CRITICAL PRAISE FOR
RUTH AXTELL MORREN

LILAC SPRING

“Lilac Spring blooms with heartfelt yearning and genuine conflict as Cherish and Silas seek God’s will for their lives. Fascinating details about nineteenth-century shipbuilding are planted here and there, bringing an historical feel to this faith-filled romance.”

—Liz Curtis Higgs, bestselling author of Whence Came a Prince

WILD ROSE

“…the charm of the story lies in Morren’s ability to portray real passion between her characters. Wild Rose is not so much a romance as an old-fashioned love story.”

—Booklist

“…a beautiful, believable love relationship…Richly defined characters and settings enhance this meaningful novel.”

—Romantic Times

WINTER IS PAST

“…inspires readers toward a deeper trust in the transforming power of God…. [Readers] will find in Winter Is Past a novel not to be put down and a new favorite author.”

—Christian Retailing

“Ruth Axtell Morren writes with skill, sensitivity and great heart about the things that matter most…. Make room on your keeper shelf for a new favorite.”

—Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author

“…faith journeys are so realistic all readers can benefit from the story. Highly recommended.”

—CBA Marketplace

Lilac Spring
Ruth Axtell Morren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the town of Cutler,

from where I drew my inspiration for Lilac Spring.

My thanks also to the guys at The Boat School of Washington County Technical College in Eastport, who allowed me to ask many questions and observe them as they worked on their wooden boats.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lilac Spring book club discussion questions

Prologue

Haven’s End

Maine, 1861

“You’re the new ’prentice, aren’t you?” Cherish asked the boy hunched over one of Papa’s drafting tables.

He twisted around, a startled look on his thin face, as if she’d caught him doing something wrong.

Cherish stepped through the doorway of the boat shop and approached the table, her rag doll, Annie, swinging back and forth from one hand.

The boy swiped the edge of his palm against the corner of his eye, watching her silently as she neared.

“Aren’t you?”

Staring at her through disconcertingly gray eyes, he finally answered, “Yes.”

“Why’re you crying?”

“I’m not crying!”

“Yes, you are. I can tell. Your eyes are all red.” It suddenly occurred to her that maybe, being a big boy, he didn’t want to admit to crying. She never minded crying; it usually made her feel better afterward. The only problem was it usually followed a spanking.

“Whatcha’ doin’?” she asked curiously, peering beyond him to the drafting table.

“Nothin’. Just looking.”

“That’s Papa’s model.” She stood on tiptoe at the edge of the table, eyeing the wooden half-hull sliced in sections like a loaf of bread cut lengthwise.

She dragged another stool over to the table and climbed up on it. “I waited till Papa was down at the yard ’fore I came over this morning. It was a long time! Then I was ’fraid Mama wouldn’t let me walk over.” She smiled. “She thinks I’m outside playing with my kitty-cat.”

The boy said nothing.

“I cried yesterday,” she told him, settling Annie on her lap. “Mama sent me to my room.”

He continued eyeing her as if deciding whether she was friend or foe. He had nice eyes, she decided. Green-tinged gray, like a choppy sea. “What did you do?” he asked.

“I pulled kitty’s tail. I was trying to tie her to my dolly’s stroller, but she wouldn’t ’bey me.”

She could see the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and that made her glad.

“Kitty scratched me. See?” She pushed up her sleeve and showed him the bright red line running up her forearm.

“Papa never sends me to my room or spanks me. Mama says I’ll be spoiled if someone don’t spank me. Papa says I’m his little lady and should never be spanked.”

The two sat quietly for a few moments. The boy’s attention, she could see, had returned to the pieces of carved wood on the table. “Are you from far away?” she asked, shifting on the hard stool.

“Real far,” he murmured.

“Where?” she asked, finding it hard to picture anything beyond Haven’s End.

“Swan’s Island.”

“Swan’s Island,” she repeated in awe. Her mama had just read her a story about a swan the night before. She imagined a beautiful island full of snowy-white swans.

“Do you have a mama and papa?” she asked when he said nothing more.

“Just a mama. Papa was lost at sea,” he added in a fierce tone, as if proud of the fact.

“That’s too bad.”

He sniffed, rubbing the back of his hand against his nose. His thick golden hair fell over his forehead as he bent over the smooth pieces of wood that fitted together in descending order.

“Are you your mama’s little gent’man now your papa’s gone to heaven?”

He scoffed. “I’m too big to be a little gentleman.”

“Are you going to be a gent’man when you grow up?” Papa said she was going to marry a gent’man when she grew up.

“Naw! I’m going to build boats.”

She smiled. “I am, too!”

He turned his head toward her as if seeing her for the first time. Instead of laughing at her the way Papa did whenever she told him, he looked interested. “You like boats?”

“I love boats!”

“Your father is going to teach me how to build boats.”

She nodded. She’d heard Papa talking about the ’prentice.

He focused on the model again, running his forefinger down the sheer of the gunwale. “Some day I’m going to design them, too,” he said softly, reverently. He seemed not to be talking to her, but to himself.

“Me, too,” she replied at once, wanting to bring his attention back to her, although she wasn’t quite sure what “design” meant. That was okay. If the new boy could do it, so could she.

“What’s your name?” she asked, taking a liking to him despite his aloofness. He was nice, not like those big bullies at the schoolhouse.

“Silas.”

“I’m Cherish.”

“Cherish.” He turned his gray eyes on her again. “That’s a funny name.”

“It is not!”

He grinned, revealing even white teeth against the honey-hued skin of his face. “Do people call you Cherry?”

“No! My name is Cherish ’lizabeth Winslow.”

“Cherish Elizabeth Winslow,” he repeated. “That sounds too grown-up for you. How old are you, Cherry?”

“Cherish,” she corrected, and held up her fingers. “I’m five and a half.”

He nodded.

“How old are you?”

His thin chest puffed out. “I’m twelve.”

She remembered his red-rimmed eyes. He hadn’t seemed so grown-up then. She looked down at her doll. “Here. You can have Annie. She’s good for wiping tears. See?” She picked up a limp rag arm and wiped her eyelid in pretend fashion. “I use her a lot.”

He frowned, forced to take the doll she’d thrust at him. Before he had a chance to do anything with it, they were interrupted by her father’s voice.

“Silas! What are you up to?”

Silas jumped down from the stool he’d been straddling. “Nothing, sir.”

“You’re not here to loaf but to learn a trade. Now, go stow your gear upstairs and report down at the yard.”

“Hello, Papa.” Cherish climbed down more slowly from the stool. “I was talking with Silas.”

Her father gave her cheek a soft pinch when she reached him. “Cherish, sweetheart, haven’t I told you more than once to stay out of Papa’s boat shop? This is a place for men.”

“I’m going to ’sign boats,” she told him, ignoring the scolding.

He chuckled, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the door. “You’re going to learn to be a lady and marry a handsome gentleman. Run on home now to Mama. Papa’ll see you at dinner.”

As he walked her to the door, she realized her other hand was empty and she remembered she’d given Annie away. She gave one last, longing look toward the drafting table, but there was no sign of her doll. She remembered Silas’s hunched back and the sight of red-rimmed eyes and she shrugged away her sense of loss. He needed Annie more than she right now.

Chapter One

May 1875

Cherish paused on the threshold of the boat shop. The smell of cedar wood tickled her nostrils. She breathed deeply of its lemony, spicy fragrance and smiled. Home.

The rays of the late-afternoon sun pierced the tops of the ancient fir trees across the inlet and shone through the windows of the boat shop, picking up the dust motes and bringing a golden gleam to the wooden frames of the boat hulls laid upside down in various stages of construction. Her eyes didn’t linger on these; there’d be time enough to examine the works in progress. She was interested only in the shop’s lone occupant.

Silas stood at a worktable. Intent on his task, he leaned his wiry frame against a plane as he pushed it against a plank of wood. A curling cedar shaving emerged from the tool and dropped to the floor, a floor littered with a hundred others.

“Hello, Silas,” she said softly.

His eyelids rose and she was the focus of those gray eyes—the turbulent green-hued gray of a stormy sea.

“Cherish!” A smile broke out on his face, transforming it from a frown of intense concentration to an expression of boyish delight.

Cherish felt a slight easing of the tension that had been building with each mile she’d traveled closer to Haven’s End. After days across the Atlantic and a night up the coast from Boston, she’d finally arrived back at her home port.

She stood motionless a moment longer, wanting him to take a good look at her. The golden afternoon light shone on her. She knew the slate-blue of her gown complemented her complexion and eyes. She was glad she’d had the outfit made in Paris, just before her departure.

Every item was in place. She’d brushed and redressed her hair just before disembarking. She knew how to read men’s appreciation—she’d learned in the countless European capitals she’d visited in the past year. Now she wanted to read it in the only eyes that mattered.

He laid down his plane and took a step toward her. “We didn’t expect you until tomorrow. I would have come to meet you, but I knew your father would want to have you all to himself.”

“That’s all right. I’d rather say hello to you right here.” How she wanted to run to her childhood companion and throw herself into his arms. But suddenly she felt shy. She was no longer a girl in pigtails but a young lady he hadn’t seen in over two years. Oh, how desperately she wanted him to see the changes in her.

So with deliberate steps, those years of balancing a heavy tome on her head at the young ladies’ academy paying off, Cherish walked toward Silas. Her skirt rustled, from its ruched panels down to its pleated hem. She carried a small parasol in one hand, swinging it lightly to and fro as she neared him.

When they stood face-to-face, she stretched out her hands to him, still seeking that appreciation in his eyes. It was there…yet, was it?

“How did you get here?” he asked, smiling at her, his hands clasping hers. “Your father said you were sailing in tomorrow. Does he even know you’re here?”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, smiling all the while. Did he see how ladylike she’d become since he’d last seen her? Did he notice her hair swept up under the stylish little hat perched atop the ringlets cascading behind her head?

“I took a steamer out of Boston a day early and caught a ride with Captain Stanley on the schooner Emerald out of Eastport. I just arrived. My trunks are still down on the wharf,” she added, unable to restrain the laughter bubbling out of her.

His gray eyes were alight with amusement. How she’d missed that look! “Your father’s planning a big homecoming tomorrow.”

“I know. That’s precisely why I came a day early. I wanted to settle in quietly. Tomorrow I’ll be the dutiful daughter, but today…” Her glance strayed across the cluttered boat shop. “Today I want to savor just being home.”

He nodded, and she knew he understood. “Are you glad to see me?” she asked, her eyes searching his once again.

