The Christmas Quandary: Sweet Historical Holiday Romance (Hardman Holidays Book 5) Page 4

  While he looked in on his daughter, Filly checked on the baby then ladled the stew into a serving bowl and placed it on the table. Lila sliced bread and set it on the table, along with freshly churned butter and peach jelly.

  Maura bounced on her father’s back as he carried her into the kitchen, seemingly revived by her nap.

  Halfway through dinner, she listed to one side and her head rocked back against the chair.

  “Poor thing is just done in,” Filly said, brushing her fingers across Maura’s forehead, pushing back the child’s mop of curls.

  Luke started to scoot his chair back, but Filly motioned for him to remain seated. “Eat your stew, Luke. I’ll take her upstairs.” She rose and lifted Maura in her arms, cuddling her daughter close as she left the room.

  After watching her go, Luke buttered another slice of bread and dipped a corner of it in his stew. “There’s nothing quite like hearty beef stew on a cold winter day.”

  “I agree, cousin,” Lila said, helping herself to a second slice of bread. It was a good thing she stayed very active or she’d gain ten pounds eating Filly’s cooking. Lila had dined on some of the best food money could buy, but she preferred the delicious, simple meals Luke’s wife prepared.

  Despite Dora’s continued insistence that Luke needed to hire a cook and full-time housekeeper, Filly enjoyed caring for her home and cooking meals. Mrs. Kellogg, a pleasant older woman, came three times a week to help with laundry, cleaning, and baking.

  Lila liked to think her presence at the house helped alleviate some of Filly’s work. She knew if the woman didn’t enjoy it, Luke would have hired more help a long time ago.

  He took pride in Filly’s abilities and relished the meals she prepared, as did the endless string of guests who found their way to the Granger table.

  Greg and Dora were frequent visitors, even though Dora had a full-time cook, a housekeeper, a butler, a gardener, and a lady’s maid.

  Lila was accustomed to having servants wait on her, but her mother also thought it important for her to learn all domestic skills. Grateful for her mother’s wisdom, Lila could prepare a meal, wash a load of laundry, and remove crayon marks from wallpaper.

  Thoughts of Maura coloring a picture on the wall in the dining room made her grin. The little girl had grown quiet one afternoon. After searching the house, Lila finally found her sitting on the floor behind the dining room table, contentedly drawing on the wall.

  Lila watched with interest as Filly lectured the child on why that was not acceptable, took her crayons away for a week, and made Maura help clean up the mess.

  “Well, what did you think?” Luke asked, covering another piece of bread with a liberal coating of jelly.

  Lila pulled her attention back to the present. “My apologies, Luke. I missed the question.”

  He grinned. “Dreaming of Emerson again?”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly.”

  The look he shot her held a bit of scrutiny. “I asked what you thought of Tom Grove.”

  “He seems like a nice man. Several of the students mentioned how much they like him.” Lila swirled her spoon around in her bowl of rapidly cooling stew. “Do you think his arm being in a cast will hamper his ability to control the class?”

  “No, not at all. Tom has a good head on his shoulders. I used to think he’d become a teacher, but then he ventured off to Portland to work as a reporter for the newspaper there. From the articles I’ve read, he’s quite good.”

  “Did he give any thought to working at the local paper?” Lila asked. She knew Ginny sometimes wrote articles or created illustrations for Ed Daily, owner of the Hardman newspaper.

  “He worked there off and on before he left for Portland. His father owns a farm and Tom’s help was needed there most of the time.” Luke took a bite of stew.

  “How does his father manage now, with Mr. Grove in Portland?” Lila toyed with her bread.

  “He hired two boys to help him this summer. There’s not nearly as much work during the winter months.” Luke glanced over at Lila. “I’m glad James and Junie encouraged Tom to leave. Not everyone is cut out to do what their father has done.”

  Lila tossed him a saucy grin. “And that’s why you spend less and less time at the bank and more time chasing cows, playing with Blake’s horses and begging your wife for cookies.”

