

“Pete, will you please get that?”

“Okay.”

Peter skipped off in that direction and found Reese on the step.

“Hi, Reese.”

“Hi, Pete. How are you?” she asked as he opened the door to allow her in.

“I’m fine. Are you limping?” he asked, having followed her through the parlor toward the kitchen.

“Yes. I fell on my knee at work yesterday.”

“Hello,” both Alison and Maddie greeted when Reese arrived in the kitchen. Reese kissed the top of Jeffrey’s little head and took a seat nearby.

“Not working today?” Maddie asked.

Reese made a face. “I hurt my leg yesterday, and they didn’t want me to work at the big house.”

“Who are
they?”

“Troy and Mr. Kingsley.”

“I met them on Sunday,” Maddie said. Jace had approached the new men, and Maddie had trailed after him. “They seem kind enough.”

“They are,” Reese said rather noncommittally.

“Why exactly didn’t they want you to work?” Alison asked as Reese came to the worktable and started forming one of the piecrusts Alison had ready.

“I think they’re concerned that I’m more hurt than I realize.”

“Are you very hurt?” Alison made a point of asking.

“A little, but as long as I stay off stairs, I do all right.”

“You limped, Reese,” Peter mentioned.

“That’s true,” she agreed. “Bending it is a little tough.”

“How did you fall?” This came from Maddie, who had gone to gently bouncing Jeffrey because he was showing the symptoms of hunger as Alison had predicted.

“Who fell?” Hillary asked, having just come in the side door, Joshua and Martin coming after her.

“I did,” Reese explained. “I missed the back step at the big house and fell to the ground.”

“You poor thing,” Alison was in the midst of saying when someone else knocked on the front door.

“I’ll go,” Peter offered.

Peter had seen this man at church, or he might have shut the door in his face. The very large Conner Kingsley stood on the step, looming over Peter like a tree.

“Is your father home?” he asked in his quiet way.

“No,” Peter whispered back.

“Your mother?”

“In the kitchen,” Peter said, still whispering and backing up so Conner could enter. Not able to stop glancing at him, Peter led the way. The women were talking in complete comfort, Jeffrey still in Maddie’s arms and Reese now filling one of the piecrusts, when Conner’s frame filled the door.

For some reason, the first pair of eyes he met belonged to Reese Thackery. With no hesitation, her chin came up and her eyes grew slightly defiant.

“Please excuse me,” Conner apologized when quiet descended on the group, and he finally found Alison’s face in the mob. “My brother sent me a letter that I thought Dooner might enjoy reading. May I leave it for him?”

“Certainly,” Alison said, wiping her hands and heading that way. “I’ll tell him you stopped.”

“Thank you.” Conner managed to nod to all of them before his eyes found Reese again. He found her look still guarded.

Moments later, Conner was back out the door of the Muldoon house and headed to the bank. He went directly to Troy, who was doing something behind the counter.

“You’ll never guess who’s standing in the kitchen making pies at the Muldoon house this very moment.”

“Do not tell me it’s Reese,” Troy warned. “Not after we ate cold leftovers.”

Conner’s only answer was an ironic raising of his dark brows.

“I’m heading over to make sure she knows she can come in the morning,” Troy continued.

Conner laughed, certain he was joking, but Troy was shrugging into his coat and heading out the door.

“He’s so tall,” Hillary mentioned. The boys had all wandered off, and Alison was nursing the baby.

“He is tall,” Maddie agreed.

“How tall are you, Reese? I can’t remember.”

“I’m six feet.”

“Even?”

“Maybe a quarter inch over, but I always just say six feet.”

“How tall is Mr. Kingsley?”

“He must be five or six inches taller than I am,” Reese guessed.

When the third knock sounded in a very short time, Alison laughed a little. She also shifted her chair in the corner of the kitchen, making her all but invisible to the door as Hillary went to answer. The young lady of the family returned with an apologetic Troy Thaden.