“Of course I’m glad. The place isn’t the same without Cherry underfoot. But you must have had a grand time—a tour of the Continent. I’m surprised you wanted to come back.”

She frowned. “Of course I wanted to come back. This is home.” This is where you are.

“And you’ve come back quite the lady.”

How she’d dreamed of this moment, when at last he’d see her as a woman.

“Last time I saw you, you were still running around like a hoyden, banging up your fingers with hammer and nails, trailing after Henry to teach you everything about drafting.”

“Do I look like a hoyden now?” She let go of his hands and turned around slowly as she’d seen the mannequins do in the House of Worth off the rue de la Paix.

“You’re looking so grown-up I hardly recognized you.”

Cherish experienced a moment of disappointment at his tone. There was admiration, certainly, but nothing more.

Never mind, she thought, there was plenty of time. She was home for good this time.

“Your father will have a fit when he knows you traveled unaccompanied from Eastport.” He frowned. “Did you come up by yourself all the way from Boston?”

She put a finger to her lips. “Shh! There was an acquaintance of ours on board, so I was properly chaperoned. Anyway, I’m back, and that’s all that’s important. I wanted to say hello to you first, right here, just as when we first met.”

He grinned. “You came nosing around to meet the new apprentice and caught him sniveling with homesickness and trying his best to act grown-up.”

“You had a right to be homesick. You were only a boy.” She took her time examining him, looking for any changes during her two-year absence. His build was still slim and compact, but the lean frame was deceptive. Her glance strayed to his bare forearms. She remembered their corded muscles when they had pulled on a pair of oars across the harbor.

He was in a vest and rolled-up shirtsleeves, his collar undone. His deep blond hair, thick and straight, was pushed away from his face, a face tanned from his hours down below in the yard. He’d always been a serious boy, but now his face showed a deepened maturity.

“Do I pass inspection, Cherry?”

She rolled her eyes. “Haven’t I finally outgrown that silly nickname?”

He smiled wickedly. “What’s the matter? Remind you too much of the pesky brat you were?”

Before she could take offense, he said, “Europe seems to have agreed with you.”

It was about time he noticed. “It was wonderful. Are you glad to have me back?”

“Sure, though I expect you’re too refined for the boat shop.”

“Not at all.” She laid her parasol on a table, fighting the sense of letdown. Something was missing in his welcome. Stifling a sigh, Cherish turned her attention to the boat frames in the large room. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, just finishing up these dories for a Gloucester schooner. We’ve laid the keel on a schooner down in the yard, now the good weather’s come.”

She touched the wood he’d been planing. “I am going to be coming to the boat shop, you know.”

He eyed her sidelong. “Is your father aware of this?”

“Not yet. Not that I’ve ever hidden my intentions.”

Silas brought her a stool and got one for himself. “Why don’t you tell old Silas all about it.”

She felt on surer ground now. Silas was the only one who truly understood her yearning to be equally involved in the work at her father’s boat shop.

“Silas, I need your help.”

His mouth turned up on one side. “Already?”

She didn’t return his smile. “I didn’t come back to Haven’s End just to be courted by some gentleman from Hatsfield and get married.” She could feel her face coloring at the steady and attentive way he was listening to her. “I know that’s what Papa expects. I could have stayed in Boston with Cousin Penelope, if that were the case. Or even in Europe,” she added, thinking of the marriage proposals she’d refused.

“Your father would have been sorry to lose you to Boston or the Continent. Ever since your mother passed away, you’ve been the apple of his eye.”

She nodded, remembering that awful time when her mother had fallen ill. “Papa needn’t have worried that he’d lose me,” she continued more briskly. “I always meant to come back to Haven’s End, because I want to work here. In the business. I want to build boats, Silas, just like you. Has…has Papa done anything to replace Henry?” she asked, referring to her cousin, whom her father had hired around the time she’d been sent away to boarding school.

Silas shook his head.

“Is Papa giving you more to do now that Henry has left?” As soon as Henry had reached his majority, he had accepted a job at a larger shipyard in Boston.

“My job’s the same as it’s always been.”

She frowned. “Papa doesn’t need to replace Cousin Henry. He has you. You’re much more talented than Henry ever could be. I’m sure that’s why Papa hasn’t found a replacement for him.”

When he made no comment, she went on. “My time wasn’t completely wasted those years at the young ladies’ academy in Massachusetts.” She smiled at him conspiratorially. “All that pin money Papa sent me—most of it went for lessons. I learned as much as I could pay for about naval architecture.”

She leaned forward eagerly, placing a hand on his forearm. “I’ll teach you everything I know. But I’ll need your help, Silas. Papa will fight me on this. Do you believe I can work with you here?”

She held her breath as he remained silent. Would he laugh at her ambitions the way her father did?

“I don’t think my opinion holds much weight with your father, but for whatever it’s worth, I’m on your side.”

“But will you think I’m just a nuisance hanging around here in the shop? Or do you think I can earn an honest day’s pay?”

“After the time you spent with Henry, I know you’re just as capable as he of drawing up a floor mold.”

“Thank you, Silas.” Slowly she removed her hand from his arm and offered it to him. He took it in his and they shook on it as if they’d just come to a momentous agreement.

Silas scraped at his jaw with the razor’s edge. He would have preferred many times over to have stayed down at the yard working on the schooner in the stocks, but he knew Cherish would be hurt if he didn’t attend her homecoming party. She’d made him promise to be there.

He bent over the basin and washed the shaving soap off his face, wetting the front part of his hair in the process. He patted his face dry before taking up a comb and doing his best to flatten the damp hair as he looked at himself in the small square of mirror hung on the wall above his washbasin.

His blond hair looked dark and slicked back now, but he knew it would fall back against his forehead as soon as he was out the door. He turned away from the mirror and took up the clean white shirt folded in the chest of drawers. Mrs. Sullivan, Cherish’s aunt, insisted on doing his laundry, ironing and mending his clothes—“keeping him in clothes”—as she called it, the way she’d done since he’d first come to the Winslows as a boy. She said he was family to her and she wouldn’t do less for him than for her own boy, Henry.

As he unbuttoned the starched shirt and slipped it on, he marveled at how grown-up Cherish had become in the time she’d been away. She’d been away before—off to boarding school during her secondary school years, but home during holidays and summers, always coming around to the shop as soon as she arrived. But he hadn’t seen her in over two years, between the year at an exclusive girls’ academy near Boston, followed by another year on the Continent accompanying a wealthy distant cousin.

Silas hadn’t expected her to come straight to the boat shop. It must be a testimony to her dedication to boatbuilding that a year in Europe had not diminished it.

He put on his gray trousers, his only good pair, and knotted a string tie under the collar of his shirt. Last of all, he pulled on the dark blue sack coat, which had seen quite a few summers already. Glancing into the small mirror one last time, with another unsuccessful attempt at smoothing back the wave that fell forward, he headed toward the door.

A short walk brought him to the Winslow residence, a large Victorian house set high on a bluff. A veranda ran all along the front, with turrets at each end. The house overlooked the inlet, and from its height one could catch a glimpse of the village farther down the road at the mouth of the harbor.

Arriving at the house, Silas ignored the invitation of the wide-open front door and headed on up the drive to the kitchen entrance he’d been using since he was a lad.

The screen door banged shut behind him as he left the sunshine and entered the dimmer kitchen. Celia, the kitchen maid, greeted him and sent him toward the front, telling him that Cherish had been asking for him.

He walked down the corridor, the noise of people having a good time growing louder with each step. The party was in full swing in the large front room overlooking the veranda. He clearly distinguished Cherish’s voice among the crowd of people.

He stood still, watching her. Once again he had to gaze in wonder at the transformation in her. Not that she hadn’t always been a pretty girl, but now she looked so much like a lady. She wore—He searched for an adequate word. Frock didn’t seem to describe the concoction she wore. It was nothing like the simple schoolgirl dresses and pinafores he’d been accustomed to seeing her in. This gown sported bright blue polka dots on a white background. The skirt was all gathered up in the back and cascaded down in folds like a waterfall. A wide blue sash draped over one side. The rest of the skirt seemed to be all ruffles and pleats. The bodice was the complete opposite, molded tightly to reveal a tiny waist and hourglass figure.

As soon as she spotted him, she headed straight toward him.

“Silas, there you are!” Cherish reached out both her hands to his and gave him a wide, welcoming smile. Her dark brown hair was also dressed very differently from the pigtails or ponytail she used to favor. Now it was pulled back, showing a wide creamy forehead, and fell from the top of her head in ringlets. Little dangling earrings shook each time she moved, bringing his attention to her soft pearly earlobes.

Her eyes gazed up at him now with laughter in their smoky-blue depths.

“What kept you so long?”

He shrugged. “I figured you’d have enough folks wanting to welcome you back to keep you busy all evening.”

She looked around in amusement. “Yes, I suppose I do. It’s wonderful being back home. Come on, let’s go outside. You know everyone, although there are a few acquaintances Papa is expecting from Hatsfield whom he wants me to meet.”

She linked her arm in his and drew him toward the veranda. They were stopped every few moments by guests wishing to talk to Cherish. Everyone wanted to hear about her European tour. Silas admired how deftly she turned the conversation around, asking instead about the local happenings in her absence.

They finally reached the veranda.

“Cherish!” Tom Winslow, a handsome, dark-haired man, hailed his daughter from the drive where he walked alongside a tall young man with a young lady at his side.

Before Silas could disengage himself, Cherish tugged at his arm, pulling him along with her as she descended the porch steps, where the trio reached them.

Her father said, “I want you to meet Mr. Warren Townsend from Hatsfield and his sister, Annalise. They’ve driven all the way over especially to welcome you back.”

Cherish held out her hand first to the sister, a pretty, brown-haired girl, who wore spectacles.

“Pleased, I’m sure,” Cherish said before turning to the young gentleman. He was at least half a head taller than either Silas or her father and wore a well-cut tweed suit. “Mr. Townsend, welcome to our home.”

“Annalise and I have heard so much about you from your father that we wanted to make the acquaintance mutual as soon as you came home.”

Cherish smiled at her father. “Papa has probably exaggerated half the details, but I am grateful for the chance to present myself in person so you may separate fact from fantasy.” She turned to Silas, including him in the group. “This is Silas van der Zee, Papa’s most gifted shipwright.” After shaking hands all around, Silas was content to let Cherish do the talking.

He marveled to see how the year of finishing school had “finished” her, and the year on the Continent had given her an unmistakable presence. Gone were any remnants of the girl he remembered. He doubted she would be the same Cherish who would be content to get her hands dirty in the boat shop.

