Sweet Annie Part 28

Mildred seemed in a hospitable mood, serving hot chocolate, and even handing Luke a cup and saucer, though she didn't meet his eyes.

A cherry wood tea cart held a silver service with steaming tea and orange-glazed cinnamon rolls. "Mmm, did Glenda make these?" Annie asked, biting into one.

"She came and baked yesterday," Mildred replied.

Luke had noted the festive decorations and the elegant furnis.h.i.+ngs. The gleaming silver and fancy pastries, the talk of Mildred's cook shed an unkind light on all that Annie had given up to marry him. Her sacrifice humbled him. He could never do enough to show her his grat.i.tude.

"I brought pies," Annie said.

The pride in her voice warmed him clear to his soul. Her accomplishments were enormous, and anyone who couldn't see that was a blind, shallow person.

"Apple?" her father asked, one brow raised.

Luke wanted to kiss him for sounding appreciative.

His beautiful wife nodded, her new earrings bobbing. "I haven't figured out pumpkin yet."

"Good for you," Diana said. "I've barely figured out the stove."

Burdell agreed with a nod that earned him a quelling look.

"Do you have help?" Luke asked Diana. Was Annie the only one without a cook and housekeeper?

She nodded. "Not a gem like Glenda, but Mrs. Hopkins is efficient and dependable. She helps with Will, too, and will be ever so beneficial with a new little one."

Luke had cowardly second thoughts about telling her family. If Diana had help, what would they think of Annie having to keep house and mother all on her own-as well as sewing to add to their income? Suddenly, he worried that he wasn't at all the husband Annie had needed, if he couldn't provide as well as she deserved.

The women drifted toward the kitchen and dining room, leaving Luke with Annie's father, uncle, brother and little Will. The child played with a set of carved horses he'd brought from home-a gift that morning. Burdell set up checkers on an inlaid drum table and asked Eldon to play.

Eldon declined, wanting to read a newspaper while the women were gone. Mort declined, as well, closing his eyes where he sat.

Burdell glanced at Luke.

Luke glanced at the board.

Their eyes met.

"Want to play?" Burdell asked finally.

Luke wasn't sure if he did or not, but he wasn't going to decline this first measure of truce. "Sure."

He seated himself across from Annie's brother and Burdell said, "You move first."

The game progressed slowly. Burdell played intensely, and Luke didn't know if the man was always fiercely compet.i.tive or if he just couldn't stand to lose to Luke. Having spent many a winter night playing checkers before a fire with his uncle, Luke held his own. The aromatic cooking smells drifted to them, and Luke's mouth watered.

He glanced up to find Burdell studying his face. His gaze went to Luke's mouth and Luke raised a concealing finger to his lip, self-consciously hiding the scar.

"Dinner is served," Charmaine called from the doorway. Annie stood beside her cousin, and her eyebrows shot up at the checker game underway. "Who's winning?" she whispered to Luke, when he took her arm.

"n.o.body yet," he replied.

All the food had been placed on the table and the marble-topped buffet, the ham having been sliced before it was carried out, so everyone helped themselves and ate. Luke marveled at the bountiful feast.

"Shall we have our dessert later?" Annie asked.

The men agreed with that suggestion, and Burdell followed Mort and Eldon to the parlor.

Luke stayed to help, scrubbed a roasting pan and a kettle, and went for wood and fresh water as he was accustomed to doing at home, and dried a stack of plates that Annie had washed.

Mildred kept her distance, covertly watching him. Charmaine questioned Luke about the amount of snow in the foothills. Vera handed him a jar of her fudge sauce and asked him to unscrew the lid. Vera was a ranch wife, he realized, accustomed to doing her own cooking and laundry, so perhaps Annie didn't think it was so awful going without.

Mildred appeared to want to dry and sort her silverware herself, so he excused himself.

"Thank you for the help, Luke!" Vera and Charmaine called. Annie gave him a sweet little wave with her dish towel.

"Does he always help you like that?" Charmaine asked as he left the room.

"You wanna finish that game?" Luke asked Burdell, and the man rose to take his place at the game table.

They both had three kings left when the women returned from the kitchen with fresh coffee.

"Shall we save it for later or call it a draw?" Burdell's dark gaze bored into Luke's purposefully.

Luke knew he was referring to more than the checker game. The man's eyes were serious, his expression intense. "Let's call it even," he replied.

Something flickered in Burdell's eyes. He gave a curt nod and placed the game pieces back to their original starting positions.

An old score had been settled here, without so many words, without apology or accusation. Luke thought of the baby, frustrated that his and Annie's excitement had to be dulled by their fear of this family's reaction. He was averse to opening any new wounds right away.

"Can we open presents now?" Annie asked, and she and Charmaine gave each other wide-eyed looks of excitement. He discovered quickly that Annie's eagerness was over the gifts they'd purchased and that she'd made for her family rather than expectation of what she would receive.

Luke remained astonished that she'd turned out so many handsomely made garments in such short time. Her father opened his gift and examined the s.h.i.+rt she'd sewn for him.

"This is a finely tailored s.h.i.+rt," he said. "Did you find someone out East to make it?"

"I made it myself, Daddy," she told him.

"You what?" He looked at it again.

"I made it myself."

Speechless, he turned it over, examined the cuffs and the collar and the exquisite st.i.tches. "Why didn't I know you could do this?"

