Chapter 19

Mira had been too nervous to eat. Now she was too nervous to sleep. How would she ever fit in here at Sourwood? With Gordon?

He had lit a candle and led her into the adjoining room, where he took a pillow and cover off the bed, then to her embarrassment, pointed out the chamber pot before he said good night. After he went out and shut the door, the air seemed colder at once. That was to be expected, with the fireplace in the other room.

The only furniture was the bed, a chest, a bench at the foot of the bed, and two wooden boxes. A small pillow on one box indicated it must serve as a chair. Set on its end, the other box made a table. Gordon had placed the candle there. Her trunk was against one wall.

After she spread Miss Stella's quilt on the bed, she traced the connecting rings. A wedding ring quilt, the woman said. Two lives connected by marriage.

She wished Miss Stella was there to tell Mira what to do. Not that she didn't know what was expected. But she was in one room, Gordon in the other. Not exactly the way a wedding night was supposed to be.

Mira pulled her nightgown and robe from her bag. She slipped off her dress, but left the nightgown folded. After she loosened her corset, she pulled on the robe over her petticoats in case Gordon was wrong. Joseph had gone to the neighbor's house for coals. He was bound to have talked about the preacher's missus schoolteacher who didn't even know how to build a fire.

People talked about their preachers. And their teachers.

She pulled off her shoes but left on her stockings for warmth. When she knelt on a small rag rug beside the bed to say her prayers, the cold soaked up through the rug, her petticoats, and her robe.

Her teeth chattered as she whispered, "Dear Lord, forgive my failings and help me be a blessing to the children here. Watch over Gordon and Joseph and Ada June."

She paused as so many needs ran through her mind. Help me find a way to live here. Help me know how to be a preacher's wife. Give me joy in teaching these children. Show me what you want me to do. She didn't speak any of them aloud. The Lord knew her thoughts.

After she blew out the candle, she crawled under the covers and sank down into a soft featherbed. With no windows to let in any moonlight, the room was very dark, and she wished for the glow of the candle flame again. The night pressed down on her like an extra-thick blanket.

She took a long breath and then another. She was not afraid of the dark. Besides, the black of the night wasn't total. On the far wall a few rays of moonlight squeezed through cracks in the chinking between the logs. No doubt the cold came in as well.

Still, she should be warm. She had on her thick robe and at least two covers besides Miss Stella's quilt, but she couldn't stop shivering. If only she'd pulled her mother's bluebird out of her bag, she could hold it and not feel so alone.

Her mother's, or perhaps Miss Stella's, words were suddenly sounding in her head. "You don't have to be cold. You don't have to be alone."

She could go be by the fire. With Gordon. Where a wife should be.

Shivers continued to shake her. The cold wasn't all coming from the outside. She felt cold inside too. "Till death do you part." This would be no way to live forever.

Gordon had given her such a tender look when he assured her things would get better. That she would settle in here in Sourwood. He was so kind.

What if their neighbors did show up in the middle of the night to serenade them as Gordon had said? They might come right through the front door without knocking and find their newly married preacher sleeping on the hearth. She could easily imagine what the people would think about that. What kind of bride made her husband sleep on the hearth? She might turn out to be as much of an outcast as poor Ada June's mother.

"Then do what needs doing."The voice was in her head again. This time it might be Miss Ophelia. Mira had no doubt that she was always ready to do whatever needed doing. Then again, she had not accepted the challenge to go west with the man she loved. Perhaps her voice was demanding Mira accept the realities of this challenge simply because she knew the cost of refusing to accept her own.

Mira had turned down Gordon's offer to let her come teach without accepting what she had earlier called his ridiculous proposal. Instead, she told him she wanted to be married. Ridiculous or not, she had not changed her mind. She did want to be married.

Whether she ever felt the heart-stopping love for Gordon that she had once known for Edward made no difference. She had been so young then. A woman her age now didn't need to be swept away by dreamy romance. She could be glad for kindness. Glad to be tied to a man who loved the Lord. Glad to have a purpose in life through teaching and, yes, being a preacher's wife, even if she wasn't yet sure she could live up to that task.

She folded back the covers and got out of bed. The floor was icy cold under her stocking feet. The tiny slivers of moonlight through the small holes in the chinking had been swallowed by the grainy black of almost total darkness. She felt along the side of the bed to its end, where she banged her knee against the bench.

She stood still and tried to visualize the room. The bed sat in the middle of the back wall. The box chair and her trunk were to her right. The chest was against the other wall. The door was across from the foot of the bed.

Nothing was between her and the door except her hesitation. A faint light shone at the bottom of the door and through the cracks between its boards.

The door groaned on its hinges when she eased it open. The room in front of her glowed with warmth as flames licked up from the log in the fireplace and invited her closer. Gordon was stretched out in front of the fire. Mira waited for him to sit up and look her way, but he didn't move. His breathing sounded relaxed and even. He must be asleep.