“Well, I’ll let you young people get acquainted,” Mr. Winslow said with a chuckle before moving away from the group.

“You have just returned from the Continent?” Mr. Townsend asked Cherish.

“Yes. My year abroad,” she said in a laughing tone that disparaged the event.

“I was there a few years ago.”

Cherish’s eyes widened in delight. “Truly? Where did you travel?”

“London, Paris, Vienna—all the capitals. We also had a wonderful time touring the Black Forest, the Swiss Alps and down the coast of Italy.”

“Oh, yes, aren’t those regions beautiful? I was so charmed by the scenery. I remember a perfect afternoon boating on Lac Léman. I must try to paint it some day from my sketches.”

“Yes, I was there, too. Château de Chillon.”

“Couldn’t you just picture Byron’s words?”

As the two continued chatting about mutual experiences in Europe, Silas glanced over at Annalise Townsend, who looked mutely from her brother’s face to Cherish’s. He judged her to be about Cherish’s age—nineteen.

“Have you been to the Continent as well, Miss Townsend?” he asked, wondering if she felt as out of place as he did. Although she, too, was fashionably dressed in a gown with a bustle, her outfit was somber in comparison to Cherish’s.

She shook her head silently. After a moment, as if realizing it was her turn to contribute to the conversation, she asked, “Have you?”

Silas had to bend forward to hear her soft tone. “No, I haven’t.” Then he grinned. “Would you like me to get you some refreshment? There is a delicious assortment of food inside.”

She looked hesitatingly at her brother. Cherish, having heard his question, turned to them. “Why don’t we all have something? The gentlemen can get us each a plate—how about that?” Before anyone could counter the suggestion, she took Annalise by the arm and led her toward the veranda.

About an hour later Cherish leaned against the veranda railing, eyeing the guests on the lawn. Several couples were ranged about croquet wickets set in the grass.

After eating with her and the Townsends in the parlor, Silas had excused himself and wandered off. She spotted him now, down on the lawn in conversation with a couple of men.

She was only half-sorry. If he’d stayed with her any longer, how much better acquainted would he have become with Miss Townsend? He certainly had a knack with the shy young lady, even getting her to smile now and again.

Cherish stifled a yawn, glancing to her side. Mr. Townsend still stood there, as if awaiting her next move. He reminded her so much of the dozens of young men she’d met in Europe—so proper, so “Yes, Miss Winslow. No, Miss Winslow. Here, let me get that for you, Miss Winslow.” She sometimes felt she’d drown in a sea of politeness.

She smiled at him, conscious of her duties as hostess. “Why don’t we play a round of croquet? Would you and your sister like that?”

At his ready assent, she led them both down to the yard, heading toward Silas to invite him along. If he thought he was going to spend the afternoon talking with a bunch of men he saw practically every day when she’d been deprived of his company for over two years, he could think again. And she’d make sure he’d be her partner! Mr. Townsend could assist his sister.

She and Silas had a lot of catching up to do.

Chapter Two

The next morning Cherish entered her father’s office and breathed a sigh of relief to see him alone.

“Good morning, Papa. I’m sorry I missed you at breakfast. I was lazy this morning.”

“Hello, Cherish! As well you should be, only your second full day back. What are you doing down here? Your aunt want something?”

“No, nothing. Only to have me stay inside cooking and cleaning, but I escaped her.”

He chuckled. “Well, I suppose it’s not a bad idea to have her teach you a few things. I know she’s been after you, and I’ve been pretty indulgent with you since your mother passed away.”

Cherish patted his hand. Although it had been four years since her dear mama had succumbed to influenza, they both still felt the void she’d left behind. Even though his sister had taken over the housekeeping, things had never been the same.

Her father sighed. “Well, no matter. I want you to enjoy your summer. There’s plenty of time to think of other things.”

Cherish brought a chair over, to sit across the table from her father. Relieved, she looked at the plan he had been reviewing. “A new boat?”

“Yes, a forty-five-foot pinky.” He tapped the end of his pencil against the paper. “Charles Whitcomb’s commissioned it. He’ll use it up and down the coast for the herring trade and cod fishing. It’s not much of a boat, but I’m glad to have the job.” He sighed. “Business has slowed a bit lately. It’s not like the old days.”

Cherish studied the three profiles of the hull: side view, plan view and forward-and-aft view. “When will you lay the keel?”

“In a few weeks. I need to order the wood and draw up the loft mold.” He sat back, a smile creasing his face. At fifty-two, her father was still a good-looking man. His dark brown hair was thick, interspersed with only a few strands of gray. “I thought I’d go see what Townsend has in his lumberyard. You met his son yesterday. What did you think of him?”

“Nice enough, I suppose.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

Cherish interlaced her fingers and extended her arms in front of her. “To be honest, he seemed a duplicate of most of the young gentlemen I’ve met since I’ve been away.”

“What do you find so wrong with today’s young gentlemen?” her father asked in amusement.

She made a face. “They’re so bland, like milksops.”

“Oh, come,” her father chided. “I wouldn’t call young Townsend a milksop. He seems a fine, strapping gentleman with a good head on his shoulders, and a good future, I might add. I’d be proud to have someone like him for a son-in-law.”

“Oh, Papa, I’m only nineteen and just returned home. Are you marrying me off already?”

“Of course not. You’re right. You have plenty of time for courting.” He looked down at the lines drawing and made a notation on the table of offsets. Then his dark eyes pierced hers. “Your mother was your age when she married me. I suppose people married younger back then.

“Girls are too modern nowadays. Wearing bloomers, wanting the same higher education as men…”

“As we should be entitled to,” she countered.

“Oh, well, I’m not going to debate that with you this morning. It’s too fine a day and I’m too happy to have you back home again.” He coughed. “I just want you to promise me you’ll give young Townsend a second look. You’ve hardly known the man long enough to form an opinion.”

“That’s true,” she conceded. “I promise to withhold judgment on ‘young Warren Townsend the Third’ until further acquaintance.”

Ignoring her teasing tone, he said, “Good girl. I can’t ask for more than that. Now, why don’t you sail over with me to Hatsfield tomorrow? You can meet the Townsends again. Their daughter was about your age, wasn’t she?”

Cherish stopped herself from making a face as she thought of the insipid girl who could hardly get two words out without blushing and stammering. “Yes.”

“They’re a very nice family. They bought out McKinley’s Sawmill. They own a lot of timberland up-country. Townsend has plans for a few schooners to ship the lumber to Boston and farther on down the coast.”

Cherish’s interest perked up. “Maybe he’d contract us to build the schooners…although there are shipyards he could go to in Hatsfield.”

“Precisely.” Her father looked pleased at her acumen. “So far, I’ve managed only a nodding acquaintance with him. That should change now you’re here.”

“How so?”

“Well, Townsend’s offspring are about your age. Perhaps you could cultivate the friendship by planning a few parties and outings, now it’s summer weather, and invite them along.”

“Certainly, Papa, if you think it would help.” Cherish clasped her hands before her on the table. “Papa?”

“Yes, my dear?” He eyed her fondly.

“I’d like to help you out here in the shop.”

“Why, you’ve just helped. If you play hostess for me, you can’t imagine the benefits that could result.”

“I’d enjoy that. But Papa, what I mean by helping is that I want to work here, as I’ve done in the past, but now that I’m finished with school, I want you to consider me a permanent helper—the way you did with Cousin Henry.”

Her father’s face soured. “Don’t talk to me about that ungrateful boy! After all the training I gave him, to up and leave me. Thinks he’s found greener pastures down in Boston. He’ll find out soon enough,” warned Winslow.

“You can’t blame him for wanting to work in a large shipyard where they’re building steamships. He sees the future there, and perhaps he’s right.”

“Those tramp steamers can’t compete over long distances with our three-masted schooners. They’ve got to fill half their hulls with coal. Think of the expense. And when their coal runs out, they’re dead in the water.”

“Yes, I know, Papa. I think there’ll always be a place for the sailing ship, but you can’t fault Henry for his ambition.”

Her father stared gloomily past her. “I groomed him to take over the shipyard, and now where am I? Certainly not getting any younger. He was the only family member left, the only one showing any promise for the business.”

“You have Silas.”

“What’s that?” He turned startled eyes toward her.

“I said, you have Silas. He can do anything Henry did. You know he can go beyond Henry. He can be more than a shipwright. You know he could design his own vessels given half the chance. He probably has half a dozen designs in his head.”

“Whoa, Cherish, you slow down. Silas works down in the yard. He’s a fine worker with a good understanding of ship’s carpentry, but don’t expect me to hand this shipyard over to him.” He turned back to his drawing.

Stifling her desire to argue further, she said instead, “Anyway, we were talking about me—about my working here.”

Her father sat back and folded his hands on the desk. “As to you, my dear, I know you’ve always had a hankering for boats and hanging around the shipyard, and I’ve indulged you in a good many ways, but you’re no longer a little girl. You’re a young lady. I’ve given you the best education money can buy just so you could go out in polite society and hold your head high, knowing you’re as good as—better than—most ladies around here.”

“I appreciate all you’ve given me, but Papa, what I really want is to work with you.”

“Don’t be silly. A shipyard is no place for a lady.”

Cherish felt her temper rise, and she prayed for composure. “In that case, I relinquish my claims to the title ‘lady.’”

“It’s a little late for that,” he said dryly. “Do you honestly think I’ve invested all the time and money in your education and travels just to have you working in a boat shop?”

No doubt seeing the outrage in her eyes, he chuckled and patted her hand. “You’re too young to know what you want. I suggest you run along home and do what your aunt bids. You still have your watercoloring, don’t you? Why don’t you walk down to the harbor and paint some of the ships? Then tomorrow we’ll sail over to Hatsfield and you can do some shopping, visit some acquaintances and get to know the Townsends better. We’ll make a full day of it.”

“Papa,” she said quietly, swallowing her frustration with an effort, knowing it would do no good to vent it before her father, “what are you going to do about replacing Henry?”

Her father ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of impatience. “I haven’t figured that out yet. At this point, I don’t need any extra hands.”

“Then let me help you out a while, until you do decide!” She stood and came around the table to her father and put her arms around his shoulders. “Please, Papa! I’ve learned much about draftsmanship over the years. It’s true I haven’t been here full-time as Henry was, or—or—Silas, but I made Henry teach me everything you taught him. I can help with the lofting. I can keep the books. They didn’t only teach us to be ladies at school. I learned solid geometry. I learned enough arithmetic to keep track of your bills and expenses.

