First Love, Last Love by Susan Evans McCloud

Author:Susan Evans McCloud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2019-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Christmas came to the valley of the Great Salt Lake gently that year. The snow sifted down upon fields that were stripped of their harvest and ready now to rest beneath winter's blanket. The peppering of snow on the roofs of houses lent a coziness to the candlelit rooms within. There would be no more huddling hungry in damp wagons and lean-to adobes. Three years had made an astounding difference. Here was comfort, civilization, even beauty—reasons to rejoice, and hearts that were willing.

Jesse was in his own cabin again. He insisted on returning as soon as he could hobble about on his one good leg. He assured Larissa he could manage by himself, but she wouldn't allow it. She brought his meals and fussed around the place, cleaning up after him so that he hardly dared set something down for fear it might vanish and he would have no idea where the girl had tucked it away. He finally talked her down to one good hot meal a day, which she brought in the evening. While he ate she would stay and keep him company for a while. They had grown comfortable through the long weeks of his convalescing in her father's house. Yet the one thing that stood between them was never dis­ cussed. Neither tried to define this new relationship, nor examine it too closely. They were compatible, and that was sufficient for now.

Jesse found dozens of ways to be useful. He couldn't ride or farm, so he had to do things close at hand. He could repair any­thing from worn-out shoes to a broken harness to a sprung cog in the mantel clock that sat in Emma's kitchen. He fashioned toys for Emma's little Emily and put them aside for Christmas. He was working on something for Larissa, too. It would be a surprise, something of himself—a small payment for all of herself she had given to him.

It was strange. He had grown to know her so much more deeply, to appreciate qualities he'd not even seen before. She was a lovely person, warm, sometimes even enchanting. He could respond to her gaeity, he could love her devotion, he could admire her graceful walk and her long slender hands, enjoy the way she dropped her eyes and fluttered her lashes, delight in the sweet, girlish music of her laugh. All this-and yet he could not love her! Or did not. Was something the matter with him? Was he supposed to be learning something from all that had happened to him, something that he refused to see?

She had been here this evening, as usual, but had left a bit early, making him promise before she left that he'd come to the dance. It seemed the dances and dramas and parties were almost nightly, although Christmas was over two weeks away. He couldn't dance, but he would go to please her, though he had no desire to mingle with others. It was too soon. There were still all those questions to answer, smothering sympathy and curious glances.

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