Rebel with a Heart

Chapter Four

A ray of sunshine filtering through bare tree branches dappled fingers of light on the roof of the small cabin. Close by, Lilleth heard the welcome rush of a creek.

In the event that the cabin did not have an indoor pump, it would be an easy task to fetch water.

“What do you think, Jess?” Lilleth went up the stairs with Mary in her arms. The third step cracked under her weight. “Be careful, this one might need to be replaced.”

The broken step was a minor problem, but for the rent she was paying she would make sure the landlord had it repaired by this afternoon.

“The place seems safe, Auntie Lilleth, way back here in the woods.” He grinned up at her. “Maybe I can explore later.”

Looking safe and being safe weren’t necessarily the same thing, but the boy needed to be out, running and playing. Poor Jess had been confined to trains and secrecy for much too long.

“Let’s settle in now, and we can explore together.”

“You like to climb trees and stuff, Auntie Lils?”

“Let me tell you, when I was your age, you couldn’t keep me out of a tree.” Not that anyone had ever tried to. “I suppose I can still manage.”

Blazes, if she wouldn’t make this time as easy on the children as she could. Hiding out in the little cabin for a month might be made into an adventure.

She turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

The very fingers of sunshine that dappled the roof dappled a broken kitchen table. It shone on a floor with layers of dusty things scattered about. It filtered over a lumpy bed where a family of raccoons was suddenly startled from sleep.

Mary squirmed and reached for the floor, but there was not an inch of space that was clean enough to set her down.

“Take Mary outside, will you?” Tap, tap, tap. Lilleth fought the urge to kick a crushed pail that she had come close to tripping over. It was best to get the children outdoors for a moment. It wouldn’t begin their cabin adventure well to see Auntie in a fit of despair.

“Stay close by,” she called after Jess.

He, at least, seemed happy enough, galloping around to the back of the house with his sister giggling in his arms.

But what was Lilleth going to do? Dusty spiderwebs sagged across shredded curtains at the windows—which, by God’s own grace, were at least not broken. The bed was not fit for the raccoons that had just scurried into a back room.

There was a nice stone fireplace, if one ignored the giant mound of ashes spilling out of the hearth. Hours of scrubbing from now, it might be cozy with a couple of chairs set before it.

Naturally, there were no chairs.

No chairs, no indoor pump, not a decent bed. There was the dining table, but one would have to sit on the disgusting floor to make use of it.

And thanks to the family of raccoons, the place smelled. No doubt it also had fleas.

She gathered the hem of her skirt into the crook of her arm.

“We’re going to the creek, Auntie Lilleth,” Jess called through a cracked board in the wall. “It’s real close by.”

That was a mercy. It would take endless buckets of hot water to make the place decent enough even to put Mary down.

“Blasted raccoons.” Lilleth would start by getting rid of them. “You better have found an escape hole back there. I’m coming in!”

She’d need a weapon, though. There! In the corner of what used to be the kitchen area, beside a rusted cookstove, was a broom. Too bad no one had ever seen fit too use it.

She held it before her, business end first, and entered the back room with a sweeping motion.

Sure enough, there was a hole. She made contact with a striped tail just as the tip squeezed through.

This apparently was a storage room, stacked from ceiling to floor with buckets, rugs, dishes, more broken furniture and some things she could not identify.

Horton File might believe that this trash counted as furnishings, but he was about to discover that their opinions on what was livable lay miles apart.

Before that, though, she would have to strap Mary to her back in order to clean a spot big enough to set her down.

A faded red blanket lay on the floor. Lilleth picked it up, sneezed, then wadded it up and stuck it in the raccoon hole. She dusted her hands.

If only the cabin didn’t smell like old things and wild animal fur.

Night, along with temperatures below freezing, would be here too soon. She would need to clean the fireplace first thing. Then have Jess gather wood.

“Dear Lord, how will I get it all done?” she murmured. Already, grime caked her skin and she hadn’t even begun.

The first thing she would need was light, then fire. She walked to the window and yanked on the curtain, which dropped on the floor. Dust billowed out of it and sent her into a full sneezing fit.

She rubbed the window with the hem of her petticoat. A small clear circle appeared on the glass.

Within that circle appeared a man. Clark Clarkly was striding forward with an ax gripped in his fist.

* * *

Clark Clarkly was not a bumbler. Well, he was, but not always. Not now. For the past thirty minutes Lilleth had been peeking at him through the window while she passed back and forth, sweeping the floor.

He stood by a woodpile, one stacked from fallen limbs that he had dragged out of the woods. Through the open cabin door she listened to the steady blows of his ax.

As far as she could tell he hadn’t come close to chopping off his foot, even though the pile of cut logs now stood thigh high.

One time, when he looked up to see her watching him, he stumbled backward and dropped the ax.

What a puzzle he was. One moment falling all over himself, and the next, as capable a man as she’d ever met.

One would expect a bookish man, one who stacked volumes in alphabetical order, to be fragile in his bearing. Not so Clark. Trip and stumble as he might, beneath those clothes she suspected he was muscle upon muscle. How could he not be, the way he swung his ax.

Passing the window once more, she paused. He didn’t notice her this time. She watched the ax circle in the air, then hit a log, splitting it down the center. Clark tossed it aside and spilt another, then another, in the same way.

Those were not the shoulders of a slightly built man. They flexed beneath his shirt with a regular rhythm. Even in the cold, sweat dampened his shirt between his shoulder blades.

To add to his mystery, he was a take-charge kind of individual. One would expect a librarian to be comfortable in the sanctuary of his library, his life as predictable as the next printed page.

But Clark, as soon as he’d glanced about at the rubble-strewn cabin, had taken control of the undertaking. He’d sent the children back to his place, putting Jess in charge of lending out books for the day.

Now here he was, getting her cabin tidy and shipshape. Later she was to come back to his place and spend another night tucked safe under his roof, and no arguments about it.

Truly, she wouldn’t tell him no even if she had a choice. There was something about Mr. Clark Clarkly that drew her to him, and it wasn’t just a common love of books.

Clark looked up and spotted her at the window. He grinned, wiped one sleeve across his forehead, then waved the ax at her in greeting.

To all appearances, he liked nothing more than to cut and stack wood. Any other man she had known would want something in return for his kindness—which in her mind didn’t make it a kindness in the end—but so far Clark hadn’t made an improper move toward her.

Still, hadn’t it been only a day since he’d snatched her off the boardwalk? She’d known men who hid their true natures much longer.

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