One Perfect Gift by Kathleen Morgan

Author:Kathleen Morgan [Morgan, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religious Fiction
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2012-11-12T21:36:48+00:00

7

An hour or so later, the children finally tired of playing in the house and asked permission to go outside. A stiff wind had picked up, and Jessie doubted they’d stay out long before getting too cold. Nevertheless, she also realized they needed to run off some of their excess energy. Bundled up so thoroughly they looked like plump little pumpkins, the youngsters soon headed from the house.

Jessie busied herself in the kitchen making bread to go with the supper stew and, an hour later, pulled two fat, perfectly browned loaves from the oven.

“Ye’ve certainly gotten the hang of Old Bess in record time,” Claire observed from her spot at the table, where she and her daughter Sarah were sharing a pot of tea with Jessie and Abby. “When first I came to Culdee Creek, that stove was my bane and despair. I almost imagined it hated me, so difficult it made every meal I attempted to cook on or in it.”

“I just treat it like a lot of stubborn, egotistical doctors I’ve worked with,” Jessie said as she placed the bread on wire racks to cool. “Anticipate its every need and, in the doing, coax it into thinking it’s doing what it wants, when really it’s doing exactly what I want it to.”

Sarah laughed, tossing back her head of auburn waves only a shade or two lighter than her mother’s. “Don’t let Beth hear you talking like that. She might take offense.”

“Oh, I’d never speak that way of Dr. MacKay.” Jessie grinned at the woman who was only eight years her senior, and so closest in age of all the MacKay women present. “The little I’ve seen of her, I already know she’s a lot different than most physicians. Plus, she came very highly recommended—”

Caleb and Annie, still dressed in their jackets, mittens, and hats, ran into the kitchen just then. “Boy, are we hungry!” Sarah’s oldest son said. “That bread sure smells good. Can we have a slice with some butter?” “No, you most certainly cannot,” their mother was quick to reply. “Supper will be ready in another ten minutes, and you can wait. I was just about to come and call you all in anyway.”

Jessie glanced through the open kitchen door down the hallway. “Where’s Emma? She did come in with you, didn’t she?”

Nine-year-old Caleb wrenched his ravenous gaze from the bread. “Huh? Oh no, she’s still outside. She said she wanted to go down and say hello to the horses. She said Bucky’s her special friend.”

Bucky was the old pony Sean had been teaching her to ride. Still, Jessie thought as she removed her apron and laid it aside, she wasn’t comfortable with her daughter down among the horses without an adult along. Especially since they were likely still out in their corrals, and Bucky shared one with the skittish and frequently mean-spirited stallion named Thunderbolt. Indeed, docile little Bucky was one of the few horses that could be paddocked with the big chestnut.

“Well, Emma’s not

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