  Luke snorted. “The third best decision I ever made was making Arlan a partner at the bank. He could manage it with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back.”

  “I’d like to see that. If he gives a demonstration, you must let me know.” Lila grinned. “If that’s your third best decision, what were the other two?”

  “Accepting Filly as a bargain, and marrying her.”

  They remained silent a few moments, then Luke looked to Lila again. “I told Tom if he needed help writing lessons on the blackboard we’d have someone available. Would you mind? You generally walk Maura to school in the morning anyway. If you checked in with him then, it wouldn’t take too much of your time. Tom is right handed, and that’s the arm he busted. Until he gains more mobility with it, he can’t do much writing.”

  “I’d be happy to help. In fact, I could check in with him at noon when I go to retrieve Maura. That way, if something occurred during the morning he wanted to add to the blackboard, I could do it then.”

  “That’s a fine plan.” Luke helped himself to another ladle of stew.

  Curious, Lila wondered what made him appear so pleased. Eventually, she’d find out.

  Chapter Four

  After he stopped to say hello to several friends, Tom made his way over to see Alex Guthry. Although she looked pale and weary, she met him with a warm smile and questioned him all about his work. Arlan joined them at noon with sandwiches he’d purchased from Mrs. Ferguson at the boarding house.

  As they ate lunch, Tom listened to the advice Alex shared about handling each of the students at the school, and how best to keep them interested and engaged in their lessons. Once they finished eating, he met his dad at the mercantile. Tom stocked up on supplies then James helped carry them back to the little house by the school.

  He rode back to the farm with his father and spent the afternoon with his parents, talking about teaching, farming, and plans for the holidays. Junie made all his favorites for dinner. After she washed and dried the dishes, they all bundled up and gathered Tom’s things to take into town.

  His mom insisted on giving him plenty of warm blankets, two sets of sheets, fluffy pillows, and a stack of towels. She added butter, milk, eggs, and the last of the cinnamon rolls to a box of food. His dad tucked in half a smoked ham, a slab of bacon, and a beef roast.

  The trip into Hardman passed quickly with the three of them recalling fun memories from past winter seasons. Before Tom would have thought it possible, they arrived at the house that would be his home for the next month. His parents helped carry in everything then his mother made the bed.

  “If you want a ride out sooner than Friday evening, let us know,” Junie said, giving him a tight hug.

  “I will, Mama. I’ll see you on Friday.” Tom smiled at them both and waved his left hand as they climbed on the wagon and left.

  Tom arose early, anticipating the day ahead. He built up the fire in the stove at his house, tugged on his coat, and stepped out into a world coated in frosty white.

  His boots crunched across the crusted snow as he walked over to the school. He unlocked the door and hurried to build a fire in the stove so the room would be warm by the time the students arrived.

  Satisfied with his efforts, he returned to the teacher’s house and changed his clothes from a pair of old canvas pants and a worn woolen shirt into one of the suits he wore for work. He struggled with the buttons and barely managed to execute a sloppy tie. He doubted the students would be overly critical. If anything, some of the older ones would tease him for not dressing like a farmer.

  Tom ate two of the cinnamon rolls his mother had packed for him a
nd finished off his meal with a glass of milk, grateful for the help and care of his parents. He washed the dishes, gathered a stack of books and the lesson plans he’d made with Alex’s help, then headed to the schoolhouse.

  He hung his coat on a hook near the door, adjusted the sling on his arm, and strode down the aisle to the desk at the front of the room.

  Alex had given him a booklet she’d kept from when she first received her teaching certification. Tom spent the previous evening pouring over the details offered for successfully mastering a classroom.

  Among the many pages of wisdom, he’d studied a list of dos and don’ts all teachers should adhere to:

  Do not lose your head or your temper.

  Do not appear meek to your students.

  Do enter the classroom with a purposeful gait and gaze lifted with a steady eye.

