The Homesteader's Sweetheart (17 page)

Chapter Sixteen

P
enny woke early, her most recent conversation with Jonas still fresh on her mind. He’d seemed to hold himself back, especially at the end.

He was naturally quiet, but this was more than that. As if he’d wanted to say something or ask something but he hadn’t. The direction their conversation had taken made her question things herself.

If she
was
developing feelings for Jonas, would she go against her father’s wishes to marry him?

She was still unsettled in her own mind about whether she could be happy living outside of town. And in a poorer financial situation than she was used to.

If she couldn’t answer those questions for herself, how could she go against her father?

She pushed herself out of the warm bed, shivering when her feet hit the cool plank floor. The cabin was quiet. Had she managed to wake before her grandfather and Sam?

She’d spent so many mornings rushing through her ablutions to get over to the Whites’ homestead. Perhaps today she could take a few moments for herself and try to work through her muddled feelings.

Penny took several minutes to brush out her hair, enjoying the feel of the soft strands against her now-calloused fingers. Before she’d come to visit her grandfather, the state of her hands would have bothered her. Her mother would likely have a conniption if she saw them now. But Penny didn’t mind.

Each blister served to remind her of working with Breanna or one of the boys. Actually accomplishing things on their homestead, instead of sitting in a room looking pretty.

Penny fumbled when putting her hairbrush down on the dresser, and a small wooden box tumbled to the floor, scattering its contents. Bending down to gather them, Penny realized it was the recipe box of her grandmother’s that she’d moved to her room after the kitchen fire. She’d meant to look at the recipes in hopes of finding something she could try her hand at. Something simple.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Penny spread the cards out on the bedcover to try and put them in some semblance of order. Some were just small scraps of paper, but all bore her grandmother’s handwriting, its familiar scrolls and loops.

Seeing the familiar, beloved script brought on tears, and Penny had to blink them away before she could continue. She picked up the nearest recipe and traced the scrawling writing.
Carrot Jam.
She’d loved her grandmother’s jams and jellies, could remember shelves full of the delicious preserves. Shelves now bare.

She’d spent so many hours in the kitchen with her grandmother. Sometimes watching the older woman cook, often peeling potatoes while her grandmother prepared the meal. Sometimes doing chores together.

Her grandmother had been happy living on this homestead with her grandfather. Penny knew it, deep in her bones. Her gran hadn’t needed frilly dresses or to attend fancy parties to be happy. Her gran’s peace had come from within.

Could her grandfather and Jonas both be right? Did her gran’s faith have something to do with her peace and the love she shared so freely?

Penny tucked the recipe cards back into their box, then reached for the worn Bible her grandfather had allowed her to borrow. A memory surfaced, another time with her gran, sitting at the kitchen table reading this very book together, heads bowed.

Penny flipped open the cover and began to read.

* * *

Nearly a week after the barn-raising, Penny bounced on her toes in excitement as Jonas and his sons returned from the fields. Flushed with success and from standing over a hot stove most of the day, she rewarded Jonas, first in the door, with a sunny smile that seemed to stop him in place before he reached the water basin.

“Pa!” someone grunted from behind him, shoving him into the room and severing the invisible connection between them.

“Sorry,” Jonas muttered, bending over the basin to splash his face. He quickly moved aside, rubbing his face with a towel and then flipping it over Ricky’s head. The boy’s exclamation brought another smile to Penny’s face. She couldn’t contain her joy.

“Somethin’ smells good,” Edgar said, entering behind the other boys.

“Penny made carrot jam!” Breanna announced from her place at Penny’s side.

“My gran’s recipe,” Penny told the surprised faces looking at her. “And I didn’t even burn down the kitchen.”

The boys’ exclamations and Jonas’s unreadable gaze were interrupted by a distressed cry.

“Pa—”

The door banged open and Oscar shouldered through the opening, supporting a white-faced Maxwell.

“What happened?”

“He hurt?”

Jonas immediately moved to Maxwell’s other side, holding his son’s weight. Through the chaos, Penny saw the teen’s lower leg was bent at an unnatural angle. She moved to intercept the trio and met them as they lowered Maxwell to one of the benches. Jonas knelt at Maxwell’s side and began to gently work his boot off.

“Matty, pump some cold water from the well,” Penny ordered. “Ricky, bring some towels.” Cooling the affected area was the only thing she could think of.

“I’ll ride for the doc. Pa?” Oscar looked to his father for approval, his face etched with worry.

“Yes, but be careful. It’s cloudy and getting dark and I don’t want your horse stepping in a hole.”

Oscar nodded gravely, already moving to the door.

“I’m all right,” Maxwell said through clenched teeth.

For a moment, Penny thought the boy was talking to her, but then she realized Breanna had followed and now stood half behind Penny, clutching her skirt and staring at her injured brother with wide eyes.

Penny stooped and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “My brother broke his arm once when we were younger. He tried to climb an apple tree in the neighbor’s yard and fell right out of it. Once the doctor came and fixed his arm, he was just fine.”

“He was?” The subdued whisper from the usually exuberant girl told of her fear.

“Yes. I think Maxwell will be all right. We should pray for him, though.”

Penny moved Breanna a little ways away, turning the girl so she wouldn’t be able to see her brother’s injury quite so well, and said a short prayer for Maxwell’s healing and that the doctor would arrive quickly.

Matty banged inside with a pail of water splashing all over his pants, just as Ricky screeched into the room with an armful of worn towels.

“We should move him to his room so he’s more comfortable ’til the doc gets here,” Jonas said, and it took Penny a moment to realize he was speaking to her.

