Amethyst by Lauraine Snelling Page B

Amethyst. “Welcome. I’m glad you feel up to joining us. Come in and meet everyone.” She stood and came over to take her guest’s arm. “We have a perfect chair for you right here by the fire. Supper will be ready shortly.” She turned to one of the men. “Carl, if you could do the introductions, I need to check on the stove.”
    “Miss O’Shaunasy, I am Carl Hegland.”
    “I’m pleased to meet you.” Amethyst managed a smile. She felt that she should curtsy. She’d met more strangers since she got on that train than in the whole of her life. Should she extend her hand? With a slight hesitation she did just that, to have her hand overwhelmed by her host. For that brief instant, the calluses of a man who created beauty with his hands and wood rubbed against her own. She looked into dark eyes that smiled back at her. A man sure of himself, whose Norwegian accent added another depth of quiet charm. Like his wife, he had a gift for making her feel welcome.
    “And this is our other guest, Major Jeremiah McHenry. He used to be stationed here.” Hegland motioned to a man who, even by the way he stood, said military.
    Amethyst smiled and nodded, her hand extended. To her shock and surprise, he bowed slightly over her hand, his grasp sending a warmth flowing up her arm. He smiled, reminding her slightly of pictures she’d seen of General Robert E. Lee, though without the full head of silver hair. Major McHenry wore silver sideburns, while the rest of his ear-length hair was touched by a first fall frost. The eye patch made him look even more distinguished.
    “I’m pleased to meet you, Miss O’Shaunasy, but I need to make a correction here. I am no longer a major. I have retired, and now I’m plain Jeremiah McHenry.”
    In spite of the black patch over his left eye, the smile he gave her fell into well-used crinkles around both eyes and mouth.
    “I see.” But there is no chance you could ever be plain anything. Don’t be a ninny. You must have something more appropriate to say . But in spite of her efforts, her tongue remained glued to the roof of her mouth. She slowly withdrew her hand from his, wanting nothing more than to flee back up the stairs.

CHAPTER NINE

    “And where are you from, Miss O’Shaunasy?” McHenry leaned forward in his chair.
    “Pennsylvania. Near…” There was no sense giving the name of her little village. It was so small no one had ever heard of it. “And you?”
    “I was last stationed in Arizona. But my family home is in Kentucky. My favorite post was here in the badlands, so when I retired, I came back.”
    “I see.” Surely she could be more creative than that. But Amethyst realized she’d never really talked with a man she hadn’t known since childhood. If someone came to the farm, her father did all of the talking. And when she took things to town, she visited with the women who bought her wares. At church on Sunday she’d dutifully followed her mother as she chatted with the other women, the men usually gathering a ways away.
    Amethyst held herself stiffly, passing the bowls and platters back to Pearl, who was dishing up Carly’s plate along with her own. “My, this looks so delicious.” She feasted on the smells of roast goose, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, and rolls still warm from the oven. To sit here and be waited upon—she half expected her mother to show up and ask what was wrong with her feet that she didn’t get up and help.
    But when she’d offered, Pearl had declined, saying she was a guest and recovering from a terrible ordeal.
    “Ma? Tree?”
    “Yes, we’ll light the tree after supper.” Pearl smiled at the look on Amethyst’s face. “We made candles especially for the tree. Carl made us holders, so after supper we will light the candles. Have you ever done that?”
    Amethyst shook her head. She’d read about such a tradition, but at home if they cut a tree from the woods and brought it in to decorate, that was a miracle in itself. Pa didn’t