  Do decide exactly what you will and will not allow in your classroom.

  Do make your standards perfectly clear from the start.

  Do appear to take it for granted that you will get what you want from the students.

  Do state your plans in a clear manner and under no circumstances change your mind.

  Do not allow a wayward child to escape punishment from kindness of heart.

  Do not threaten vaguely or offer general declarations.

  Do not grumble or nag.

  Do not make exceptions to your rules, once established.

  Do not allow a child to argue about a punishment.

  Tom decided some of the rules were good, others questionable. If possible, he hoped to avoid meting out punishment. As a substitute teacher who would be gone after Christmas, he didn’t feel it was his place to come into Alex’s classroom and change anything. He wouldn’t tolerate disrespect or disruption, but beyond those things, he wanted the children to be free to express their thoughts and ideas.

  He grinned, ruminating over the students he’d be teaching. Among the liveliest were Percy Bruner and Erin Dodd. Throw little Maura Granger into the mix, and the classroom would be far from boring.

  The sound of children’s laughter drew his gaze out a side window. Students arrived, setting their slates and lunches on the step as they rushed to get in a few minutes of play before he rang the bell signaling the beginning of classes for the day.

  He opened the notebook with his lesson plans and picked up a piece of chalk. After several starts and stops, he stared at the blackboard, wondering how he’d force his left hand to write legibly enough the children could read it. Boots stamping on the steps outside pulled his attention to the door.

  Lila Granger breezed inside with a bright smile and the wafting scent of lilacs. If he’d been given to fanciful thoughts, Tom would have said she carried sunshine like a mantle across her shoulders and springtime in her step.

  “Good morning, Miss Granger,” he said, in his most polite tone.

  “Good morning, Mr. Grove. Luke asked me to see if you needed help writing anything on the blackboard when I walked Maura to school this morning. My fingers are yours if you need them.” She tugged off a fur-lined leather glove the color of emeralds and waggled her delicate hand at him as she walked up the aisle between the desks.

  The desire to grasp her hand in his and pull her close enough to kiss made him take a step back, away from temptation. Instead, he smiled and nodded. “Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, Miss Granger. I was just pondering the best way to go about scribbling on the board with my left hand.”

  She tugged off her other glove and shoved them into her coat pocket. Hastily, she unbuttoned her coat and draped it over his chair then took the piece of chalk from his hand.

  Tom tried not to stare at the green plaid woolen dress she wore that matched her gloves or the fine shape of her figure when she removed her coat.

  “Where shall we begin?” she glanced at him over her shoulder.

  Unaware he’d been intently staring at her, Tom turned and lifted the notebook he’d left open on his desk.

  “If you’d be so kind, I’d like to put these spelling words on the board,” he said, stepping beside her and holding out the notebook in his left hand.

  “Your wish is my command.” Lila grinned and began printing the words on the board. “Did you get settled into the teacher’s house? Luke said you planned to stay there until Christmas.”

  “I did. My folks helped me yesterday,” Tom said. Of all the women he’d met, why did the presence of the one standing next to him with a smudge of chalk dust on the curve of her exquisite cheek render him incapable of keeping his thoughts straight?

  He drew in a deep breath to clear his mind and nearly choked on the soft scent of lilacs enveloping him. Unable to focus on the spelling words she wrote on the blackboard, his gaze roved over the waves of her dark hair. Pinned beneath the brim of a black hat, trimmed with green and navy blue plumes and a plump cabbage rose the color of plums, one wayward tendril lazily trailed along the slim column of her neck.

  Tom wanted, in the worst way, to reach out and finger that silky strand. In need of distance from the entrancing woman, or perhaps to stand a few minutes in the bracing cold air, he subtly moved away from her.

  Oblivious to his distracted state, Lila wrote the last word and looked at Tom. “Anything else?” she asked.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her no and that her help wouldn’t be required in the future, but necessity won over the turmoil churning inside him. “If you wouldn’t mind writing these arithmetic assignments, I’d be most appreciative.” Tom turned the page and showed her the list of numbers.