“Forgive me, Reese,” he began, “for intruding on your time, but I just wanted to make sure we didn’t say anything that made you feel that you couldn’t return to work in the morning.”

Reese smiled. “I’ll be there.”

Troy’s sigh made her laugh. It was on the tip of her tongue to offer to come that evening, but she remembered her dress fabric and decided against it.

“Thank you, and again, I’m sorry to invade your privacy.”

The women held their laughter only until they’d heard the door close.

Douglas and Jace were shirtless, backs glistening with sweat, as they worked alongside the wagon, forking hay into the bed. As they worked, they talked.

“I can’t believe what I didn’t know. Do you know how arrogant I was? I thought I had it all figured out, but I’d never even read the book of Genesis! I’d only heard the occasional story that I assumed to be part myth.

“When did you know, Douglas?” Jace suddenly straightened up and asked. “When did you understand that God is behind it all? That He’s the creator?”

“I grew up in a Christian home, Jace. I was taught the book of Genesis, as well as the rest of the Bible, from the moment I could hear, but the defining point came for me when I was a teen. Two people in my life died, my grandfather and the sister of a friend. It was at that time that I had to face whether or not this belief was mine or my parents’.”

“What did you do?”

“I read my Bible nonstop for about a week. All I did was sit and read, and everything I read, I knew that God had had a hand in it. I compared verses, the Old Testament with the New Testament. Books that had been written hundreds of years apart still proclaimed the same message. I realized that could only be God directing the pens of each author until His message was clear.

“I also learned during that time that it was all right to grieve. Jesus mourned over Israel, and He forgave those who put Him to death. I knew that it was good and right that I hurt for a time but also that I put the past behind me and move on to the future.”

“Is that when you knew you wanted to preach?”

“That came a few years later. I had learned so much as a result of those deaths that I wanted to share with all who would hear.”

“And you shared with me,” Jace smiled at him, the pitchfork going into motion again.

Douglas didn’t comment, but he was pleased. He continued his bending and lifting, gaining new appreciation for the farmwork that was done in the area and asking God not to stop with saving Jace Randall but to continue His work in all of Tucker Mills and beyond.

Reese returned home in the middle of the afternoon, ready to put her leg up, but Mrs. Greenlowe’s form bending over the worktable in the kitchen stopped her. Reese could only stare at what had once been her dress fabric.

Mrs. Greenlowe had already begun to cut and sew, and as with everything else that woman did, this was done to perfection.

“You started,” Reese stated the obvious and walked over for a closer look.

“Did you think I took your waist and arm measurements so I could make you a hat?”

Reese laughed and only shook her head. She picked up the length that would be the skirt and held it to the front of her. The warm-green floral fabric made her sigh. It had been a long time since she’d had a new dress, and never had she been allowed to choose the material.

“We won’t be able to be around you after this,” the landlady muttered. “You’ll be so pretty that you’ll preen yourself all over town.”

“I doubt that,” Reese said, the smile evident in her voice.

“You just wait,” Mrs. Greenlowe warned mischievously. “You’ll be catching some man’s eye in this dress, and before you know it, you’ll be cleaning your own house and not someone else’s.”

For a moment, Reese allowed herself to dream about falling in love with a man who loved her in return. They would live in a small house with an equally small kitchen, but it would be theirs.

“I still say you should have gone with red,” Mrs. Greenlowe had to get in.

“I’m going to put my leg up.” Reese exited on that note, not forgetting that she’d told Troy she’d be at the big house in the morning.

It took until Saturday for Reese’s leg to feel normal again and for all the swelling to go down. And when it did, she went at the big house with a vengeance. She’d dealt with meals all week, but some of the cleaning had been forced to wait. No longer.

Reese was finished with the upstairs before dinner, and as soon as the dinner dishes were dried and put away, she attacked the main-level parlors. There were two of them, one quite large and one smaller. Dust was always an issue, and Reese determined not to leave a speck in sight. She gathered up small rugs to be taken out and beaten, keeping them carefully contained until she reached the back porch, taking more care with the steps than usual.