“Oh, Papa, please, please, say yes!” Annoyed with herself even as she gave him her most persuasive smile, and wondering why, with all her new maturity, she still had to resort to little-girl tactics, she held her breath, awaiting his reply.

“Oh, I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm for you to putter around a bit here in the office.” He gave her a stern look. “But only up here. I don’t want you down on the yard. And get these silly notions of Silas out of your head. I know whom to put in charge of what in my shipyard. I know my men better than anyone else.

“Now, you spend some time with Phoebe, doing as she tells you, paint me some nice sailing pictures and play hostess for me the way I asked.”

He turned to the shelf behind him. “If you do all I tell you, you can have this.” He handed her a wooden half-hull model of a boat, about a foot and a half in length.

She took the smooth wooden boat, which was attached to a plank of wood. Above it was labeled in neat print “13’ Whitehall.”

“It’s a model for Ernest Mitchell. Let’s see how much you do know. You loft it, and I’ll judge what you’re capable of.”

Her eyes widened in delight. She’d gotten what she’d come for! “Really, Papa?”

He smiled at his daughter’s delight. “Get along with you. Go make yourself useful somehow so I can get back to my work.”

Deciding she’d better table her arguments in Silas’s favor for the present, she gave her father a quick hug, “Oh, yes, Papa! I’ll be the best hostess! I’ll become the best cook and housekeeper Haven’s End has ever seen! Thank you, Papa!”

She bent and gave him a kiss on his whiskered cheek, then fairly flew out of the office, headed for the workshop.

She was halfway out the office door, her mind spinning with ideas, when her father’s voice stopped her. “Remember, we’ll go to Hatsfield tomorrow. I want you to be especially nice to young Townsend and his sister.”

“Of course, Papa. I’ll put on my best company manners and play the lady to the hilt.”

Silas came into the boat shop after working the morning down in the yard, hewing timbers with an ax for the frames and planks for the schooner keel that sat on the stocks down on the beach. Although the spring day was still fresh, he felt hot and thirsty from his labors.

He stopped short at the sight of Cherish at the worktable.

He glanced down at his sweat- and tar-stained work shirt. “Hello, Cherish. What are you doing here?” He felt suddenly awkward before her dainty femininity. He wasn’t used to the new, grown-up Cherish. At least she looked more like her old self in a cotton frock and apron, her hair tied back with a bow.

She gave him a frown. “Not you, too! Didn’t you think I’d be here?”

He wiped his shirtsleeve against his forehead as he approached her. “Not quite so soon. You’ve only just arrived home.” He raised a brow skeptically. “Did you miss this place so much?”

Her eyes chided him. “This place and its people.”

He could feel himself flushing under her intent slate-blue gaze. For a second it seemed she was referring to him alone. Shaking aside the foolish notion, he observed, “At least I have less trouble recognizing you today.”

She glanced down at herself. “Yes, my gowns are all put away for the moment, though I suppose I’ll be diverting you tomorrow with a latest Parisian creation.”

“Don’t tell me—another party?”

She shook her head, but didn’t say anything more. Her tone turned brisk. “Papa has given me this half-hull for a thirteen-foot Whitehall. He doesn’t think I’ll be able to loft it.” She grinned, suddenly transformed into the little girl he remembered, always out to prove she was as capable as the men around her.

He neared the table and reached for the model. As he did so, an elusive fragrance reached his nostrils. It reminded him of dew-sprinkled lilacs in June. He didn’t remember ever smelling perfume on Cherish before.

He cleared his throat and turned his mind back to the boat in front of him.

“Well, you certainly tagged after Henry enough to know everything he knew. But it’s been two years since you’ve stepped into a boat shop. Aren’t you afraid you’ve forgotten a few things?”

She touched the model with a fingertip. “I think it’s one of those things that isn’t easily forgotten. Just looking at this hull brings back all sorts of recollections.”

She gave him a sidelong glance, mischief lighting the blue depths of her eyes. “Anyway, we are going to loft this together.”

“We?” He quirked an eyebrow up. “Since when am I a draftsman?”

“Since Henry left…and Papa has no immediate plans to replace him.”

Silas was surprised. “He doesn’t?”

She shook her head, sending the little dangling earrings with their minute turquoise stones shaking. Then she frowned. “He says at present he doesn’t need anyone else. He told me it has been slow around here. Has it?”

Silas looked out the square-paned window that overlooked the shipyard below. The tide was out, leaving smooth mudflats visible, with rivulets of water running between them in crooked lines down toward the sea.

“Yes, I suppose it has, this past year especially. We used to average three good-sized vessels a year, up to seven-hundred-ton ships, in addition to the smaller craft.” He nodded down at the stocks. “That’s a fifty-ton schooner—small for us—and it’s the only sizable order this spring. Everything else is like this.” He motioned toward the model on the table.

“Do you think things will pick up?” she asked.

“Hard to say. There’s still a lot of building going on farther down the coast.”

“Do you think Henry was right to head south?”

He shrugged. “Some say the days of sail are numbered. The opening of the Suez Canal in ’69 spelled the beginning of the end for the clipper trade.”

“But what about us here down east? Apart from the passenger steamer service from Boston and Portland, we don’t see much use for steam. All the fishermen sail, even out to the Grand Banks.”

“Yes, I think there’s still a demand for the smaller fishing schooners and those used in the coastal trade. But eventually I see even those supplementing their vessels with steam.” He shrugged. “And more and more of the larger schooners are being built with steel hulls. I don’t know if they’ll prove more successful than wood, but the fact is, shipping companies look at cost. The steel hull will probably last longer than the wood. Most of the larger ships’ hulls are now steel reinforced.”

Cherish turned back to the model. “Oh, well, let’s hope these changes don’t come too quickly. Right now we have a loft to lay out and a mold to build.”

He looked down at her indulgently, encouraged as always by her optimism. “There’s that word ‘we’ again. Do you propose to help me build the mold?”

“If you’re agreeable.”

He didn’t say anything, not wanting to dash her hopes. He realized as he watched her that it was good to have her back—even an adult version of the girl who’d seek him out every chance she got and “discuss” things with him, from every aspect of boats to the latest storybook character she had read about.

“Your father has agreed to this?” he asked finally, his arms folded in front of him.

“Don’t worry about Papa. I’ll take care of him.”

“You’ve been taking care of him quite some years now. I wonder if he’ll ever discover it.”

“Papa doesn’t know the talent he has right under his roof. So it looks as if, now that I’m back, I shall have to show him.” When he didn’t reply, she continued. “You ought to be Papa’s successor. If he can’t see that, well, he will, if I have anything to say about it.”

He turned away his gaze, not reminding her of his own dream—she probably didn’t even remember it. “I still have to be down on the yard,” he reminded her instead.

“So spend your mornings there.” She stood and went to the window. “There are more than enough men down there. You said yourself things were slow. There’s no reason you can’t spend your afternoons up here.” She turned to him, making a face. “I have agreed to spend my mornings with Aunt Phoebe, learning to run a house. But after that, I’m free. Papa said I could help out here.”

“You have it all worked out.”

She gave him a secret smile. “Papa will be convinced, you’ll see. He’ll realize your talent, and he’ll see I have a head for business. He’s already taking me with him to Hatsfield tomorrow to visit the Townsends’ operation.”

So that’s what she’d meant about her fashionable attire.

“Apropos, do you know anything of the Townsends? They were at the party yesterday.”

“Not much. Townsend’s a lumber baron. They’re important in Hatsfield—that’s about all I know.”

“I shall charm them with my European polish, and they will order a fleet of coastal schooners from our yard.”

He frowned at the sudden picture of Cherish laughing and batting her thick, dark lashes at the tall, handsome, impeccably groomed Warren Townsend.

The next morning Cherish took extra care with her toilette, wearing a deep rose gown with white ruffle collar and cuffs. She stuck in a pair of coral earrings and pulled her hair back in a thick coil, knowing the sail would play havoc with anything fancier. She pinned on a pert straw hat with ribbons that matched the gown and pulled back the short net veil. Then, she clipped on a matching pair of gold bracelets she’d purchased in Florence.

She and her father rode in their buggy along the road down to the harbor. From the top of a slope they could see the village of Haven’s End set snug against a hilly curve of land. White houses nestled along its edges and up the surrounding hills. Three long wharves jutted out from the land into the protected harbor, which was filled with moored boats. Beyond, at its mouth, lay a wooded island.

Her father dropped her off at the harbor and went to stable the horse and buggy. Silas was waiting on the wharf, dressed in a creamy, cabled sweater and pea jacket. Although the May day promised to warm up, Cherish knew it would be cold on the water. She had brought along a duffel coat, which she carried on one arm.

“Good morning,” she greeted him.

“Good morning,” he replied, his gray eyes taking in her appearance. “You’re looking smart.”

If the compliment wasn’t all she’d hoped for, at least it was a compliment. Her efforts had been worth it. “Thank you,” she answered demurely.

He took her coat and parasol, and she climbed down the catwalk after him to the awaiting skiff. Silas held out his hand to her as she stepped into the bobbing boat. Her father returned and loosened the painter before joining them.

She settled aft and waited for her father to descend. He coiled the line and gave a nod to Silas to shove off.

Silas sat forward and pulled at the oars, heading toward her father’s pinky schooner moored amidst the other fishing boats in the harbor.

As soon as they arrived, Silas jumped aboard the schooner, and her father threw him the line. When the skiff lay alongside the pinky, her father climbed in and turned to help Cherish in. She took the line from her father. “I’ll secure it,” she told him.

He loosed the pinky’s mooring line as Silas ran the foresail up the mast. Cherish went immediately and helped him with the lines. Her father took the tiller while Silas and Cherish trimmed the sail, and they maneuvered the vessel out of the crowded harbor.

They left behind the briny smells of the harbor and the shriek of gulls and headed out to sea. Silas hoisted the mainsail and jib. The cloth caught and filled with the wind, sending the vessel skimming over the inky-blue water.

Cherish went to sit beside Silas when he took over the tiller from her father. They sailed past the rocky, evergreen-wooded coast. Farmhouses were visible above the bays, but the tips of the peninsulas were woodland, the thickly growing spruce and balsam fir black against the rising sun. They navigated through narrows and channels between the coastal islands, some wooded, others bare, rocky fortresses withstanding the relentless battering of waves.

Cherish breathed deeply of the crisp breeze. Her glance met Silas’s and she smiled. He smiled back and she knew they needed no words to express the enjoyment of being in a well-built craft upon the sea. She closed her eyes and lifted her head heavenward, feeling the sun on her face, the wind whipping at her cheeks. It was good to be alive. She praised God for all she’d seen and done, but most of all that she was home at last, close to the man she loved, within reach of her dream.