"I guess I never had the opportunity before. I've always done needlepoint, but never had a chance to sew. It comes easily for me. Besides, it's fun."

"It's an extraordinary gift," her father said.

Annie's face glowed with his simple praise. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning when she glanced at Luke. He gave her a smile and offered Eldon an appreciative glance. Could the man possibly know how much his approval meant to his daughter?

For Vera she'd chosen a bottle of perfume, for Charmaine a pair of gloves with pearls and lace sewn across the knuckles. Mort received a horse book Luke had selected.

Annie had made Burdell a vest and Diana a lace-edged pillow as well as a baby blanket. They'd chosen a wooden train pull-toy for Will, and he dragged it across the floor making choo-chooing noises.

Mildred watched the interaction with mild interest, the package Annie had handed her still on her lap.

"You haven't opened yours, Aunt Mildred," Charmaine said.

Annie cast her mother an openly hopeful look, and Luke took a deep breath.

Annie's mother steadied the heavy gift on her lap. Expressionlessly, she untied the silver bow and let the paper fall back, exposing a flat wooden hinged box.

Unfastening the catch on the front, she raised the lid. Inside lay two rows of small tubes and an array of long slender brushes.

Annie handed her something she'd hidden behind the divan. "These, too, Mother." She lifted brown paper away and showed Mildred the blank canvases.

"A paint set," Charmaine said, and glanced at Annie.

"Your aunt used to paint years ago," Mort told Charmaine.

Annie's mother looked up, her eyes dark and unreadable.

"Do you like it, Mother?" Annie asked. Her vulnerability tore at Luke's heart.

"Why did you buy this?" Mildred asked. "Where did you get the money?"

"Well, I worked for the money," Annie explained, as if the fact should have been obvious, and as if the question in itself wasn't rude.

"Worked for it?" Her mother arched one eyebrow.

"Yes, I-I've been sewing. For the ladies in town. I have a lady in Fort Parker now, too."

"When you mentioned sewing, I thought you meant lady's work. Not hiring yourself out as a common seamstress."

"There's nothing shameful about honest work," Luke said. "I'm proud of Annie's sewing."

Annie tried to change the subject by answering her mother's other question. "I bought supplies for you because you told me you liked to paint at one time. I thought you would like to try it again."

Mildred closed the wooden lid. "I'm not living in a fantasy world, Annie. I have learned to accept my life the way it is, and not to foolishly pine for things that cannot be."

Her words brought silence to the room. No one seemed to move or breathe.

"I don't see why you can't still paint," Annie said in a cajoling voice. "Just because you haven't done it for a while, doesn't mean you can't start again."

"A person needs tutoring to be any good," she said. "Techniques must be learned."

Annie's father had grown still. He studied his wife and daughter with a pained expression.

"Well, I think you could still try it for fun," Annie said.

"Not everyone's life revolves around fun," Mildred countered, her words obviously hurting Annie. "Some of us take our responsibilities seriously."

Annie's once gay smile had already faded. She turned luminous eyes to her father, who looked away, and then toward Luke.

"What's really special," he said, "is when your responsibilities seem like fun because you're doing what you want to do." He gave Annie an encouraging smile.

"I'm very impressed with your sewing skills," Charmaine added.

Annie gave her a halfhearted smile.

"There are more gifts to open," Luke said, trying to sound cheerful, and wis.h.i.+ng instead he could stuff a wool sock in Mildred Sweet.w.a.ter's mouth and give her a good shake. "Annie hasn't opened hers."

Annie opened gloves and perfume and a tea set and books. Luke received a pipe and tobacco from the Renlows, a belt and handkerchiefs from Diana and Burdell. Eldon had purchased them an oval Florentine design gold-framed mirror. Burdell and Diana got one just like it.

Charmaine gave Luke and Annie an unusual dinner-plate-size round picture of two horse heads in a circular ebony frame. "I thought you'd like something for your mantel, and the horses made me think of you."

"That's very thoughtful," Luke told her. "It will look perfect on the mantel."

Annie hugged her cousin.

"And it's a reminder," he heard Charmaine tell her softly, "that the next too-good-to-be-true man is mine."

Eldon made a big production over Annie's pies next, as though he wanted to make up for her mother's cold responses.

They sat about with full stomachs, the scents of coffee and cinnamon and evergreen in the air, and Luke brought up the subject he and Annie had agreed to share this day. Might as well get it out and deal with it. "Annie and I have something exciting to tell you," he said.

Heads turned their way.

"Do you want to?" he asked her. She was seated on the upholstered footstool in front of him.

Her eyes let him know she was still uncertain. She seemed to think a moment before she nodded and reached back for his hand.

He tried to rea.s.sure her with a firm, but gentle grasp.

Without preamble, she spoke the words. "We're going to have a baby."

Poignant silence prevailed.

"We're incredibly happy, and we want this more than anything," she rushed on. "I've been to the doctor and he says there's nothing to prevent me from having a healthy child."

Mildred's hand came up to cover her mouth.

"What doctor did you see?" her father asked, finally speaking out.

"Dr. Martin in town."

"Perhaps you should see a doctor back East-" he began.

"Dr. Martin has always been perfectly capable of caring for me," Diana spoke up. "He delivered Will and he's going to deliver this baby." She placed a hand on her slightly protruding belly.