Christmas at Carnton (Carnton 0.5)(49)

He tried to focus on the axle. And couldn’t. How could she think so little of him—think that he’d stay out of the fight for such a petty reason? Clearly she didn’t think as highly of him as he’d reckoned. He’d hoped she might have softened at least a little in regard to her feelings for him. But it seemed as though she’d made up her mind.

Requiring tools he didn’t have at hand, he crawled out from beneath the wagon again.

“Is there something else you need, Aletta? If not, I’d appreciate you leaving me to tend the wagon.”

She suddenly seemed hesitant to meet his gaze. “Only that . . . Mrs. McGavock said she needs to speak with you when you have a moment. I don’t know about what.”

“I’ll go see her shortly. As soon as I’m finished here.” He strode to the back of the wagon, grabbed a cloth from a bucket, and wiped the grease from his hands.

It stung to discover she was so eager to see the back of him. He also didn’t relish her learning the real reason he’d been sent here to recuperate. But if this was how things were going to be between them, he wouldn’t have to tell her after all.

“You really are gifted at sketching, Jake.”

He turned back to see her looking at his sketchbook that lay open on the workbench.

“May I?” she asked.

He shrugged.

She turned the pages slowly, sometimes smiling, other times just staring for a moment. Until she came to a picture of Andrew.

“Oh, Jake . . . This is beautiful. It looks just like him.” She ran her forefinger over the sketch. “He looks happy. But also . . . sad. When did you draw this?”

“Last week. After he asked me if I missed my family.”

Her gaze softened and she opened her mouth as though to say something, then apparently thought better of it. She reached to turn the page and Jake almost stopped her, knowing which sketches were next.

She went absolutely still.

He watched her, the way she bit her lower lip, the sharp rise and fall of her chest, her emotions clearly warring inside her with a vengeance.

“The artist has been kind to me,” she said softly, not looking at him.

“The artist drew what he saw. What he sees even now,” he said.

A single tear slipped down her cheek. “I wish this were easier, Jake.”

“Nothing is easy, Aletta. At least nothing worth having.”

She turned to him and, for an instant, he saw the love in her eyes, her desire for him written so clearly in her expression. Then in a blink, those feelings were shuttered again, buried beneath the fear and the pain. And she walked away.




The next morning, Jake situated himself inside the door of the barn, ready to help where needed, but enjoying the opportunity to watch the flood of auction attendees as they wandered and pondered, shopped and bartered, ate and drank.

Pen and sketchbook at the ready, he could scarcely keep up with the images begging to be captured. That of Hattie and Andrew playing Mary and Joseph again, and Andrew’s absolute insistence that he get to hold the baby Jesus an equal amount of time, so he could “talk” to him, the boy said.

The giddiness on a little girl’s face as she nibbled on a cookie while being chased by a newborn kitten. An old woman, her brow plowed with furrows of old age, holding a music box up to her ear, a tear trailing her cheek as the box plinked out a tune he didn’t recognize. But that she obviously did.

Jake turned to a fresh page just as the embodiment of beauty walked into his line of sight. She was a good distance away, so her features weren’t clear to him in the moment, but he knew them by heart. And his pencil took on a life of its own as he captured the curves of her mouth, the soft hollows of her cheeks, her eyes, her hair, the slender lines of her neck. And the distinctly feminine fullness of her body that nestled the heartbeat of a life within. They all poured from him in perfect, beautiful clarity.

An amputee caught his attention next, in a wheelchair, the man clearly uncomfortable with people watching him. But it was the way the former soldier watched them from where he sat off to the side, the yearning in his expression, his desire to walk so tangible that Jake felt the ache of it in his chest and rushed to capture the image.

Then he saw Mrs. Zachary approach the man, and he realized who the amputee was. Jake stowed the notebook and pencil in a drawer of the workbench and went to meet them.

“Corporal Zachary.” Jake offered his hand, not surprised that Zachary saluted him first before accepting.

“It’s good to see you again, Captain Winston.”

“You too, Corporal. Though I’m not sure I would’ve recognized you without your wife here. Last time I saw you, you were all bandaged up.”

Zachary ran a hand over his stubbled jawline, the cuts and bruises still healing. “Doc finally took off the bandages this week. Which I told him might not be a good thing. Now my wife knows just how ugly I really am after all this.”

They all laughed, but Jake caught the way Kate Zachary gently touched her husband’s shoulder, as well as the fleeting shadow that eclipsed the Corporal’s face. Zachary absently reached down and fiddled with the knot tied at the knee of his right pant leg.

“Kate?”

Jake turned to see Aletta approaching them in the crowd. She hugged Kate first, then greeted Zachary with a smile.

Kate squeezed her hand. “Aletta, you’re looking radiant.”