  “Certainly.”

  Tom cleared his throat, doing his best to look anywhere other than the fabric straining across her bodice as she reached up to write one of the math problems on the blackboard. “So, are you here for an extended time or will you return to New York soon?”

  He’d asked his parents a few questions about the Granger family and manipulated the conversation around to finding out Lila arrived in town a few months ago, her parents were deceased, and she’d been a big help to Luke and Filly after the arrival of their son.

  Lila continued posting the math problems. “I’ll most likely return to New York at the end of January. My fiancé will be back then. He’s been gone for a year, studying at the University of Oxford. Emerson is so smart. He plans to…”

  Stunned by the revelation Lila was engaged to wed, Tom took another step away from her. He had no business entertaining any ideas about the intriguing girl in the first place. Considering her betrothed state, he absolutely had no right to hold any thoughts about her.

  What was he thinking?

  Clearly, he hadn’t been.

  Annoyed with himself, he moved further away.

  “Oh, can you bring the notebook closer?” she asked, striving to see the next math problem.

  “Sorry,” Tom muttered, holding the notebook out while he remained an arms-length away. Suddenly, the classroom felt very small and incredibly confining.

  He didn’t care if he had to pay Percy a nickel every day to come write the lessons on the board, he couldn’t spend more time around Lila Granger. With every nerve ending attuned to each move she made, every sense activated by her presence, spending any additional time alone with her would be pure stupidity.

  “All finished,” she said, setting down the chalk and pulling a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe away the dust lingering on her hands.

  “Thank you,” Tom said, setting the notebook on his desk, doing his best to ignore the bright light twinkling in eyes the color of the silvery leaves on his mother’s lamb’s ears plants.

  When Lila turned to him with more chalk dust on her cheek, Tom gave no thought to reaching out and brushing it away.

  At her startled look, he dropped his hand. “Chalk.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, smiling once again. Her graze traveled around the classroom then landed back on him. “Do you need assistance with anything before I leave?”

  “No, Miss Grange
r, but I do appreciate your help this morning.”

  “My pleasure,” she said, reaching for her coat. Tom did his best to help her slip it on one-handed.

  “Thank you, kind sir. I best be on my way. Filly and Abby will keep me busy until lunch running errands this morning.”

  “Then I won’t detain you,” Tom said, smiling down at her, wishing the consuming attraction he felt would immediately dissipate. He followed her down the aisle between the rows of desks to the door, admiring the way her skirts swished as she walked.

  Once again capturing his wayward thoughts, he sighed inwardly, mentally lecturing himself on proper comportment.

  At the door, Lila turned back to him. “If you need anything written on the blackboard this afternoon, I can do it when I check on Maura at lunch.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Miss Granger. You’ve already done more than enough.” Tom wondered if she had any idea of what, exactly, she’d done to him. In his unsettled state, the students would likely stage a revolt and take over the classroom before they got through the morning prayer.

  “Enjoy the morning, Mr. Grove.” Her hand lingered on the knob as she gave him a long, observant glance. She stepped in front of him and reached up, adjusting his tie. “We can’t have you greeting the students on your first day with your tie half undone.” Skillfully tying a knot, she stepped back and surveyed her work. “There, that’s much better. Now you look entirely respectable.”

  Tom smirked. “Does that mean I only looked partially respectable before?”

  Flustered, she opened the door and stepped outside. Cold air engulfed him as he continued staring at her.

  “I didn’t… that wasn’t… oh, I’ll see you later, Mr. Grove. Goodbye.”

  With that, she hurried down the steps, stopped to give Maura Granger a kiss on her upturned face, hugged Erin Dodd, then bustled off toward the heart of town.

  Tom watched her until she disappeared around a corner. He picked up the hand bell located just inside the door and rang it loudly, summoning the students to class.