All too soon they arrived in the tidal river leading up to the town of Hatsfield. Hatsfield was larger than Haven’s End, and Cherish eagerly noted the number of schooners, brigs and barks arrived from different ports.

Silas lowered the sails and dropped anchor. She and her father climbed aboard the skiff once again as Silas stayed to secure the sails and leave everything shipshape.

“I’ll send someone back with the skiff,” her father told him. With a final wave, they left him. Cherish looked back at him, wishing he were going with them.

She turned her attention to the busy port. Stacks of logs lined the quay. Loads of shingles and shooks and freshly sawn lumber waited to be loaded onto the ships that brought barrels of molasses, dry goods, salt and grain from places afar.

“Winslow!” called a voice from farther down the wharf.

“Morning, Townsend,” her father answered as he advanced to meet Townsend senior and his son.

Warren Townsend and his father presented an imposing pair of gentlemen, Cherish noted as the two men approached them. Warren was dressed in the manner of the young men in Boston, in contrast to the young farmers and fishermen down east. He wore a fine gray frock coat and matching vest and trousers, his boots polished to a shine. He was clean shaven, his hair, a rich brown, cut short.

Mr. Townsend sent his son to escort Cherish to their home.

“Mrs. Townsend and Annalise are awaiting you,” Townsend senior told her.

“We’ll be up for dinner,” her father added.

“I shall see you and Silas then,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek.

They rode along the river, past stately homes. Just before entering the main town of Hatsfield, they turned into a tree-lined drive before a white-columned portico fronting a Greek revival house.

“Welcome to our home,” Mrs. Townsend told her. She was a handsome-looking woman, with light brown hair and a stylish dress. “Annalise has been telling me what a nice visit she had with you and what a good hostess you were to her.”

Cherish turned to smile at the bespectacled girl, surprised that she had made such a favorable comment. If the girl had enjoyed herself at all, it was thanks to Silas. She couldn’t remember Annalise having said more than two words to her. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, Miss Townsend.”

“Come, let us go inside, shall we?” Mrs. Townsend said.

They chatted amiably for a while in a back parlor, although Cherish realized she and Mrs. Townsend did most of the talking.

“Warren, why don’t you escort the young ladies around the gardens? I think the day is warm enough for a walk.”

“I’m sure I should enjoy that, Mrs. Townsend.” She rose as soon as Warren stood, relieved to leave the overstuffed parlor for a while. Annalise followed suit.

“Annalise, put on your wrap.”

“Yes, Mama,” she murmured.

They walked onto the slate porch that ran the length of the rear of the house. Warren offered them both an arm and proceeded down wide flagstone steps.

They walked all the way down to the water’s edge, where the Townsends had a small dock. After a few moments of contemplating the river, they strode back up to a cedar bench amidst the flower beds.

Cherish racked her brain for a conversation starter. She didn’t feel she had done anything for her father yet.

“Did you truly enjoy yourself at my house the other day?” she asked Annalise.

“Oh, yes,” she answered softly.

“I would have been overwhelmed, having to meet so many strangers all at once.”

“Perhaps she was a bit,” Warren answered for her. “But you stayed by her side. The young man who was with us—I don’t recall his name—was also very attentive.”

“That was Silas van der Zee. He’s been with our family since he was twelve. He works with Papa in the boat shop.”

“We must have him come back with you the next time, then.”

“Oh, you’ll surely meet him today. He sailed over with us. He’ll be by with Papa.”

“That’s fine,” Warren said with a smile at his sister.

“I do hope the two of you can come back to Haven’s End again,” Cherish said after a bit. She thought quickly. “I’d like to give another party. Perhaps with a little dancing and games this time.”

“We would look forward to that.”

Cherish breathed a sigh of relief when the dinner hour approached and they decided to head back to the house. Her father would have returned.

When she saw he was alone, she asked him, “Where’s Silas?”

“Oh, he’ll get something to eat down at the wharf.”

Cherish tightened her lips, not saying anything. How could he have Silas come along and then treat him like nothing but a hired hand?

She would make it up to Silas, she promised herself.

Chapter Three

After breakfast the next day, Cherish reported to her aunt in the kitchen. “I am yours to command, Auntie.”

“We’ll be baking, so get on a big apron if you don’t want to be covered in flour,” the woman replied without looking up.

“I’m going for a picnic this noon with Silas. Do you think the bread will be ready by then?”

Aunt Phoebe gave her a sharp glance from behind her wire-rimmed spectacles. “You’re not still thinking the sun and moon sets on Silas, after traipsing over the Continent, meeting who knows how many young gentlemen?”

“Silas is the finest man I know.”

Aunt Phoebe placed a large earthenware bowl in front of Cherish on the worktable. “Set the cake of yeast in here with the sugar and put about a cup of milk on the stove to warm.

“Well, perhaps it’s more than a schoolgirl’s fancy if it’s lasted this long,” her aunt conceded. “If it is, you’ve got more sense than I credited you with.”

She brought a large crock of flour out of the pantry. “We’re making four loaves, so we’ll need a good bit of flour. That milk should be about ready. Test it on the inside of your arm. It should feel just warm enough to stand.”

“Yes, that’s what it feels like.”

“All right, bring it over and pour it over the yeast.” After she’d done so and let the yeast work a few minutes, her aunt dumped in some cupfuls of flour.

“Still, I hope you won’t be disappointed in Silas. I’ve known him since he was a lad. He’s grown to be such a nice young man, but sometimes I wonder what’s going on behind those gray eyes. He’s never given me any trouble, not like my Henry,” she added with a shake of her head. “He’s never gotten drunk to my knowledge, never uttered a profanity, nor gambled away his money. I admire those things about him—but as I said, I wonder sometimes…”

“Whatever do you mean?” Cherish asked, never having heard her aunt voice a concern about Silas.

She sighed. “Sometimes it seems as if something’s hurt him so deep, he’s buried all his natural feelings. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt by a want of feeling on his part. You’re a sensitive girl, a giving soul. I don’t know…some people can’t give what they don’t have.”

“I don’t believe that of Silas,” Cherish answered, emphasizing her remark with a decisive punch at the gooey dough, which succeeded only in stirring up the flour Aunt Phoebe had just emptied into the bowl. Cherish waved away the cloud of flour threatening to go up her nostrils. “I think Silas is a very sensitive person.”

“Well, you never can tell about people,” her aunt answered philosophically. “Sometimes no matter how long you live with someone, you still have no idea what lies beneath the surface, what—or who—it’ll take to awaken ’em.”

She poured in some more flour.

“How am I supposed to mix this? It’s so heavy and dry!”

“You just work it in good with your hands—you’ll see how smooth it gets. The more you knead it, the softer the bread’ll be.” Her aunt went to get the bread pans and began to grease them.

“I’ve always treated Silas like my own Henry. Your father didn’t hold with that, but I put my foot down, and I’m glad to say your mother, God rest her soul, did, too. We always sat him down with us at the table with the rest of the family. Your father wanted Silas to sit in here in the kitchen and take his meals with Celia and Jacob.

“‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘Silas is going to sit at the table with us, where I can keep my eye on him and teach him his manners.’ His mother entrusted him to us. I was going to do right by him.”

“This dough feels good now. Like a big pillow, but my arms are aching.”

Her aunt prodded the dough. “It’s coming, but you’re not through. Sprinkle some flour on the table and turn the dough onto it and begin kneading it.” Her aunt stood beside her until satisfied she was doing it right. “Keep that up a good ten minutes and you’ll have the softest, lightest bread you’ve ever bit into.”

“Ten minutes!” This was worse than sanding a plank of wood.

“Just think how good those sandwiches are going to taste on that picnic,” her aunt said placidly as she began gathering up the used utensils.

Picturing Silas biting into a slice of her freshly baked bread, his eyes lighting up in pleasure, Cherish leaned into the dough with a new will.

“That’s my girl.”

Aunt Phoebe poured hot water from the stove into the dishpan. “I don’t know why your father has never given Silas the credit he deserves. According to what you’ve told me over the years, he has more talent in one little finger than Henry ever had—and that’s my son I’m talking about.”

“I’ve wondered that myself. I love Papa dearly, but sometimes I could just shake him the way he treats Silas. Take yesterday. Can you believe he didn’t take him along to have dinner with the Townsends? He left him to fend for himself on the docks as if he were just an ordinary deckhand.”

Aunt Phoebe stopped in her act of wiping off the table. “Is that the reason for the picnic today?” Her knowing blue eyes looked deep into Cherish’s.

Cherish could feel her cheeks warming. “Partially. It’s also a beautiful day for a picnic, and I haven’t had a chance to have a good chat with Silas since I’ve been back.”

Her aunt smiled in understanding, her face softening. “You go and have a good time. I’ll take care of your father.” She sighed. “Sometimes I’ve thought Tom resented Silas’s talent, resented the fact it’s in a stranger, come out of nowhere, and not in the son he wishes he’d had.”

Two dainty booted feet beneath a ruffled white gown sprigged with lavender flowers appeared at the edge of Silas’s vision.

He gave one last whack with the adze against the timber. Curls of wood chips went flying. Resting the metal head of the tool lightly against the plank he was forming out of a long piece of lumber, he straightened. Wiping the back of his arm against his forehead, he shoved aside the hair that kept falling forward. “Hello, there. What are you doing down here?”

“Come to fetch you.” Cherish was like a breath of cool sea breeze on the hot beach. She carried a picnic hamper in one hand and twirled a white parasol over her shoulder with the other.

“Where?” He laid down the adze on the pebbly beach and took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket to wipe his face.

“You and I are going on a picnic.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, so put away your things. I want to sail over to the meadow on Allison’s Bay.”

The idea was tempting. Then he looked at the pile of lumber still to be shaped into planks for the schooner standing over him like a giant elephant carcass, its ribs held together by scaffolding. “I don’t think I can leave right now.”

She followed his line of vision to the hull. “Nonsense. It’s almost dinnertime anyway. I’ve already told Aunt Phoebe not to expect us. Besides, you promised to spend the afternoons with me up in the workshop. We’re already a day behind.”

“I’d better tell your father,” he began, rolling down his shirtsleeves and buttoning the cuffs.

“Already taken care of.”

He eyed her, wondering what wiles she’d used on old man Winslow. The only one who could soften that man was his daughter. “Let me get cleaned up. I won’t be but a minute,” Silas told her, and headed toward the boat shop. Quickly he put on a clean shirt. Whistling, he came back down the stairs.

