Wild Rose. Ruth Morren Axtell

her. He’d realized the other day that she wasn’t as self-assured as she’d first appeared to him. She was also kinder-hearted than her gruff manner suggested. It was evident in her manner toward her dog.

      He’d been intrigued about why she dressed like a man and hid any feminine charms she might possess. Now he understood why.

      “And her mother, poor woman, Canuck—”

      “Half-breed,” Bib Overalls put in. “Woman could barely speak English.”

      Caleb ignored their talk. He paid his bill, aware of the silence that had returned to the store, knowing everyone was just waiting for him to leave so they could begin commenting on his past.

      He put his hat back on at the door, tipping it to the general company. “Good day.” He heard the door bang behind him as he walked down the worn steps.

      After he had arrived home and put everything away, he felt at loose ends. The fog had lifted but the day remained cool and overcast. Without a conscious decision, he found himself directing his feet back up the hill toward Miss Patterson’s. He’d seen her working in her front yard when he’d passed. He had no valid reason for visiting, but something drew him.

      Jake started barking the moment Caleb came in sight. As he came up the path, the dog ran up and down alongside him.

      “Hello, boy. Whatcha got there?” He examined the old buoy Jake had brought him.

      Miss Patterson, her back toward him, was sawing a board on a sawhorse. Caleb went up to her and pushed her gently aside. “Here, let me do that for you.”

      She jumped when she felt his touch. “Hey, what’re you doin’?” she demanded when his hand touched the handle of the saw.

      “I can finish it for you.”

      She scowled. “I can do it fine myself.”

      “Give me that,” he insisted, trying to pry the handle away from her. Her fingers only tightened on the handle as she attempted to continue the sawing motion. They began a brief tug-of-war for the saw, but when Caleb realized how ludicrous it was, he let go and stepped back.

      “Did anyone ever tell you you’re about as stubborn as a mule?”

      “When they bother to talk to me, yes,” she answered shortly above the rasp of the saw.

      At the words, Caleb felt a curious link with her. He knew how it felt to be singled out. He shook his head, never having imagined in Boston that one day he’d find something in common with a person such as Geneva Patterson. Taciturn, ornery, proud…

      Caleb thought about what he’d heard at the store. He found it hard to fathom the men’s salacious gossip. If there was a spark of femininity in Miss Geneva Patterson, he couldn’t see it. He stepped back and watched her finish sawing the board. Without a word she carried it past him, to the front stoop, where she’d already pried off an old plank.

      Carefully she placed the new board over the hole and lined it up with the rest of the steps. She took some nails from a piece of paper and picked up a hammer from the grass. As usual she was wearing that beat-up old hat, so Caleb couldn’t see much of her profile. Her eyes were fine, really, not black as he’d supposed, but deep brown, as he’d seen the other day in the light, like polished mahogany, and fringed with inky black lashes. They were about the only feminine feature she possessed, besides the braid that fell down her back like a black rope.

      She had on her habitual flannel shirt, buttoned to the very top. His gaze wandered farther down. The bib of her overalls curved over her bosom. The baggy pants didn’t reveal much of her legs; he imagined they must be long and slim, like her arms and fingers. He remembered her gentle strokes over Jake’s fur.

      The only woman he could really compare her to was Arabella, and the two were so different it hardly seemed a fair comparison. Caleb watched Miss Patterson’s long fingers position a nail and grip the hammer. Whack!

      When she’d pounded in the first nail, she suddenly took off her hat and wiped her forehead with a sleeve. She didn’t put the hat back on, but proceeded to line up another nail on the board.

      Her hair was pulled straight back into that one long, thick dark braid, giving credence to the gossip that her mother was a half-breed. She had high cheekbones, as well. But her looks were just as much Gallic—pale skin and dark hair and eyes—reminding him of the women he’d seen at the ports of Bordeaux and Marseilles.

      The only thing relieving the sharpness of her features was the widow’s peak above her forehead. It occurred to Caleb that she used her entire mode of dress to hide behind. With those men hanging around like a pack of hungry wolves, she probably had no choice.

      Caleb’s eyes narrowed as a memory teased the edges of his mind. Suddenly it came to him—a young woman tripping at the wharves, spilling all her vegetables, the last time he’d come to Haven’s End. On that occasion he’d played the gentleman, coming to her aid.

      Before he could recollect further, Miss Patterson spoke without looking at him. “What’re you starin’ at?”

      “Nothing. I’m just admiring your work.”

      “If you’re so all fired to do some carpentry, why don’t you finish that mausoleum of yours?”

      Her words brought him up short. “An apt description,” he said, glancing at the house he had planned with such enthusiasm. “Is that what they’re calling it around here?”

      She didn’t look at him from where she was kneeling at the steps, but he could tell he had her attention. She took a nail out of her mouth, her eyes focused on some point on the steps, and replied in a mumble, as if she were ashamed to admit it. “I just heard the word used once. Folks were sayin’ as how you’ve buried yourself in the place.”

      He said nothing, but watched her position the nail on the board. Above the intermittent whack of the hammer, he heard her words. “They say your lady—” bang! “—broke off the engagement.” Bang! “What’s the matter?” Bang! “She decide—” bang! “—she preferred someone else—” bang! “—after you run into your troubles in Boston?”

      Silence.

      To his own surprise he found himself answering as he watched her pick up another nail from the paper. “As a matter of fact, she did.”

      He wasn’t sure if she could hear his quiet words, but her immediate reaction told him she had. She looked up at him, hammer and nail forgotten, her expression stunned as if that was the last thing she’d expected to hear.

      “You’re serious.” Her words were as quietly spoken as his own. At his nod, she remained silent a moment, as if truly stumped for the first time.

      Finally she just shook her head. “Don’t fret, Cap’n,” she said softly. “The woman’s clearly got no sense.” With those words she turned back to her work.

      Caleb was amazed to feel no resentment at her tone of sympathy. In fact, he actually felt comforted. He didn’t have the foggiest idea how some rustic, uneducated woman’s simple words could reach him. Perhaps because for the first time in his life he felt someone’s complete acceptance of him. Even with his friend, Nate, Caleb had struggled to prove himself since the day they’d met. Caleb had been a lad of eight, and Nate, at thirteen, had appeared to him a hero. Caleb had been playing catch-up ever since.

      But with the woman kneeling at the steps in front of him, there was no censure, no judgment, and no expectations he had to fill. It didn’t seem to matter to Miss Patterson what his background was, whether he was innocent or guilty of wrongdoing. She accepted him just as he presented himself. No past, no gossip, no stories that had reached her ears seemed to affect her opinion.

      Caleb had never experienced this kind of acceptance, and he didn’t know quite what to make of it.

      The next day Caleb was thinning his thriving seedlings when he heard Jake’s bark. He turned, amazed to see the dog bounding across his yard making straight