Not a single light shined. She leaned against the doorframe and sucked on her bottom lip. What now? A door across from the one she was standing in was another bedroom. She’d seen it as Caleb had shown her this one the day before. Was that where Caleb was? Or was it where the old woman and girl slept?
She tip-toed down the hall into the main sitting room. The fire was banked, only a few red coals still glowing. Faint light filtered in around the edge of the curtains. It had to be close to dawn. The moment she thought it, she heard a rooster crow.
Movement to her right drew her gaze, her entire body stilling as Caleb sat up and sighed loud enough she heard it all the way across the room. Was this where he was sleeping?
Where else would he? There’s only two bedrooms and you took his.
He rubbed a hand over his face and stood, stilling the moment he saw her. “Morning.”
His soft voice was barely over a whisper. “Good morning,” Rebecca whispered back.
Caleb rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. He nodded down the hall with a tilt of his head. “I’ll go get changed and show you where everything’s at in the kitchen.”
Rebecca watched him disappear down the darkened hall, his parting words echoing in her head. He didn’t expect her to cook, did he?
Of course he does. That’s what wives do, you ninny.
She rolled her eyes and turned to the kitchen. More light spilled into the room from the open curtain above a long table situated against the wall. A shelf hung high above it filled with small bags of dry goods and an assortment of cans. A small table with four chairs sat against the left-hand wall and a cookstove sat to her right.
Could she really pull this off? She’d never cooked a thing in her life. She’d boiled water over a fire at the orphanage but that was it.
Caleb walked into the room and headed for the stove before she had time to contemplate her situation. A small pail of wood and kindling was against the wall. He filled the stove with a few pieces and lit it, straightening when he had a blaze going. The moment their eyes met, nervous butterflies she wasn’t used to having swam in dizzying circles in her stomach. He really was obscenely handsome.
And ordered a wife from a mail-order bride catalog.
Those butterflies stopped dancing. There has to be something wrong with him. Maybe he was mean? She’d seen more than one man hit a woman and treat her like she was nothing more than a prized heifer. Caleb didn’t act mean, though. He had kind eyes, so she doubted that was it. Was he the lazy sort? A womanizer?
Does it matter?
At the moment it didn’t. Right now she had somewhere warm to sleep and from the bags and tins of food lined up on the shelf over the long work table, she wouldn't go hungry anytime soon.
“Most everything you need will be up there.” He nodded to the bags and cans of dry goods. “There’s a root cellar that holds everything else.” He crossed the room and reached for something on the floor before pulling up a door she hadn’t realized was there. Darkness filled the space he peered down into.
“Let me light a lamp.” He lit one that sat on the table and held it over the darkened root cellar steps. It wasn’t big—nothing more than a hole in the ground from where she stood. She hoped he didn’t want her to go down there. She’d never been a fan of tight, dark places and that hole in the floor made a shiver race up her spine.
Caleb shut the door and set the lamp on the long table under the shelf. “Any preference for breakfast this morning?”
She shook her head. “No, whatever you like is fine.”
He smiled and reached up to the shelf saying, “I like it all,” before grabbing a bag and setting it on the table. “But I’m usually too tired to do much about it in the morning so I just fix oats. Amanda likes it well enough and hasn’t complained about eating the same thing every day.”
After sitting the bag down, he stood there unmoving, waiting for her to fix them if she had to guess. She’d wondered earlier if she’d be required to cook all the meals now and the expectant look on his face gave her the answer. He did and honestly, why wouldn’t he? Isn’t that what wives did?
She crossed to where he stood and opened the bag. The dried oats were just that—dry. How did she fix them? With water, she knew. She’d seen the nuns who ran the orphanage cook them enough to know that but how much? And for how long?
She glanced at Caleb and raised an eyebrow, saying “water,” as if questioning where it was.
He nodded to a water pail at the end of the table with a towel draped over the top of it. “Amanda brings in a few buckets from the well every day so there’s always some inside the house.” He reached for the pail on the table and frowned when he lifted it. “And apparently she didn’t do that yesterday.” He smiled before grabbing two more pails from under the table. “She was excited about your arrival. I’m surprised she remembered to do any of her chores, to be honest. Grab the other pail and I’ll show you where the well is and introduce you to the chickens, Bertha especially. She's as mean as the day is long.”
It was cold out. The coat Diana had packed kept her warm enough and Rebecca was glad she hadn’t been unfortunate enough to be homeless in Angel Creek. She’d have frozen to death in no time.
Drawing water was something she did know how to do and they made quick work of it, both of them silent as the sun peeked over the mountains. The chickens weren't happy to see them this early in the morning though, and Caleb had been right. The big red hen he said Amanda named Bertha was mean and pecked her hand the moment she reached under her for the eggs she was sitting on. She yelped and jerked her hand back, dropping the egg she'd gathered. Her soon-to-be husband had laughed, ushered her out before the other chickens got riled, and directed her back into the house.
Caleb’s mother was awake when they stepped back inside the house. “Good morning, Diana.”
Rebecca almost corrected her but bit her lip before giving the woman a smile. “Morning, Agatha.”
“Did you sleep well, dear?”
“I did. Best sleep I’ve had in a very long time.”
“That’s good.” She wheeled her chair to the window and drew back the curtain. “I see the snow stopped falling.”
“For now it has,” Caleb said as he set the two buckets he had on top of the counter. “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it yet.”
Rebecca carried her bucket to the counter and struggled to lift it, blowing out a pent up breath when Caleb grabbed it and set it down beside the others. “Thanks.”
He gave her a tiny smile and grabbed a large pot from a stack that sat on a small table near the stove. “Amanda eats like a hundred-pound boy most days so I always make extra.”
Agatha laughed from the other room. “I don’t know where the girl puts all that food skinny as she is.”
“Neither do I.” Caleb filled the pot with water. Rebecca watched him, noting how much water and oats he was using, and committed them to memory. When the pot was on the stove and heating, Caleb showed her where everything else was.
By the time Amanda joined them, the oats were ready. Caleb set a jar of honey on the table and a small container of some spice, then dished up Amanda a bowl. He sprinkled the spice onto the oats. “What was that?”