The day was indeed beautiful. Although spring didn’t come down east until May, once it came, it arrived in full force. Silas rowed them out to his own boat, a twenty-seven-foot yawl he’d built himself from stem post to stern. The name Sea Princess was painted along its bow.

He loved this boat, its sleek wooden lines, its full white sails, the way it handled under his guidance.

“We’ve got a strong northwest wind. We’ll be able to run her pretty clear,” he told her as he sheeted the mainsail close. It filled with the wind, making great clapping noises as he tugged on the sheets.

Once clear of the harbor, he worked the tiller and line, Cherish seated beside him.

She smiled. “May I?”

He gave a brief nod, relinquishing the tiller to her. She knew these waters as well as he.

“How do you like her?”

“She’s wonderful.”

Silas glanced at Cherish. The wind whipped at her ponytail. She brought a hand up to her forehead to keep the strands of hair out of her face. A smile played along her mouth. She looked as if she were enjoying herself to the full.

“I remember you were still working on her the last time I was here.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he answered.

“Why haven’t you named her after someone? Sea Princess, that could be anybody.”

He shrugged. “There’s no one to name her after.”

She gazed at him under her brows. “How unromantic of you.”

He looked away, not having given it much thought until then. “I guess my romance is with the sea,” he said after a moment.

They didn’t have far to sail, the site suggested by Cherish being only the next bay over. They passed Ferguson Point, with its pebbly cove and beautiful house far above it overlooking the ocean, before heading into the bay. As they reached the spot Cherish indicated, he began reefing in the sail. After dropping the anchor, they rowed the short distance to shore in the skiff.

He jumped out into the shallow water to pull the boat up onto the beach. Cherish stood to get out.

“Hey, don’t get your feet wet,” he cautioned. He hesitated an instant, wondering at the same moment why he did so. But one glance at her delicate-looking white kid boots settled it. He leaned forward to pick her up. He’d done the same thing a hundred times when she’d been younger—why did he vacillate now? She was the same girl—only bigger.

She immediately put her arms around his neck and laughed, a sound of sheer delight. His arms held her under her arms and knees, his fingers feeling the soft fabric of her gown, his nostrils catching the same soft fragrance of perfume. He strode the few steps to dry ground and let her down as quickly as possible, wondering at the change in him. Assisting her should not have had such an effect on him.

She slid her hands down from his neck to his chest before letting go completely. “Thank you, Silas,” she said, her voice breathless, her blue eyes alight with amusement, as if she were conscious of the queer sensations running through him.

The awareness passed as soon as she stepped away from him, and he shoved the incident from his mind. He concentrated on securing the line, then going back to get the hamper.

Cherish had already walked on ahead, heading up the disused path that led from the beach to a meadow above on higher ground.

The grass of the field was just beginning to turn green, and it was covered in a carpet of white.

“Oh, the bluets!” Cherish stooped to examine the tiny flowers, which up close weren’t white, but pale blue four-pointed stars.

Silas found a spot sheltered from the breeze but still in sight of the bay. Cherish came back with a tiny bouquet, which she tucked into her neckline. Silas turned away, willing himself not to notice the narrow wedge of pale skin where her gown came together. Unfortunately, the sprig of flowers only served to call attention to it.

She knelt by the basket and opened the lid. “We can spread this out,” she said, taking out a red-checked cloth. He grabbed two corners, glad to have something constructive to do. The bright cloth billowed in the air as they held it.

Silas went to retrieve some stones with which to anchor it. When he returned, Cherish had placed the food in an inviting display on the cloth, and he realized how hungry he was.

“Here.” She handed him a thick sandwich. “Bread baked this morning. My first culinary endeavor since I’ve been back, I shall have you know.”

The sandwich looked inviting, spread thick with butter and stuffed with slices of ham and cheese. She took out a mason jar and removed the lid. “Sweet tea. I didn’t bring any glasses, so we shall have to share this between us.” She set it down against the basket.

“Everything looks delicious,” he said, wanting to make her feel good about her efforts in the kitchen with her aunt.

When she had served herself, she sat across from him and smiled. “This is my private homecoming.” She looked out across the bay. “I thank God for the privilege of seeing a bit of this great, vast world, but I’m even more thankful to be back home to my small corner of it.” She took a deep breath, her eyes half-closed, her chest rising and falling, drawing Silas’s gaze once more to the flowers tucked there.

“This is one of those ‘moments of azure hue’ Thoreau wrote about, don’t you think? How I missed this smell—sea, sun, a hint of sweetgrass and an indefinable something else.” She opened her eyes and focused on him once again. “Perhaps its essence is the company I longed for, the faces I grew up with.”

Once again he had the sensation she was referring specifically to him. Before he could think about it further, she bowed her head and gave thanks for the food. She peeped up at him again as she said “amen.”

“I hope you like it. My arms are still sore from kneading dough!”

He found it hard to think beyond the fact of Cherish’s womanhood and how it was affecting him.

He bit into the bread—soft and wholesome tasting, the ham smoky and salty, the homemade cheese sharp, the mustard gracing it all adding just the right amount of tangy spice.

“Well, you haven’t spit it out or choked on it, so I suppose it will pass.”

“It’s very good,” he hastened to say.

They ate in silence some moments. When she took the jar of cold tea and put her head back to drink from it, Silas couldn’t help noticing her neck, long and graceful as she took deep drafts from the jar.

Then she lowered her head and handed it to him. He reached out his arm and took it slowly. How many times had they done similar things years back? He held the cold glass jar and looked at it, hesitating, the act suddenly taking on intimate proportions. He tilted his head back and sipped from the same liquid she’d drunk from.

She rummaged in the basket again and brought out something in a napkin. “La pièce de résistance, or should I say the final test?” She unveiled the item, revealing golden tarts. “Strawberry preserve tarts, also baked this morning.”

She offered the napkin-wrapped tarts and he took one. “You had quite a morning,” he commented.

“I’m exhausted. I could lie down and sleep an hour here.”

“It’s delicious,” he was quick to tell her this time after the first bite, and he didn’t exaggerate. The pastry was light, the filling just the right degree of sweet and tart.

“Well, I can’t take all the credit. Aunt Phoebe was hovering around me like a hummingbird, telling me exactly what to do and how long to do it. Next time I prepare you a meal, I shall do it unsupervised.”

Again the words conjured up something exclusively for him. Silas shook away the thought. In an effort to dispel the unfamiliar sensations she was awakening in him, he said, “Tell me about Europe.”

She tilted her head to one side, a small smile playing at her lips. “Europe…what a vast topic. Actually that brings another thought to mind.”

Her smile turned to a frown. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, why were you such a poor correspondent while I was away? Let me see…” She held up her fingers, counting. “One, two, three…yes. Only a few short scrawls during my entire year abroad. I sent you dozens of postcards, and all I got in return was ‘Dear Cherish, I trust this finds you in health. Your travels sound interesting. Nothing much new around here. All is well, Yours sincerely, Silas van der Zee.’”

He felt his face warm as she quoted his meager correspondence back to him. “I guess there just wasn’t much to tell. Everything was about the same.” How could he write about the joys of seeing trunks of trees being formed into ships and boats, when every postcard and letter of hers presented a vivid image of a new city, a new experience, new faces?

“That’s nonsense. You know how much I love to know what’s going on at the shipyard.”

“I’m sorry,” he answered. “I just didn’t think it would interest you.” He looked across the meadow to the bay. “The happenings at Winslow’s Shipyard, much less the life of one Silas van der Zee, seemed inconsequential in comparison to the adventures you were having.”

“You were so wrong,” she said quietly. Before he could analyze her serious tone, she began to gather up their things.

“You must have met a lot of interesting people over there,” he said as he helped her, wanting somehow to make up for his delinquent correspondence efforts.

She glanced at him. “Do you really want to know?”

Remembering how she used to tell him everything about her school life, he nodded. “Of course I do.”

“Well, Cousin Penelope must know everyone there is to know on the Continent,” she began, her enthusiasm returning.

He reclosed the jar of tea and handed it to her.

“If Cousin Penelope didn’t know a person she felt worth knowing, she found someone who did and wangled an introduction,” she continued, placing the jar of tea back into the hamper. “Society is very formal across the Atlantic. You can’t just present yourself to someone. An introduction must be arranged.”

She stooped to gather up the tablecloth. Silas stood and took it from her and shook it out away from them.

“Take for example at a dance—excuse me, I mean a ball or an assembly—you can’t just dance with anyone who asks you. You must first be formally introduced.”

She giggled suddenly. “When we were in Vienna, I was requested by a third party to dance a waltz with a certain titled gentleman. He wouldn’t be so bold as to force himself upon the young ‘American demoiselle.’ No, that would be most improper, so he sent an emissary, a female relative—titled, of course. Once I gave her my consent—to an introduction only—he approached and the formal presentation was carried out.”

She took the folded cloth from Silas and laid it atop the picnic basket before facing him and assuming a very straight stance, her hands clasped behind her back. “So, having navigated the appropriate channels, Prince Leopold Christian Otto von Braunschweiger von Black Forest von Wiener Schnitzel von something or other—” the longer she spoke, the thicker grew her false German accent and she bowed low, clicking her heels as she did so “—was presented to me in all the glory of his many family names. I was most impressed, and I gave him my lowest curtsy, like so.”

Silas was laughing at her antics by this time, relaxed once more. She was, after all, the young girl he’d always known. He watched her maneuver an exaggerated curtsy.

“I was afraid my knees would creak, and I almost toppled over—oh goodness!” Here she miscalculated and began to fall forward. Silas stepped into the gap and caught her just in time. She laughed up at him, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders. “Thank you, Silas. I don’t think Prince von Leopold could have been any more agile.” She frowned. “He wore a monocle, you know. It might have popped out if he’d been forced to exert himself so.”

Silas could feel his heart begin to thump heavily as she kept her hands on his shoulders and did not step back.

“Anyway, we are now correctly placed for the waltz. You know it was invented in Vienna? I needn’t summarize the prince’s—or was he a count?—well, anyway, I needn’t go on with his flattering speech. The introduction alone took a good half minute. It was a few more minutes before I realized he was asking me to dance. His accent was so heavy, his circumlocution so flowery, it was quite some time before I realized all he wanted was a waltz.”

Cherish laughed to hide her nervousness. She felt she hadn’t stopped for breath in the past minute, terrified lest Silas disengage himself from her. Now as she looked into his smiling face, she wished she could have an inkling of what he was feeling. Was it anything remotely akin to the way her heart was skittering about in her chest?