A new shiver shook through her as she hesitated again. Then, as if she were being pushed, she moved toward him. She barely kept herself from trying to knock away the hands she imagined propelling her across the room. Miss Stella would be smiling. Miss Ophelia wouldn't be smiling, but perhaps she wouldn't be frowning either. She might have that knowing teacher look when a student met her expectations.

Mira eased down to sit on the floor behind Gordon, who lay on his side facing the fire. She watched him in the flickering firelight. He was a nice-looking man. Not that outward looks mattered. The inner heart was more important. He had shown her that already, with his love for the Lord and the people here at Sourwood.

He must be very tired to sleep so soundly on the hard floor. She'd thought he would wake when she sat down beside him. Maybe that was the Lord's doing to make it all Mira's giving.

She lifted the edge of the wool blanket over him and scooted under it. The floor was cold even this close to the fire, but his warmth drew her as she moved closer to him until their bodies were touching.

Waking then, he turned toward her and murmured, "I must be dreaming."

"I was cold," she said.

He reached to pull her close. She surrendered to his warmth.

He had to be dreaming. Her touch, her whispered words a dream. But if so, he didn't want to wake up. Mira letting him hold her. Her lips looking so inviting in the firelight.

"The bed would be more comfortable than the floor," he said.

"Are you going to carry me over another threshold?" The whisper of her words was sweet against his cheek. "To keep away the bad spirits?"

"We don't need superstitious ways for that. We have our faith in the Lord. But that doesn't mean we couldn't have fun the way we did earlier."

"Fun. It's been so long since I've thought about having fun. It was always what was expected of me. What I needed to do."

He heard something in her voice on those last words. Tears perhaps. He moved a bit to better see her face. "I don't want to be a ‘need to do' for you. I hope you will instead think of being with me as a ‘want to do.'"

"That does sound best." She shifted her gaze from his face to the ceiling and fell silent.

He couldn't let her end their talk. "Then what is this? This coming to lie beside me. A ‘want to do' or something you felt duty bound to do?"

"Duty bound." She echoed his words without looking back at him. "I suppose a wife does have a duty to her husband."

"And a husband to his wife. But being together only as a duty sounds like an unhappy union."

"Till death do us part." The words were whispered almost as if she meant them for her ears only and not his.

A dozen things came to mind for him to say, but he had to let her choose her own words without trying to put his into her mind. The crackle of the fire and the tick of the clock he'd wound earlier were loud in the silence between them.

Finally she spoke. "A week ago, my life was settled. Duty bound, as you say, to my students. I took pleasure in reading, walking out through the neighborhood, and of course, my church."

"All those pleasures can be had here as well as—"

"Let me finish."

"I'm sorry. It is a fault I have. Wanting to encourage others to see things my way. Please say whatever is on your heart."

"Thank you." Another slight pause before she went on. "A week ago, if I had thought of you at all, it would have been as someone I vaguely remembered from school. And now I'm next to you in a cabin in a place I can barely imagine. In one short week, my whole life has been turned upside down."

"Are you sorry?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm hoping not to be."

"Is that why you're here beside me? Because of that hope or because of the feeling of duty to a husband?"

She turned her eyes back to his face then, to look directly into his eyes with something near a smile on her face. "Neither."

"Then what?"

The trace of smile in her eyes slid away. "I told you. I was cold."

"I will gladly offer you my warmth." He tucked the blanket around her and pulled her closer.

She relaxed against him, her head on his shoulder. He almost didn't hear her next words.

"And I felt so very alone."

"I have often felt the same, even in the midst of people. But now we can be two joined as one the way the Scripture says. Whatever you need, I will try to supply."

His pulse was a drumbeat through his body. She was so beautiful in the firelight. So small and fragile feeling in his arms. He would have been more than ready to fight dragons for her. He smiled at his foolish thought. There were no fire-breathing dragons, but he had no doubt other challenges would come her way here in Sourwood. Their way. Those he would meet and, if need be, fight with the Lord's help.

"I want to do the same," she said. "But I have no idea what is expected of a preacher's wife. Of any wife."

"I expect nothing but your willingness to be here beside me."

"I am willing." She put her hand on his cheek then, and he wished he had taken the time to shave the stubble of his whiskers. But he had not expected her to be ready to embrace him so soon.

He stared into her eyes. "May I kiss you, Mrs. Covington?"

She closed her eyes and lifted her face toward his in silent answer. Warmth flooded through him down to his toes as he touched his lips to hers.

At the sound of a gunshot and then banging on the door, Mira's eyes flew open as she jerked back. "Oh!"

He held her for another moment. "Appears I was wrong about the people not disturbing us tonight." He breathed out a disappointed sigh before kissing her forehead and sitting up. "Guess we are going to be serenaded after all."