A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(35)

“Goodness.” Del shuddered and passed the biscuits.

“From then on, I just slept in the open air, as long as the weather obliged.” Isaac raised his fork toward the leafy canopy overhead. “One place I heard of, though, had a system that was right resourceful. One room for married folks only, and one giant bed. Any notion how they managed it?”

Everyone shook their heads. Robbie bounced in his seat. “How?”

“Well, they’d have one lady go in first, then her husband next to her. Another husband next to him, his wife beside him, then tuck in the next woman and so on. Accommodated several families that way.”

Disbelieving laughter rose around the table. “Well, I never.” Forsythia shook her head.

“Creative, I suppose.” Still chuckling, the doctor reached for another biscuit. “Though I prefer closed doors when I bed down with my wife.”

“Adam!” Forsythia slapped his hand, cheeks scarlet.

“So, RJ.” Anders raised his eyebrows across the table at him. “Does this give you any inspiration? There’s certainly a lot of building needed out in this country.”

“I did want to ask you, RJ.” Lark laid down her knife. “Have you given any thought to heading up our boardinghouse project?”

RJ swallowed, all eyes suddenly on him. And here he’d actually been enjoying the conversation. “Not a lot, I’m afraid.” He should have, and mentally he kicked himself. “Could you tell me a bit more about it?”

Lark exchanged a glance with Anders. “Well, I’m not sure how much more there is to tell. We have the piece of land now and want to build a boardinghouse on it. As economically as possible, of course, but we want it to be a quality establishment.”

“So enough blankets to go around,” Isaac put in.

“And beds too, I take it.” RJ added drily.

He hadn’t exactly meant a joke, but the gathering chuckled, still merry from Isaac’s stories. The friendly sound heartened him. He’d hardly known he still had the ability to provoke a laugh in anyone. Even Del looked up with a sudden smile, the deep gray-blue of her eyes catching him by surprise. Had they always been such a startling color?

RJ refocused. “You’ll want a good half-dozen rooms for boarding, then. Possibly more. Two stories?”

“Certainly. Though the upstairs can just be one long open room to start. Downstairs we’ll need an office, a good kitchen, and a large dining room. I’ve even heard of some boardinghouse dining rooms being used for civic gatherings, speeches, town assemblies, and such. President Lincoln spoke in one out west before he was elected.”

“We’ve usually used the church for such things.” Attorney Caldwell cocked his head. “But it could be good to have another space as well.”

“Especially since the church is already doubling as the school,” Del put in. “Won’t we want a washroom also?”

“Off the dining room, maybe.” Lilac popped a bite of beans into Sofie’s mouth, earning an appreciative pat on the arm.

“And we’ll need an outhouse built outside,” Climie added.

RJ glanced at her, glad to see more brightness and less terror in her eyes these days.

“You’re right, we will. Along with the stable.” Lark blew out a breath. “I’m excited about this, but sometimes I hope we aren’t taking on too much.”

The conversation swirled while RJ ran numbers and plans through his head, sketches forming in the back of his mind. He’d never planned and built such a large project as this, but as the building took shape in his mind’s eye, suddenly he knew he could. He could see the broad front porch, the tastefully appointed upstairs windows. And for the first time since the renegade’s knife, a frisson of excitement made his fingers itch for a pencil to start sketching.

“I’ll do it,” he blurted.

Everyone at the table turned.

RJ’s neck heated. He hadn’t realized he was interrupting. Now he hadn’t even a clue who had been speaking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Wonderful.” Lark beamed and clasped her hands. “Now our dream can really begin to take shape.”

Anders reached around the corner of the table to clap RJ on the back as the chatter resumed. “I knew you’d come through.”

RJ blew out a breath and dug into his neglected meal. Well, he’d said it. Now it only remained to see if he could make good on his word.

———

The next afternoon, he was beginning to doubt it. Lacking a desk upstairs, he sat at the Brownsvilles’ kitchen table, trying to draw on paper the plans he’d seen so clearly in his mind’s eye last night. Robbie and Sofie dashed through the downstairs rooms in a riotous game of tag, while Mikael wailed upstairs as Forsythia tried to settle him for a nap. She’d said something about teething.

RJ pressed the heel of his hand against his good eye and gritted his own teeth against the stabbing pain in the other.

Last night had been so . . . good, almost. Mostly free of pain, and amid the laughter and conversation of the Nielsen family and their friends, he’d felt nearer to a whole man than he had since the war. Especially when they gathered for music under the stars at the end of the evening, the Nielsen sisters plying fiddle, guitar, and harmonica with surprising skill. Voices blended in hymns he’d nearly forgotten the words of, but they came back to him, songs of his boyhood gentle and healing on his tongue.