Maggie Shayne - An Enchanted Season

Steve frowned in thought. Dave was right; the roll shouldn’t have been that bountiful, even with the journeyman plumber cutting it as economically as possible. It looked almost as thick as it had when he first started. Then again, the stuff was thin, especially when compressed into a tightly rolled cylinder like that. Shaking his head, he left the two to their work in the basement. Maybe it is the season for miracles…

He met a puzzled-looking Rachel in the hallway. She saw him closing the door to the basement and smiled, then frowned softly again, beckoning him into the kitchen. It was dark, with only the light from the hall to illuminate them; with the generator rumbling out in the lean-to, they had a measure of privacy. The dinner dishes had been washed by hand while he, Dave, and Bella had gone out to the truck. Rachel moved automatically to the drying rack to check if they were ready to be put back, and Steve followed her.

Sliding his hands up her arms, he kneaded the muscles to either side of her nape. “Is something bothering you?”

“Yeah…It’s the stove in the parlor. Every time I’ve gone in there to check on it since last night, it’s been burning merrily away, not needing any tending whatsoever. The one in here does, which I started when the three of you went back out to Dave’s car,” Rachel admitted, turning her head to look at the old-fashioned, cast-iron cookstove Steve’s great-grandmother had cooked upon when the Inn had first opened. She had started it to keep the house warm while they looked for spark plugs outside, and had put a quartet of water-filled milk pails on the stovetop to slowly heat. “Every time I ask the others, either they don’t know when it was last stoked, or they say they saw one of the others feeding it earlier. It’s nice to know they’re keeping it going for me, but…”

“But what?” Steve asked his love. “There’s something nagging at you about it. What is it?”

“There’s always this one log in there, whenever I go to check. It could be a series of them, since we did cut up the limbs of that old alder that came down in the tornado and put them in the woodpile, but…there’s always this one round log just burning away every time I go to look. Sometimes it’s to the front, sometimes it’s to the back, or sometimes it’s crosswise. But it’s always in there among the others.”

He laughed softly, half in amusement and half in wonder. “And here I was, just thinking as I came up the stairs that it’s a miracle Joey has so much of that insulation stuff he’s been putting on the pipes downstairs. By rights, he should be almost done with the roll, except it looks like he’s only used a quarter of it. Which makes me want to believe in miracles again. And…”

“And?” Rachel prompted him, turning around in her beloved’s arms.

“And it makes me remember how much I still love you, now that the burdens are being lifted from our shoulders,” Steve whispered, looking down into Rachel’s brown eyes. His smile faded, replaced by a sober look. “I forgot that, because of all our troubles. I didn’t stop loving you, but I did forget to tell you how much I still love you. And how much I appreciate you being here, working so hard right beside me. If there’s any miracles happening in this house, you are one of them. I don’t know how else to tell it to you, to make you believe…except…”

Backing up from her, he lowered one knee to the linoleum-covered floor, holding her hands in his. His legs ached from all the work he’d done, climbing through all that snow and back, but that didn’t matter. It was the look on her face, surprised yet tender, that provided all the cushion he needed.

“Rachel Rutherford, love of my life…will you still marry me?” Steve asked her. “For richer or poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and health…and in spite of tornado and blizzard?”

His wry question chased away her tears, though her smile was still tremulous. “Of course I will. God couldn’t keep me from marrying you…and He wouldn’t stop it, either.” Freeing one hand, she ran her fingers through his crisp curls, loving their springy texture. “You’re a good man, Steven Bethel. The only man for me. I’m sorry I forgot to show my own deep love and appreciation of you, too.”

Kissing her other hand, Steve pushed back onto his feet. He groaned as he did so, his muscles sore, then smiled at her, pulling her into a hug that was a lot less tense than the one they had shared the previous day. “It’s been a rough five months, hasn’t it? But if we think about it, if we can survive all of this, then we can survive marriage together.”

“Yes, we can,” Rachel sighed, snuggling her cheek into his shoulder.

A voice cleared itself back at the doorway. Steve twisted the two of them a little, so they could both see who it was. Mike stood in the doorway, looking apologetic for interrupting their privacy, yet somehow pleased by the sight of them embracing tenderly. “Pardon the intrusion, but the apple crumble is bubbling, the cheese is melting, and I have only twenty minutes before giving my last devotions for the evening. My stomach politely reminds me that it is not necessary for me to fast before doing so at this time of the year.”

His grin made the other two smile ruefully. Squeezing his fiancée, Steve let go with a sigh. “I’ll call the boys up from the basement.”

“I’ll bring the plates,” Rachel agreed, and smiled as Mike offered his assistance.

WITH THE LAST OF THE DESSERT DISHES HAND-SCRUBBED—the dishwasher took up too much energy to run—and all of the dishes dried and stacked in the cupboards, with their guests retired for the night and nothing more needing to be done until morning, Rachel nudged her fiancé toward the kitchen woodstove and the four milk pails set on its surface. “Grab a pot holder and help me carry these pails, will you?”

Quirking a brow, Steve did as she bid. “What are they for?”

“Well, I didn’t want to run too much water from the tanks, what with the power coming from the generator for both the heating units, and the well pump. And I wasn’t sure how many of our guests would want a hot shower before going to bed,” Rachel explained, taking a couple of pads to lift the handles on two of the pails herself. “I turned the sink on a trickle while you were out, to try to keep the pipes from freezing—yes, I know that didn’t quite work—but it had to be done, and since I lit a fire in the stove to heat the back end of the house, I thought, why put both of them to waste?

“I was going to just draw a regular bath, but it all came together nicely enough,” she added, voice tight as she hauled the heavy pails across the hall, into their own ground-floor bedroom.

With the door shut and the heat out for a while, the room was chilly. She manipulated the lever-style handles for both bedroom and private bath, stopping only when she reached the old-fashioned, big, deep claw-footed tub, with its sloped back and refinished porcelain surface. It had been restored as an engagement gift from Steve’s parents, since it was just big enough for the two of them to nestle in like spoons.

Rachel had blushed when that had been explained to her, but it had told her just how much his parents supported the thought of her as their daughter-in-law. Setting down her pails, she made sure the tub was stoppered, shook some sandalwood-scented bath salts into the tub, then lifted the first pail over the rim, pouring its steaming contents into the basin. If she hadn’t grown used to hauling the heavy pails around in the last several months, helping Steve occasionally in the dairy, her task would have been that much harder.

“What, no bubble bath?” Steve quipped, copying her by pouring one of his own pails into the tub. The water was quite hot, though not scalding; it quickly perfumed the air with scented steam.