The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) by Shelton Connie

Author:Shelton, Connie [Shelton, Connie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Secret Staircase Books
Published: 2015-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

Mary Conway opened the picnic basket that James had carried from her buggy. Sunday dinners after church had become their routine, the four of them sitting on a big quilt under the shade of the tall elm beside the church along with other families on their own blankets.

Families. James realized he and his daughters were increasingly thinking of Mary as part of theirs. She uncovered a bowl of potato salad and set it beside the plate of fried chicken before handing plates and cutlery to each of the girls.

“Hold still and let me tuck a napkin here at your neck,” she said gently to Constance. “We don’t want to mess up your pretty dress.”

“Mrs. Johnson says there’s ice cream for dessert,” James said with a wink at each of the children. “Her boys began cranking the freezer right after Sunday School.”

Nancy let out a cheer and nearly upset her plate.

“All right, one thing at a time,” Mary said. “Hold that chicken leg tight until you’ve finished it. Then we’ll think about ice cream.”

Those thoughtful words and touches, so like Elizabeth would have done. He turned slightly and stared off across the open field to the north of the church. Five months and he still missed her so badly that his heart literally hurt at times. The grief would hit at the oddest moments—as he tied his own tie instead of her doing it for him; when Nancy stared at him with Elizabeth’s eyes; when Elvira complained that she couldn’t seem to get the pancake batter just right, the way Miss Elizabeth always did. His eyes would water and a strange prickle would start on his upper lip, and the only way to get past the moment was to bite his lip and blink and make himself very busy with some inconsequential task.

And then there were Sundays like this one. Mary bringing a homemade dinner, serving it under the tree and the four of them sitting together and conversing, acting like a real family. She would be a wonderful mother. A wonderful wife, too, he suspected.

Convention said it was too soon. Mourning should last a full year. A year, he knew, was far too short a time in which to forget the person you had loved with all your heart, the mother of your children, the sweetheart you had known since the fourth grade and had traveled with from the east coast to the wild land of the Texas territory. But then his heart ached in a different way at the sight of his daughters and the way they sometimes wandered the house with lonely expressions on their faces.

James had to admit that he was lonely too, and that his Tuesday night visits to Fancy were no substitute for what he really needed.

“One more bite of your green beans,” Mary was saying, “and then you may run off and play with the others.”

Nancy seemed itchy to move but she complied. Constance had cleaned her own plate and was picking the fried crumbles from her sister’s.

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