A Man For Honor

“They locked me in again!” she declared. She seemed about to elaborate on her plight when she suddenly saw him and stopped short in her tracks, eyes wide. “Atch!” she cried and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“I’m Luke,” he said. “Honor sent me to let you out.” That wasn’t exactly true, but close enough without going into a detailed explanation. “Are you all right?”

“They are bad children! Bad!” she flung back without answering his question. “And that oldest is the worst. Every day, they lock me in the feed room.” She thrust out her lower lip, sniffed and began to weep again. “I want to go home.”

“Don’t cry,” Luke said. “You say they lock you in the feed room every day? So why...why did you give them the opportunity to lock you in? Again and again?”

“Aagschmiert. Tricked. I was tricked.” She wiped her nose with the back of the sleeve of her oversize barn coat. “And it’s dark in there. I hate the dark.”

“Ya.” Luke nodded. “I’m not overly fond of it myself. At least I wouldn’t be if someone locked me in.” He reached out and removed a large spiderweb from the girl’s headscarf.

She shuddered when she saw it. “Wildheet,” she insisted. “Wild, bad kinner.” She pointed at a chicken. “See? They let the chickens out of their pen, too. And yesterday it was the cow. Everything, they let loose. Me, they lock in.”

Luke pressed his lips tightly together and tried not to laugh. “As I said, I’m Luke. I came to make repairs to the house. And who are you?”

“Greta. Silas’s niece. From Ohio.” Another tear rolled down her cheek. “But going home, I think. Soon.”

“Well, Greta from Ohio, best we get back in the house before they send someone else out in the rain to see if I’m locked up somewhere, too.”

Still muttering under her breath about bad children, Greta led the way through the cluttered barn and, hunching her back against the downpour, made a dash for the house.

They went inside, leaving their wet coats and his hat hanging on hooks in the laundry room, and made a beeline for the woodstove in the kitchen. Greta’s teeth were chattering. Luke had the shivers, but he clamped his teeth together and refused to give in to the chill. He put his hands out to the radiating heat, grateful for the semidry kitchen, and glanced sideways at Honor.

In the time since he’d gone to the barn and returned, she’d twisted up her hair and covered it with a woolen scarf. Her plain blue dress had seen better days and her apron was streaked with flour and mud. Her black wool stockings were faded; her slender feet were laced into high black leather shoes. Honor had always been a small woman, and now she was even more slender and more graceful. Life and motherhood had pared away the girlish roundness of her face, leaving her stunning to his eye, more beautiful than he’d dreamed.

“Again?” she said to the girl. “You let them lock you in again?”

Greta began to sniffle.

“None of that,” Honor said, not unkindly. “Go change into dry things and then find the boys. They need a bath and clean clothes.”

“The wash is still damp,” Greta protested. “I hung it in the attic like you said, but it’s still wet.”

“Then bathe them and put them into their nightshirts. I won’t have them running around the house in those muddy clothes.”

“They won’t listen to me,” Greta muttered. “Justice won’t get in the tub and the little one will run off as soon as I turn my back to him.”

“Never you mind, child,” Sara said. “I’ll come along and lend a hand. I’ve bathed my share of unwilling kinner. And, I promise you, they won’t get the best of me.” She fixed Luke with a determined gaze. “Honor and Luke have some matters to discuss in private, anyway. Don’t you?”

He nodded, feeling a little intimidated by Sara. She reminded him of his late mother.

“I wrote to you,” he said when they were alone, as he held out his cold fingers to the warm woodstove. “I wrote every month since I heard that...that your husband passed. You refused my letters and they were returned.” He searched her face, looking for some hint that she still cared for him...that she could forgive him. “I apologized for—”

“I didn’t want to hear what you had to say then or now,” she answered brusquely.

He exhaled. “Honor, I was wrong. I regret what I did, but I can’t change the past.” Only a few feet separated them. He wanted to go to her, to clasp her hands in his. But he didn’t; he stood where he was. “I’m sorry, Honor. What more can I say?”

“That you’ll go back to Kansas and leave me in peace.”

“I can’t do that.” He gestured to the nearest leak in the ceiling. “You need help. And I’m here to do whatever you need. I’m a good carpenter. I can fix whatever’s broken.”

“Can you?” she asked softly.

And, for just a second, he saw moisture gleam in her large blue eyes. Emotion pricked the back of his throat. They weren’t talking about the house anymore. They were talking about their hearts.

“I can try,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “It’s over, Luke. Whatever we had, whatever I felt for you, it’s gone.”

He stared at the floor. Despite her words, he still felt a connection to Honor. And he had a sense that what she was saying wasn’t necessarily how she felt. So he took a leap of faith. He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning with my tools. I know you hate me, but—”

“I don’t hate you, Luke.”

“Good, then we’ve a place to start. As I said, I’ll be here early in the morning to start patching your roof.”

“Patching won’t do,” she said, looking up and gesturing. “Look at this. The whole thing needs replacing.”

“We’ll see. If it can’t be patched, I’ll find a crew and we’ll put on a new roof.”

She faced him squarely, arms folded, chin up. “I want no favors from you.”

“Then you’ll have none. You can pay me whatever the going hourly wage is. I’ll start in this kitchen and go from there. I’ll mend whatever needs doing.”

She pursed her lips, lips he’d once kissed and wanted desperately to kiss again. “You will, will you? And what if I lock the door on you?”

“You won’t.”

Darker blue clouds swirled in the depths of her beautiful eyes. “And what makes you so certain of that?”

“Because you’ll think better of it. You didn’t expect to see me here, and you’re still angry. I get that. But you always had good sense, Honor. When you consider what’s best for you and your children, you’ll decide I’m the lesser of two evils.”

“Which is?”

“Putting up with me doing your repairs is better than living with a leaky roof and a fallen windmill.” He smiled at her. “And you will agree to let me do it. Because turning me away isn’t smart, and you’ve always been the smartest woman I’ve ever known.”

Chapter Three (#udbe69e71-c2c1-56c8-b873-f6af59ead48a)

Honor pulled back the curtain and peered out the kitchen window. Maybe he won’t come, she told herself. By this morning, he’s realized he doesn’t belong here. He’ll give up and go back to Kansas. Go somewhere. She certainly didn’t want him here in Kent County. She didn’t want to take the chance of running into him at Byler’s Store or on the street in Dover. Luke Weaver was out of her life, and there was no way that she would ever let him back in again. She couldn’t.

“Mam!” Elijah wailed. “My turn. My turn!”

“It’s not!” Justice countered. “He went first. I want to feed the lamb. I want to feed—” with each word, her middle son’s voice grew louder until he was shouting “—the lamb!”

“You already did. He did,” Tanner said. “Besides, he’s too little. They’re both too little. It’s my job to—”

“Please stop,” Honor admonished as she turned away from the window, letting the curtain fall. It was foolish to keep looking for Luke. He wasn’t coming. She didn’t want him to come. She didn’t know why was she looking for him. “I warned the three of you about fighting over the bottle.” She crossed the kitchen and took the bottle out of Tanner’s hands. “If you can’t get along, none of you get to feed her. Go and wash your hands. With soap.”

The children scattered. The lamb bleated and wagged her stub of a tail. The old wooden playpen that had once confined her oldest son had been pressed into service as a temporary pen for the orphan lamb that had been silly enough to come into the world the previous night. It wasn’t really an orphan, but the mother had refused to let it nurse, so it was either tend to it or see it die.