Small Town Cinderella

He was different today. Relaxed, friendly to her mother, helpful with dinner…and then there was that moment in the living room. She still felt a catch in her chest remembering the way he’d looked at her when he commented on her dress. Her eyes were not the color of gentians, she knew very well they weren’t, but she felt less embarrassed now about the mess she’d been in when he arrived.

He hadn’t volunteered any more information about himself, though. Not where he was from or what work he did or where Daniel had gone. Most people would have covered all that in the first few minutes. Then it would have been easy to move to more personal things, like whether visiting Three Creeks alone meant there was no woman in his life and where he belonged on the Rutherford family tree. Her only clue to that was his Ontario license plate.

She waited until all the food had been passed around once. “Matthew, do you belong with the Toronto batch of Rutherfords, or the London batch, or the one that’s scattered around the Ottawa valley?”

“I grew up in Ottawa.”

His voice was nice when he wasn’t being guarded. Deep, but quiet and warm, not loud like Uncle Will’s. “Right in the city? I’ve never been there.”

“You’ve never been to the capital?”

“Is that awful? I’ve never seen the Parliament Buildings or the tulips in spring.” The longest trip she’d taken was to Alberta with her mother to visit Susannah. “We should travel more, shouldn’t we, Mom? Maybe one day we could go to Europe, like Liz and Jack.”

“There’s no need to go to Europe,” Julia said flatly.

“Well, not a need—”

“You sit for hours. It’s bad for your legs.”

“Liz is the cousin who just got married?” Matthew asked.

Emily turned to him, glad to avoid getting into details about blood clots. “They’ll be spending two months exploring the ruins of British castles.”

“That’s an unusual honeymoon.”

“Jack has been surprising us since he first moved here. Right, Mom?”

Julia didn’t answer, so Emily kept going. “All the farmers in this area plant grain, but Jack put in blueberries and pumpkins, then Christmas trees. Everybody thought he was crazy. You have to wait ten years to harvest them.”

“Lots of people must do it.”

“If they can afford to wait.”

“And Jack can?”

Emily nodded. “We all thought he’d go bankrupt. Then we found out he’d already made his fortune with computers.”

“An actual fortune, or just a nest egg?”

“A fortune.” She offered Matthew another potato scone. “My other cousin, Susannah, had an even odder honeymoon. She and Alex went to the Gobi Desert to dig for dinosaurs.”

“Adventurous.”

She smiled at her mother. “Doesn’t Europe sound tame after that? If we went, you could visit museums and see real papyrus fragments.”

“Behind glass.”

“Or we could go to Ireland.” One line of Robbs had come from Waterford. “I wonder if they have tours of the crystal factory. You’d like that.”

Julia perked up. She began to talk about the history of crystal, how it was made and whether the lead content was dangerous. She went on to list books she owned that were connected to Ireland in any way. Matthew listened intently, and when she switched to the botany lesson she gave whenever she was feeling comfortable and had half a chance, he showed an interest in the bark, leaf shapes and insect hazards of every kind of tree in the yard.

Emily handed him the plate of cold fried chicken. “You didn’t mention yesterday where Daniel’s gone.”

“Didn’t I?” With murmured thanks, he took the plate. “This is great chicken. Tender, crisp, not greasy.”

“Almost good for you.”

“Did Edith make it?” Julia asked.

“No, Mom, I did, this morning.” Her mother knew that. She’d been researching Egypt in the next room, complaining about the danger of fat droplets reaching her books.

“But the bean salad, that’s Edith’s.”

Emily moved the chicken to the other side of the table and passed Matthew the tossed greens. “For him to miss the wedding I’m afraid it must have been something serious.”

“There was a health emergency in the family.”

“Oh, dear. I’m sorry.”

“An aunt. He wanted to be with her.”

Any aunt of Daniel’s must be ancient. “I’m still surprised you came all this way to watch the house. Mrs. Bowen would have been happy to keep an eye on the place.”

“You’re collecting information, aren’t you?”

She couldn’t tell if he minded. “Isn’t it more of an exchange?”

“I’ll bet everyone’s waiting at the coffee shop to hear what you find out.”

“Of course not!”

Julia said, “Three Creeks doesn’t have a coffee shop.”

Matthew looked amused at that. “I guess it is a long way to come to house-sit—”

“There’s the counter at the post office,” Julia went on. “People get coffee there. And gossip.”

Matthew smiled at Emily, as if her mother had made his case. “We were planning a visit anyway. I’m researching our family history.”

“You don’t seem like a family history buff.”

“No glasses?”

“Not old enough and…not female enough.”

“You’ll have to come to a genealogy meeting sometime.”

“Are you trying to tell me genealogy meetings are full of athletic men in the prime of life?” She had said what she was thinking without realizing how flirtatious it would sound. Maybe not such a bad thing. He was looking at her again the way he had in the living room.