Lone Pine Bride (The Brides of Lone Pine #1)(3)

He would have liked to have her at the wedding but he hadn’t told her about his marriage. Why, he didn’t know, but maybe because he thought she might regard such a thing as risky. It wasn’t at all risky, of course, because Rachel was a beautiful person and he loved her.

He pulled off his boots, slung them in a corner and skidded after them. That he wouldn’t be able to do after she arrived. He needed a special place for them. Maybe a cupboard and then Rachel could put hers there also if she wanted to do so. He should have thought of that before but for now he would put them in the scullery adjoining his kitchen.

And it would be nice to have someone else’s shoes next to his because life could be a bit lonely. It would be nice to have someone with whom to communicate. Rachel sounded very intelligent in her letters and had commented on politics, among other things. She said she would have liked to start a business where she could use her needlework skills but probably she wouldn’t be clever enough, anyway. He replied that he felt she could do anything she wanted and that he would support her. How, he didn’t know, because of his own lack of funds, but somehow he would work it out and it would be added income.

She had asked his opinion on quite a few matters and it made him feel important to be able to tell her what he thought, particularly when she told him how clever she thought he was.

He was proud of his scullery and looked forward to showing it to Rachel. It could be a source of illness, his mother had told him, so he mustn’t have it near the toilet facilities and he must make sure the floor did not become too wet so he needed to raise it or put wooden slats on it to stand on. There were pipes going from the taps and everything was spotless. Courtesy of Jason who had helped clean up the place. He walked back into the lounge and looked around.

He had purchased cushions from one of the stores nearby and put them carefully on the couch. Two each end as he remembered his mother would do. Two easy chairs stood nearby with a cushion on each. In the centre was a little table he had made, of which he was very proud. It was in the shape of a heart and Jason said it was soppy, but then probably a woman would like it because they tended to be that way inclined.

Before he had just put his cups and plates on the floor, despite having another room in which he had a table, also a further room in which he had nothing. The plates when he finished with them went in the sink in the scullery waiting to be washed where they sometimes had to wait a few days. Now that sink was empty and everything had been carefully placed in cupboards he had made for the purpose.

He was good with his hands, he had told Rachel, and that was one thing about which he was truthful. He had built his own house with a mixture of mud and wood and it looked nice enough for his mother to approve. That meant it was alright because Caroline Blair was a fussy woman.

So what else did he need? Maybe he should try to think the way his mother did. Flowers. It hit him suddenly. That he remembered from his childhood days. Flowers in the living room. Not in the bedroom, his mother told him, because that would take up the oxygen you need to breathe. He took everything she said as gospel but he wasn’t so sure about that as he got older. You breathed in oxygen and gave out carbon dioxide. Plants gave out oxygen which meant that logically they would help you breathe. He told Caroline that but knew she was not convinced.

If Rachel was like his mother he would do well, though maybe not some of the things she said. But his memories of how she treated him and his brother and sister were good and he liked it when she visited or he went to see her. Which is what he must do soon, he thought, because he wanted to show Rachel off.

So what would Rachel look like? She said average but beauty was different for different people and what was inside counted most, or so his mother said. Once again he wasn’t convinced but usually she was right so she could be right in this instance.

She was petite, Rachel said, and that sounded feminine. Was his mother petite? Not really because she was quite tall and tall was alright. But petite had a nice ring to it and made him feel protective, which is what he would be. He would protect her and nurture her and make her feel loved. He would try to make up to her for the way things had been during the last three years since her parents died and she lost everything.

He went for flowers and realised there was no vase. You had to have a vase and it should be a pretty one because Rachel was used to pretty things from her life before she was left on her own, and she was also artistic. You had to be artistic to do needlepoint. So what was he going to do? His shaving mug. He was very proud of that because his mother bought it for him ten years previously when he didn’t have a hair on his face that showed. They were newly out, she told him, and he would need it for his razors. He went for it, cleaned it carefully and pushed in the flowers before setting them on the mantelpiece.

He frowned as he looked at them. That wasn’t very good, just pushing them in like that. Tall flowers at the back, he recalled his mother saying. He would do that.

He took them all out, emptied the water away and began again. Maybe he would put the flowers in first because his first attempt had made the mantelpiece wet. He dried it, arranged the flowers as best he could, filled the mug with water and stood back to look rather critically at his handiwork.

Not bad and that should make a good impression. Which was something he badly wanted, he had to admit, because Rachel coming was the most important thing that had ever happened to him. It added excitement to a life which had begun to be a bit mundane.