“Of course.” She moved to Maxwell’s side, averting her eyes from his leg but being careful not to bump it. Jonas heaved the boy to his feet and Penny accepted part of his weight, her arm wrapped around his waist.

“Breanna and Seb, why don’t you make sure the table is set and get everyone else to sit down and eat?”

Penny shot a questioning glance at Jonas as they maneuvered Maxwell through the other room, painful step by painful step.

“Good for them to have something to do instead of just worrying,” he muttered.

“What happened?” Jonas asked as he shifted Maxwell onto the bed. Penny’s heart clenched at the boy’s smothered groan.

“Thought I heard kittens mewling in the barn loft,” Maxwell said through heavy breaths, obviously in pain. “That barn cat’s been missing for a few days. Thought she might’ve had her litter up there.”

Jonas nodded. “I’m going to take his pants off,” Jonas told Penny, and she obediently turned away, catching sight of Matty and Ricky at the door. She accepted the water pail and towels from them and shooed them back into the dining room when they wanted to watch with craned necks.

“Didn’t think the ladder was that rickety,” Maxwell continued, “but something broke and I fell. Landed funny on the leg.”

Suddenly, he cried out and Jonas muttered, “Sorry, sorry.”

“Do you need help?” Penny asked, still careful to keep her back turned.

“It ain’t that bad. I’ve had worse.” Maxwell’s terse statement did not comfort Penny, only made her heart squeeze for his broken childhood.

“We’ve got it—you can come back now,” came Jonas’s strained answer.

When she returned to the bed, both he and Maxwell were sweating, but Maxwell now had a blanket draped discreetly across his middle with the injured leg exposed. She squeezed Jonas’s knee briefly, knowing he hadn’t wanted to hurt his son.

Penny set about wetting some of the towels and draping them carefully over the injury. “This should help keep the swelling down. I hope.”

“How d’ya know?” Penny could tell Maxwell was trying to put on a brave face. She gently brushed the damp hair off his forehead.

“I found some medical books in my mother’s old room over at my grandfather’s. I guess my mama might’ve wanted to be a nurse…or something…before she met my father.” She honestly didn’t know how the books had come to be there, but she’d read snatches of some of them in the few moments she’d had to herself in the last few weeks.

“Used to think about being a doctor some…” Maxwell said.

“I didn’t know that,” Jonas said quietly, kneeling beside the bed at Penny’s elbow.

“You should get something to eat and rest for a bit,” Penny told Jonas. “You were already gone when I arrived this morning and you’ve been working hard all day.” As evidenced by the layer of dust on his clothing and in his hair. When had his hat gotten knocked off?

“Maxwell needs—”

“Someone to stay with him, I know. I’ll sit with him for a bit while you rest, and then if the doctor isn’t here yet, you can take a turn.”

Jonas agreed grudgingly, after Maxwell insisted he go eat something. He left with another indecipherable look at Penny, but she chose to ignore it and focus on the teen in front of her.

“I don’t see any reason you couldn’t be a doctor,” Penny told Maxwell just before she heard Jonas’s bootsteps fade away.

“I cain’t read.”

“Yet,” she told the boy firmly. “You can’t read
yet.
You’re doing very well so far.”

He rolled his head to the side and remained silent. She dipped the corner of one of the towels in the water pail and dabbed his face, removing some of the day’s dust.

“It takes money to go to medical school,” Maxwell said softly, still looking away.

“Mmm,” Penny agreed. “But you’re a hard worker. I know you could find a way to do it if that’s what you truly want to do. You might even be able to find a benefactor who would help pay for some of your expenses.”

“How?” His brows creased and he looked right at her, the word spoken almost angrily. “Who’d want to help
me?
”

“I would,” she replied in the same even tone she’d been using. “I could write a few letters on your behalf. My father also has some contacts back East.” Although her father might not be too pleased with her once she returned home.

Maxwell looked away again, as if he was afraid to hope in her offer.

“I cain’t believe someone would just give me money for schooling. It don’t make sense.”

What didn’t make sense was that someone—his mother?—had stolen this boy’s hope. “Maybe they wouldn’t. But it couldn’t hurt to ask. And I’m happy to do that for you, if it’s what you want.” She paused. “You can do whatever you set your mind to, Maxwell. Your father is an example of that. He had no family, an uncertain future.” She purposely left things vague as she didn’t know how much of his past Jonas had revealed to the boys. “But he’s built this homestead, made a family with Breanna and you boys. He’s created something to be proud of.”

Maxwell nodded slightly but didn’t say more. Penny knew he was in pain and this wasn’t the time to push him. She simply took his hand and waited with him, praying that he would find healing for his leg. And his heart.

* * *

After a long night, Penny blearily made her way to the Whites’ homestead before it was even light.

She found the house dark, and a bent-shouldered Jonas sitting on the porch steps. The lightening sky provided enough light to see his head held between his hands. Was he sleeping?

“Jonas?” she called softly and his head jerked up. Not sleeping, then. “Everyone all right?”

He stood and raised a hand to the back of his neck, half-turning from her so she couldn’t see his face.

“Yes. The doctor arrived just after you left—”

“After you made me leave.”

“—and set Maxwell’s leg. It’s splinted now with a plaster cast. He’s supposed to stay off it for a few days. Or as long as I can keep him down.”

“Did he get any sleep last night?”

“Doc gave him some pain medication, knocked him right out.”

She couldn’t resist reaching out to touch his arm. He jumped at the contact but didn’t pull away.

“And you?”

He shook his head, ran his other hand down his face. “Couldn’t get my mind to quiet. We’re already behind on the haying, and with the Sumners’ fields to cut, too…without a driver, without Maxwell, I don’t see how we’ll finish.”

“Can you hire someone else?”