She gazed into his gray eyes, her aunt’s words coming back to her. What was going on behind them? They regarded her with that same fond amusement they always had. Was there never to be anything more?

“Come on.” She tugged at his shoulder and took one of his hands from her waist into her own. “I’ll show you the Viennese waltz.”

Then he did react, as she had already begun taking the first step. “I’m not much good at waltzing.”

“It’s simple. I’m planning another party—did I tell you?—and I intend to have dancing this time. But you must lead. One, two, three…one, two, three…” She continued looking into his eyes as she counted. “It’s fatal to look down at your feet. You’re sure to trip then. It’s just a box step, as simple as counting one, two, three. This way—one, then two here, and then one long step, three.” They turned together.

“Yes, you’re doing it.” She began humming a Strauss waltz. “One, two, three. One, two, three. Imagine a hundred chandeliers, sparkling upon the ladies’ ball gowns, and you in a black jacket and starched white shirt with stiff points and white or black tie.” She continued humming, wanting this dance to go on forever.

She laughed when he tripped on a tussock of grass. “You can’t stop, but must find your place once again, or someone might step on my train. The ballroom is packed with dozens of couples….”

Cherish kept up a steady flow of talk, as if by sheer will she could make Silas fall in love with her, feel what she was feeling for him, sense the enchantment of this moment under the cloudless sky in the midst of a field of bluets more glorious than the most radiant Viennese ballroom.

At the noonday dinner Tom Winslow turned to Phoebe when she sat down across the table from him. “Where is Cherish?”

“Out on a picnic with Silas,” she answered him, reaching for a dish of potatoes and taking a helping.

“Out on a picnic?”

“That’s what I said. They went for a sail and a picnic. Now, would you care to serve yourself a slice or two of the corned beef and pass me the platter?”

“What? Oh, yes.” He stabbed the red slices and put them on his plate, then passed the dish to his sister. They finished serving their plates and bowed their heads to say grace. After taking his first bite, Tom chewed thoughtfully. “I don’t know if I like her hanging around with Silas so much. First down at the boat shop and now picnicking together.”

“Silas is a good boy.”

“She’s tagged after him since she was a little girl, always defending him whenever she’s so much as thought I wasn’t treating him right. Now—” here he gave a grunt of incredulous laughter “—she wants me to think of Silas as my successor.”

“You could do a lot worse,” she answered shortly.

Their cutlery clattered against the china as they ate in silence for a while.

“Still, now that Cherish is home, I want her to start meeting some of the men of her own class. Take that young Townsend. I like that fellow. A real gentleman.”

“The question is, does she like him?” Phoebe asked pointedly, prying open her biscuit with the tip of her knife, the steam escaping in a sheer vapor.

That night Cherish knelt by her bed and prayed. Lord, You know how much I’ve always loved Silas. Only You know. Only You know how long I’ve waited for him. I’ve done everything that was expected of me.

Oh, please, Father, make Silas love me back. Let him love me as I love him. I want him so badly. I feel I shall burst with love for him.

Chapter Four

After the Sunday-morning church service, the congregation filed through the entryway, greeting the minister.

“Well, if it isn’t little Cherish Winslow!” Pastor McDuffie took her hand in a hearty handshake. “What a fashionable lady she has become. What do you say, Carrie?” He turned to his wife.

Mrs. McDuffie turned to Cherish with a warm smile. “Welcome back, Cherish. Please forgive us for missing your homecoming. We had to be away that day. We are so happy to have you back in our midst.”

“Thank you. No one is gladder than I am,” she answered.

“Now that you’re back, can we look forward to seeing you with us on Tuesday nights for choir practice? Carrie can certainly use another good singing voice.”

“I would love to come.” She turned to Silas. “You’ll join me, won’t you? We could walk over and back together.”

He fingered his tie. “I’m not much of a singer.”

“Nonsense,” McDuffie contradicted. “You have a fine baritone. I could hear you from the pulpit.”

Cherish smiled at the color creeping up his cheeks. “I hope it didn’t hurt your ears,” he said.

McDuffie laughed. “Au contraire. I was heartened to hear such a good, strong male voice. Just what we need in our choir.” He leaned over to whisper conspiratorially, “We have a surplus of little old ladies, dear souls, whose voices are becoming a mite quavery. We need some new blood.” He gave them both a last firm handshake. “It’s settled, then, come out Tuesday evenings at seven. Good to have you back, Cherish.”

Silas walked home from church with the Winslows as usual for Sunday dinner. Though he had deliberately slowed his steps to avoid walking with Cherish, he found her at his side.

She was a vision of loveliness. In fact, she had been every day he’d seen her since her return. He was beginning to realize he was looking forward to her appearance each day. Today she wore a yellow dress, with flounces and ruches up and down its skirts. A wide yellow sash, tied low on her hips, swayed in the breeze. The tight sleeves of the gown came down to her elbows and her hands were covered with dainty white gloves.

Silas wondered whether it was perhaps because he’d been around men too long, down on the shipyard, that one prettily dressed girl could stir his senses so.

Cherish was chatting away merrily with old Jacob, the Winslows’ handyman and gardener. “I look forward to hearing you fiddling away at the party.”

Silas realized none of the girls of Haven’s End could hold a candle to Cherish. Was it the city polish? Was it that every detail in her appearance was pleasing to the eye? Did women achieve that deliberately, or did it come about naturally?

Cherish’s deep brown hair cascaded down her shoulders in ringlets beneath a little straw bonnet trimmed in yellow ribbons and bows. He remembered her hair caught up in a simple wide ribbon the day they had danced in the meadow, how it had swung around as they’d played at waltzing in a ballroom. She’d been just as beautiful then in her simple frock and hairstyle.

He smiled inwardly at the image. Cherish pretending he and she had been in some elegant Viennese ballroom. Nothing could be sillier. He glanced down at his hands. They were marred by scars of cuts old and new from carpenter’s tools and burns from hot tar, and they felt as rough as the sandpaper he used to make the boats he worked on as smooth as silk.

How did they compare to Prince Leopold’s? Like sandpaper to silk beat a refrain in his mind.

They reached the Winslow house and turned up the drive. Aside from the hotel down by the harbor and the few summer residences, this was the grandest house in Haven’s End.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Cherish told him, her blue eyes laughing up at him. “I was in the kitchen since dawn with Aunt Phoebe until it was time to get ready for church.”

“That right, Miss Cherish?” Jacob piped up. “What goodies you ladies been preparing for us starvin’ menfolk?”

She turned to him. “Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, pickled beets and biscuits.”

“Well, bring it on and we’ll do it proud,” he exclaimed.

After a delicious dinner, in which they all complimented Cherish on her cooking skills, Cherish made Silas promise that he would meet her out on the veranda later.

He usually walked back down to the shipyard after Sunday dinner, but he sat a while making desultory conversation with Mr. Winslow. When the older man took up the paper to read, Silas made his way out to the front porch.

He glanced around and decided to lounge on the two-person swing set at one end of the porch. He swung lazily on the seat, pushing back and forth with the heel of his boot, unaccustomed to idleness. In his free time he was usually whittling away on a ship model or cleaning out his boat.

Just as he felt himself dozing, he heard the front door swing open and footsteps walking toward him. He shook aside the drowsiness and stood to help Cherish with the tray she carried.

“I brought us some lemonade, in case we get thirsty.” She indicated where he should set the small tray down.

“Everything done?”

“All shipshape to Aunt Phoebe’s satisfaction,” she answered, settling herself beside him on the swing with a small leather-bound book beside her. A barn cat, which had come onto the veranda from around the house, jumped onto her lap.

“Hello, puss, where’ve you been all morning? Out hunting mice?” The cat purred smoothly as Cherish stroked its gray fur.

To hide the feelings Cherish’s proximity was creating in him, Silas pushed his feet against the wooden floor, bringing the swing back into motion. They rocked in silence for a few moments, listening to the creak of the swing.

He was just managing to ignore her nearness, his eyes closed, his back resting against the seat, when Cherish asked him, “Do you have a sweetheart these days?”

His eyes snapped open. Cherish sat observing him as her hand caressed the cat’s fur.

“What?” Why was she asking such a question? Simple curiosity—or something more?

“You heard me. Is there anyone occupying a special place in your heart?”

He took his time in answering, unused to such personal inquiries. The men on the yard talked about the ships they were working on, the latest cargo in port, the price of lumber. Mrs. Sullivan made sure he was well fed and clothed and noted if he was looking “peaked.” Mr. Winslow cared only that he reported to work every day and carried out his duties. And all he, Silas, ever thought about was the feel of wood under his hands and the goal he was working toward.

No one had ever asked about his heart. Finally he shook his head. “No.” Why had the answer been so difficult?

“No one since Emma?” she asked softly, referring to his childhood sweetheart from back home.

“I guess I’m married to my boats now.”

“That’s silly. You can’t be married to boats.”

He continued rocking the swing gently, looking down at the toes of his boots. “I haven’t thought about things like getting married, starting a family, or getting a place of my own since Emma passed away.” He spoke the next words slowly, articulating them for the first time. “I guess I decided then that marriage was not for me.”

“That’s nonsense, Silas.” The chiding words were spoken gently.

He shrugged. “I’m content with things as they are. I have my dream, and that’s enough for now.”

“You have a wonderful dream, and I know it will be fulfilled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t want more.”

He glanced at her again, surprised for the second time in the space of a few moments. She did remember his dream.

But she continued speaking, not noticing his reaction. “Love is the highest thing you can experience.”

He said nothing, the word making him uncomfortable.

“You loved Emma.”

“I was just a boy.” His fingers tugged at his collar, trying to think of another topic to distract Cherish.

“Age has nothing to do with it. Just think, you were a boy of twelve and you promised yourself to a girl you’d known all your life, and you loved her faithfully all the years you were here. That’s not childish sentiment. It’s a beautiful, noble thing.”

He turned away from her earnest gaze. “You’ve just become a romantic since seeing all those old castles.”

“Love has nothing to do with seeing castles! I’ve always believed in love. I’ve just become old enough to express my views better now. And there is One Who agrees with me.” She tapped the cover of the book between them. “God. He has a lot to say about love.”

“Yes, I know all about that kind of love…doing unto others….”

She looked away from him. “That sounds like doing your duty. It’s so much more than that. It’s about loving one’s Savior. It’s an all-consuming love He has for us.”

“You sound like Pastor McDuffie.”

