Karen Kirst - The Husband Hunt

While they could use his help with the henhouse, beans for the third night in a row didn’t appeal to Sophie, either. Maybe fried fish would tempt Granddad to eat. “Sure thing.” She squelched the urge to smooth his hair. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have minded. Things were different now, though.

She watched as he ambled off to the barn to fetch his fishing pole.

“Are you ready to get started?” Nathan prompted.

She shifted her gaze to his face, shadowed by his Stetson’s black brim. “Not yet.”

“Uh-oh, I’ve seen that look before. What’s on your mind?”

“If you want to help me, you have to allow me to give you something in return.”

Something mysterious slipped through his eyes, something she’d never seen before—a mini-explosion of heat and want immediately contained, hidden from view as if it had never been. Her heart thudded in her hollowed-out chest. What—

“Sausages,” he blurted.

“Huh?”

His entire body stiff, he turned and walked away, jerking up the ends of four long planks and dragging them toward the spot where they would rebuild.

“Everyone knows you make the best-tasting sausages around. If you insist on paying me, I’ll take some of those.”

Sophie stayed where she was, not a little confused by his reaction to a simple statement. “Okay. Sausages it is. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

He dropped the planks and shot her an enigmatic look. “I’m positive that’s all I want from you.”

She went to help him, certain she was missing something and feeling her mother’s absence more keenly than ever.

Chapter Four

Three hours later, Nathan hammered the last nail into place on the new roof. Despite his fatigue, the thin film of sweat coating his skin and the hunger pangs in his belly, satisfaction brought a smile to his face. He stepped back to admire his and Sophie’s handiwork.

This henhouse was shorter and wider than the original...and all but impossible to tip over. A small ladder led up to the hatch above the man-size door, allowing the chickens to come and go as they pleased during the day.

“What do you think, Soph?” He glanced over to where she was replacing her tools in the box.

She shot him a tired smile over her shoulder. “I think this one will outlast you and me both.” When she stretched out her hand to snag her hammer lying in the grass, he noticed her fingers shaking.

Chucking his own hammer on the ground, he crossed to the elm tree and the basket of food he’d put there. “Can you help me with something?”

Straightening, she flipped her golden braid behind her shoulder and joined him without a word, taking the ends of the red, white and blue pinwheel quilt he held out to her and helping him spread it on the ground.

“Now what?” She looked to him for direction.

“Have a seat.” He knelt on the quilt and withdrew the smoked ham and cheese sandwiches, jar of pickled beets and container of coleslaw.

Eyeing the bounty, she gestured behind her. “I should put my tools in the barn and go check on Granddad.”

“You checked on him fifteen minutes ago.” He lifted two mason jars full of sweet tea and propped them against the trunk. “How about you eat something first? I packed enough for both of us. Will, too. I’m sure he’ll come ’round when he’s hungry.”

She wavered.

Nathan produced a cloth-covered plate. “Aren’t you curious what’s under here?” he teased.

When Sophie sank down on the quilt, the hunger finally showing on her face, he couldn’t suppress a grin.

“Oatmeal cookies?” she asked hopefully.

“Nope.”

Tapping her chin, she mused, “Peach turnovers?”

“Uh-uh.”

She threw up her hands. “Tell me already.”

He lifted the white cloth to reveal thick slices of apple crumb cake.

“Mind if I have my dessert first?” She grinned mischievously and swiped a slice, humming with pleasure as she sank her teeth into the spicy-sweet cake.

Nathan couldn’t tear his gaze away. Her eyes were closed, and he noticed for the first time how her thick lashes lay like fans against her cheeks, how her neat brows arched with an intriguing, sassy tilt above her lids. A breeze stirred the wisps of hair framing her oval face.

She opened her eyes then, caught him staring and flushed. Shrugged self-consciously. “I forgot to eat breakfast.”

He pointed to where stray crumbs clung to her lips. “You, ah, have some, ah...”

Averting her gaze, she brushed them away. He turned his attention to his sandwich, his thoughts flitting around like lightning bugs trapped in a jar. Why all of a sudden was he noticing these things about her? Why was he acutely aware of her appearance when he hadn’t been before? Whatever had caused the change, he didn’t like it. Not one bit. Not only was this preoccupation inconvenient, it had the potential to embarrass them both.

Halfway through his meal, he put two and two together. If Sophie went too long between meals she got jittery and light-headed. And it had been right around suppertime when he had come upon her and that skunk.

He lowered his sandwich to his lap. “Sophie?”

“What?”

“The other day when the skunk had you cornered, why didn’t you tell me you were feeling puny?”

She swallowed her last bite of cake and looked at him in surprise. “You didn’t give me a chance.”

Of course he didn’t. He’d been livid. “I’m sorry.”

She hitched a shoulder. “I could’ve waited a little longer. Moved a little slower.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Your well-being comes first, no matter what.”

Remembering how he’d scolded her, he grimaced, regret tightening his stomach.

It was a pattern, he realized. Back when they were kids and she’d first insisted on tagging along with him and his brothers, he alone had seemed to mind her presence. Josh had treated her with the same teasing affection as he did their cousins, and Caleb, impressed with her adventurous spirit, had been thrilled to have her around. Not Nathan. More often than not, the two of them had been at odds. While he was cautious and tended to think before he acted, she was impetuous and spontaneous and didn’t always anticipate the consequences of her actions.

Which led to disagreements. And him lecturing her like an overbearing older brother.

She’s not a little girl anymore, O’Malley. She’s a mature young woman in charge of her own life and capable of making her own decisions. No doubt she doesn’t appreciate your know-it-all behavior.

Perhaps it was time to step back and give her some space. This friendship of theirs was morphing into something unrecognizable, with strange new facets he wasn’t quite comfortable with.

* * *

Sophie didn’t know what to say. Or think. Nathan was an intelligent man. Perceptive, too. A quality that served him well in dealing with his five female cousins. That he’d noticed her need just now—the shakes had set in with a vengeance right about the time she’d begun sorting her tools—and understood that her haste the other day had stemmed from the same issue didn’t surprise her.

Hasn’t he always watched out for you? Even when he was tempted to throttle you.

It was true. Nathan’s protective instincts were legendary. Not only had she heard the O’Malley girls complain about his overprotective ways, she herself had been on the receiving end of his lectures countless times—lengthy discourses about safety and the wisdom of taking proper precautions—and, she recalled with a shudder, his ire when he thought she’d acted recklessly. To give him credit, many times she had deserved his set-downs.

What she couldn’t figure out was why he was acting strangely today. There was a distracted air about him, a confounded light in his eyes that aroused her curiosity.