Pamela Morsi by Sweetwood Bride Page B

certain.
    When Eulie’s husband began to harness the jenny, he walked over to help. Mr. Leight always appreciated an extra pair of hands.
    “Stand back,” Collier told him. “She’s liable to kick you.”
    “I was going to hand you the jackstrap,” Rans said.
    “Just stay back,” he insisted. “This old jenny is a one-man mule for certain.”
    Rans did move back then, all the way to the fence—not because he was cautious of the mule, but because he was cautious of the man. He leaned in studied indolence against the railing, his eyes narrowed in displeasure. To have his help refused was a slight he could hardly bear. If he was not allowed to pull his weight here, he would have to leave. A horse that didn’t work should not be tolerated. And a man that wouldn’t work could not be. Rans could never take sustenance from a man’s table without earning his share.
    Leaving, he knew well, was an easy thing to decide to do but a difficult one to have come to pass. The truth came to him repeatedly when, like last night, he would take off in a fit of anger. There was no real hope of leaving without planning. A man required a poke of needments, victuals for the trip, a sample of coin, and a destination in mind.
    Rans had none of these.
    He had been so hopeful about Mr. Leight. Bug, as he was called by most in the Sweetwood, was a very patient, thoughtful fellow. He appreciated hard work and knew an able hand when he saw one. It was Leight who first gave Rans hope that a man could indeed berespected for what he did rather than who he was. And Bug’s quiet good nature was so unshakable that the worst of Rans’s moods bothered him not at all.
    Rans worked for room and board, which he was careful and conscientious to earn every day.
    When Clara came to cook for them, well, things just got better. Mr. Leight was a bit shy with her at first, seeming a bit uncomfortable about having a woman in the house. And Clara was a little flustered herself, blushing every time the man spoke to her. That day early in the spring when he’d picked a handful of wildflowers by the fence row to “bring some color to the cabin,” Clara had become all honey-eyed and sweet-voiced about it.
    Rans couldn’t have been more pleased. Bug was a fine fellow, and Clara could do no better than a steady, dependable man who obviously adored her and respected her brother.
    Unfortunately, Eulie didn’t see it that way.
    Moss Collier began to lead the jenny out of the enclosure, and Rans followed.
    The man turned abruptly and looked at him.
    Rans spoke up first.
    “You going to plow some before that east rain gets here?”
    Collier’s brow furrowed as he answered. “That’s what I intended.”
    “It sounds like a good idea,” Rans agreed, a bit loftily. “We’d better get at it.”
    “You haven’t even had your breakfast,” the man said.
    Rans shrugged. “I’ll grab a biscuit and meet you in the field.”
    Collier hesitated, his expression one of rather obvious discomfiture. “Perhaps you’d better stay here and help your sister,” he said. “She told me that she’d be trying to expand the garden today.”
    Rans stood still as a stone. The vegetable garden was women’s work. He was being relegated to being no more a hand on this place than one of his sisters.
    Without another word, Rans turned and began walking away.
    “I got to get out of here,” he muttered to himself determinedly. “Some way, somehow, I got to get out of here.”

7
    E ULIE was determined that no one and nothing was going to ruin their first day together as a family on the farm. Not that anyone was going to make it easy for her. Rans was in a bad temper. Minnie was in a pout. The twins kept getting distracted by all the new things around them. And Clara kept looking at her as if she’d grown two heads.
    “Are you sure you want to do this today?” Clara asked her. “If you aren’t … aren’t well and need to rest …”
    “Rest? In the best part of the day?”