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She had no idea where that thought came from, but it did not matter. She could do little to comfort Thad outside in this driving rain; inside the house it would at least be warm and dry.
Thad took another step forward. She latched on to his hand and urged him up the porch steps and through the front door.
The house smelled of the bread she’d baked this morning. Not hard, brittle Chinese bread, but yeast bread, soft and fragrant with crisp, golden crusts. Leah slipped off her coat and started toward the kitchen. “I will make you some fresh coffee.”
Behind her, Thad made a strangled sound. “What in the—? What happened to your regular clothes?”
“Ellie Johnson and I visited the dressmaker this afternoon. Verena Forester made this skirt for me, and the shirtwaist, too.” Leah twirled in place and waited for him to say something.
His gaze slid over her, but almost at once he looked away. “Your hem is soaking wet, Leah. I’ll light the fire.” He bent to touch a match to the kindling and small logs she had laid in the fireplace.
Leah ran her forefinger over the wisp of lace at the collar of her new percale shirtwaist. “You do not like it?”
“Well, it’s—uh, it’s just that you look…different.”
She knotted her fingers together so tightly they hurt. “I am trying to look different. I am trying to look like the other women in Smoke River.”
“Yeah, I guess.” His voice was flat. He turned away and strode into the kitchen. “I’ll make the coffee.” He hadn’t even bothered to shed his rain-soaked garments.
She felt like screaming. Did he not like her dressed like other women? Or was it that underneath he did not like her, his misfit half-Chinese wife? In the next minute she heard the grating of the coffee mill in the pantry.
Thad kept grinding the beans until the receiving box overflowed, sprinkling aromatic grounds over the clean pantry floor. He should sweep up the mess he’d made, but damn! First he needed coffee.
He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to look at Leah wearing a breast-hugging shirtwaist and a skirt that swirled gracefully over her hips. Her cheeks were flushed with pleasure, and suddenly he found it hard to breathe. Leah was more than attractive. She was downright beautiful.
Damnation, what did he do now?
Keep his mind off her, for one thing. Don’t look at her. Don’t get close enough to catch the spicy, lemony scent of her hair. And for heaven’s sake, don’t touch her! He already knew what her skin felt like, smooth and warm as fresh cream. But he was afraid if he let himself lay a single finger on her, he’d be lost.
He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to risk loving any woman, ever again. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever be ready.
He dumped the ground beans into the speckleware coffeepot and shook his head. Sure felt as if something had clobbered him when he wasn’t looking.
He’d never feared much of anything except hunger since he was a kid in knee pants, and now he was feeling uneasy over two uncontrollable things that had presented themselves in the last few days: a field of struggling wheat seedlings and an intriguing woman. It was enough to make a man wonder about himself.
He heard the bedroom door shut, and when he turned he saw that she’d left her wet skirt and a white ruffled petticoat draped over a chair close to the crackling fire. He couldn’t stop staring at that petticoat. What else was she wearing underneath? Ruffled drawers? A camisole with a pink satin ribbon at the neck?
He grabbed the boiling coffeepot off the stove and splashed a mug full to the brim. It was too hot to drink, but he gulped a scalding mouthful down anyway and tried not to think about sleeping next to her tonight.
Chapter Ten
Thad mopped the cold raindrops off his face using a huck dish towel, but even the roaring fire in the fireplace couldn’t shake the cold that ate at his vitals with sharp, clawlike teeth. It was more than the chill he’d taken tramping up and down the rows of tiny seedlings without his jacket. It was fear, and it cut bone deep.
He tried not to watch Leah’s unconsciously arresting movements as she flitted about the kitchen, alternately dumping sugar and butter into a bowl and mashing up boiled potatoes in another. Suddenly he was so damn randy he felt like a fourteen-year-old.
Leah paused, flour sifter in hand, to peer at him. “Do you like cinnamon?”
“What? Oh, sure. Whatever you say.”
She frowned thoughtfully. He hadn’t heard a word she had said.
When the first batch of cookies was browned, she loaded some onto a plate and took them up to Teddy in the loft. The boy lay curled up on his bed, and she set the cookies next to him. He reached out a hand to poke one. “Eww! What are these things?”
