A Country Christmas by Josi S. Kilpack & Carla Kelly & Jennifer Moore

Author:Josi S. Kilpack & Carla Kelly & Jennifer Moore.
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2016-10-10T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

By unspoken, mutual consent, Able and Meridee declared a strange sort of truce. Able knew truce was the wrong word, but he couldn’t actually think of a better one, even as he scoured those cosmic pages in his ordinarily tidy brain. They were not at war with each other—quite the contrary.

It was the first time in his life that his brain could not think of the right word to describe what sort of person Meridee Bonfort was to him. He tried something new; he decided not to worry about it.

He realized what it was a few days later, when Gerald and James were busy forming and reforming triangles with their jackstraws. He watched the boys and recalled the Peace of Amiens, which was printed and given to every ship in the Fleet. He had imagined the Peace as a pulling away—a chance to regroup and rebuild their forces, but also to breathe, to think about what lay ahead.

This personal Peace he had discovered with Meridee Bonfort was no different. He knew he must slow down, and maybe that was the point of this peace of theirs. He wanted nothing more than to kiss and cuddle her, and he suspected she wanted the same—Newton’s third law and all that it implied—but this was neither the time nor the place. For the time being, he must remain a man working for his ten shillings a month, room and board, who would disappear from everyone’s life when Christmas came. It chafed him, but he was discovering hitherto unknown wells of patience.

Able decided Meridee was a bit of a tyrant, which made him remember Captain Hallowell’s remark about his needing a keeper. One morning, when she was certain no one was watching, she pressed her hand against his chest, backed him up against the wall in the breakfast room, and ordered him to walk outside every afternoon with his pupils.

He obeyed her dutifully, although he did admit to her that the country was not entirely to his liking. “I was raised in a city,” he protested, “breathing great lungfuls of sooty air. It didn’t stunt my growth. Are you aware how loud winter birds scream early in the morning? I didn’t think so. I rest my case.”

“You are hopeless,” she replied with some spirit. “I suppose you prefer the ocean. I’ve seen you standing on tiptoe at the schoolroom window facing south, as if thinking water will magically appear.”

“Guilty as charged. You can keep your countryside,” he said generously.

“Well and good, Master Six, but I want you to walk outside, breathe the country air, and not think,” she insisted, which made him smile.

“I don’t have any choice in that,” he replied, because he didn’t.

“Try, Able, try,” she urged and melted his heart with the compassion in her voice.

He tried and discovered it was possible to enjoy crunching through leaves as the season advanced, and then even piling them up into mounds, turning around, and throwing himself onto the noisy pile to his students’ delight, his mind blissfully free.

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