Her lips curved slightly. “He’s the one who began making me see that being a Christian was more than just going to church on Sunday or following the Golden Rule. Do you know what I discovered through him?” Her slate-blue irises were rimmed in a deeper hue that was almost black. “How wonderful it is to fall in love with God.”

Silas turned away, her words leaving him feeling inadequate, as if he were missing some vital component in his makeup. The cat had climbed onto his lap, and he touched its fur, feeling the throb of its purr under his fingertips.

“When one realizes the love Jesus poured out for us on that cross, it becomes easy to love Him back with every particle of one’s being, to hold nothing back, to say ‘Yes, Lord,’ when He asks something of us.” She picked up the Bible and hugged it to her breast. “Don’t tell me this is just romanticism. Love is our whole purpose for existing.”

He wasn’t ready to concede any such thing. His mind went to the feel of a boat taking shape under his hands. That was life to him. He pushed the swing back with a jerk.

The cat, disturbed by the motion, got up and jumped to the floor. It stretched its back and sauntered off.

They swung in silence for a while.

Cherish sighed. “God gave us the love between a man and a woman as an—” her hand fluttered out in search of the correct word “—extension of His love for us.”

Again he didn’t know how to answer. “Someone will love you some day, Cherish, with the kind of love you yearn for.”

She tipped her head to one side, regarding him steadily. “Do you think so?”

“I’m sure of it,” he replied, wondering who that man would be and realizing he couldn’t conjure up any image of the man who would be good enough for her.

“I hope you’re right,” she answered him, and set the book on her lap. “Don’t you want to be loved again? The way Emma loved you?”

Her eyes searched his, and he had a fleeting sense of how much more wrenching and painful the death of a loved one would be to a man than to a boy. He turned away from Cherish and looked down the lawn toward the inlet beyond. The tide had filled it, just as Cherish’s words had filled his mind without any conscious resistance on his part.

“I never think about it,” he answered honestly. “I was awfully young—we both were—when Emmy and I ‘pledged our troth.’ Then we just kept the promise, although we didn’t see each other but just once a year after I came up here for my apprenticeship.

“When I turned nineteen, I asked your father for permission to get married. Although I’d already fulfilled the terms of my apprenticeship and didn’t really need his consent, he counseled me to wait until I was at least twenty-one, with more money saved up.”

He looked straight ahead to some indefinite point in the center of the painted porch floor. “His advice made sense. At that age you don’t expect to lose someone younger than yourself, just like that, even though we go through it all the time. I’d already lost an older brother and sister, and my father never came back from the Grand Banks.”

He cleared his throat, the recollection of those days coming back to him as he spoke about them. “Then she got rheumatic fever and died, just a month shy of my twenty-first birthday.” He’d felt bitter about it for a long time. Just when it had faded, he didn’t know.

“Do you still miss Emma after all these years?”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s as I said—I guess I’m married to boats now.”

“You know I love you, Silas.”

He lifted his gaze to hers, her words arresting him.

Before he could figure out what she meant, she asked softly, “Don’t you love me?”

Her big blue eyes waited for his answer. He could feel himself redden. He rubbed the back of his neck, at a loss for an answer. How was he supposed to answer such a question? Was she talking about their old familiar affection for each other, developed over the years? Or that sublime sentiment she had been describing to him? He managed to tear his gaze away.

“Well…uh…yes.”

“You don’t have to say it as if you’re going to choke on it!”

His face grew warmer. “I’m not! Of course I love you. I’ve known you since you were a little girl. You’re like a sister to me.”

When he looked at her again, she was gazing away from him.

He felt the weight of responsibility. Cherish trusted him. Winslow trusted him. How could he live up to that trust when he found himself yearning to kiss those sweet lips inches from him?

Silas lay on his bed, hearing the lap of the waves below boxing him in. He could no longer push aside Cherish’s question. Don’t you love me?

She’d said I love you in her frank, childlike way. She loved the boy who’d come to Haven’s End fourteen years earlier. But it was a naive, girlish emotion that would soon pass once she’d been back a while and realized Silas van der Zee was the same uneducated man she’d left two years ago, who’d never been beyond this coast, who never could come anywhere near the kind of gentlemen she’d met in her travels. Soon she’d outgrow her childish fancy and turn admiring woman’s eyes on someone like Warren Townsend.

But what about Silas himself? Don’t you love me? Why did the question make him squirm like a pale grub dug out of the dark, damp earth and exposed to the unfamiliar light and air?

What did he know of love? Did he even know how to love?

He loved boats. He could hold on to that one fact. He loved the feel of smooth wood emerging from the sanding, knowing it was something tangible, something he could force and shape and tame. He loved the look of a rift-sawn timber with its straight grain, knowing its superior strength, its unlikeliness to cup or warp in the water. He loved the smell of cedar and oak and pine that permeated the boat shop even up to his room, the only home he’d known for the past fourteen years.

He loved the challenge of taking straight, strong, unbending logs and cutting and shaping them into a buoyant craft. He loved the triumph of seeing that craft ply through the waters, daring that depthless expanse of waves, defying nature itself when it brought even the wind to do its bidding through that mathematical precision of setting sails at a certain angle to move forward.

He loved the challenge, the speed, the feel of that maiden, the sailing vessel.

But loving a woman—a real, flesh-and-blood woman? Silas sat up, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists, too uncomfortable with the question to lie still. Again he felt unable to respond, as if he were untaught or immature in this aspect of the organ called the heart. It seemed to him it had stopped developing when he was twelve and had left home.

He still remembered waving goodbye as his boat pulled away from the harbor. Little Emma, come to see him off, holding his mother’s hand. His mother, still looking lost, as she had since she’d received the news that his father wasn’t coming back from his fishing expedition. And his older sister with her harsh, Nordic looks prematurely middle-aged although she was only in her twenties, since she’d had to take over the running of the household.

Silas had been one of the last of the siblings to leave home. Almost all the others, older, had already found employment elsewhere.

So Silas had arrived at Winslow’s Shipyard and his heart had given itself over to boats. He’d lived among men and boats ever since. The only women he’d had contact with had been Cherish’s mother, a kindly, beautiful woman, and the plainer, more acerbic Mrs. Sullivan. With both, their conversation had been limited to Wash your hands, Silas. Wash your face. Don’t forget to scrub behind your ears. Clean your plate, Silas. Get your elbows off the table.

And then there had been Winslow’s cherished daughter, radiant and outgoing and sensitive to his every mood.

He didn’t know how to cope with these strange new feelings she was stirring in him. He felt stunted like a gnarled apple tree, beaten down by the salt-laden winter winds, standing squat and twisted beside the tall, majestic firs surrounding it.

Cherish talked about that high-flown sentiment called “love.” Was Silas’s heart even capable of housing such a noble-sounding emotion?

Tonight was the night she would find herself once again in Silas’s arms.

He might not realize what a wonder true love was, but Cherish Winslow was going to show him. She’d make herself irresistible to him.

After taking a sponge bath, careful not to touch her curls, Cherish donned clean underclothes, stockings, corset, coiled wire bustle and petticoats. Then she turned to her wardrobe.

Her dress already hung on the door, pressed that morning. Every ruffle stood up, every pleat lay perfectly flat. She lovingly took the pale blue dress off its hanger. An original Worth creation. Cousin Penelope had presented her to Mr. Worth himself in Paris, and he’d designed the gown for her, allowing her to see it modeled on one of the young French mannequins.

She buttoned the tiny row of buttons up her front and smoothed down the formfitting bodice. The upper skirt was formed en tablier, like a puffed-up apron draped across the front in loose folds and gathered in the rear to fall gracefully from the bustle. The underskirt was a shade of deeper blue and trimmed in a wide pleated hem.

With a glance of satisfaction in her full-length mirror, Cherish turned her attention to the details of hair and face. She rummaged in her jewelry box and brought out a black velvet choker with its amethyst pendant.

After placing it around her neck, she brushed her hair carefully, curling each ringlet around her fingers. Now she brought them up high on her head and fastened them with a tortoise clasp, and arranged the cascade of curls down her back and around her shoulders. Her amethyst earrings dangled from her ears. She frowned at her reflection, wishing she could use rouge the way the ladies in France did, but Aunt Phoebe would be liable to make a public spectacle of her, sending her upstairs to scrub it off her face. Instead she contented herself with putting a little rice powder on her face and pinching her cheeks to bring out the color. Finally she dabbed a little eau de toilette on her temples and behind her ears.

She stood and gave herself a final inspection in the glass. It was not a ball gown by any means; she knew enough not to wear anything too fancy for Haven’s End. What would Silas think? That was the only thing that really concerned her.

Sending a prayer heavenward, asking the Lord to bless her endeavors, she straightened the articles in her room, then left to see whether her first guests had arrived.

The corridor was crowded with young people. Cherish could feel Annalise’s hand clutch her arm in resistance, but she ignored it and blithely sallied forth into the crowd, greeting her friends and presenting Annalise to everyone she spoke to.

Her eyes scanned the hallway for Silas, but she didn’t see him. Disappointed, she entered the parlor with Annalise. Warren, taller than most of the people present, walked over to them immediately.

“There you are.” He turned his gaze from Cherish to his sister, and she could see the question in his eyes.

“Yes, here we are. I promised Annalise to stay with her until she is better acquainted with my friends.” She didn’t explain to him how reluctant his sister had been to come into the parlor at all. “Would you be so kind as to get us each a glass of punch?”

“Certainly.”

After that, Cherish was swamped with friends stopping to chat with her. The music started up in the opposite parlor and she wished she could loosen Annalise’s hold on her and seek out Silas. She had seen him come in. He had given them a brief greeting and left again, and she hadn’t seen him since. He was probably out on the veranda chatting with the menfolk.

Finally, feeling she was being released from an ordeal, Cherish left Annalise sitting with Aunt Phoebe and one of her friends and headed for the doorway. There Warren accosted her.

“Where’s Annalise?” he asked her.

Biting back a retort, she answered sweetly, “See, there? I left her with Aunt Phoebe and Mrs. Drummond.”

“I wanted to thank you for being so patient with her. She’s—” he hesitated, looking down at the cup in his hand “—very shy.”

Cherish felt her impatience evaporate, and her heart warmed to the man who showed such concern for his sister.

“Yes, I noticed. I think she’ll be all right. Perhaps we can ask one of the young men to dance with her.”

He smiled in enthusiasm. “Yes, that would be grand. Now, how about you? Can I interest you in a dance?”

Cherish swallowed her frustration. Perhaps she should dance with him and get it over with. That way she could reserve a waltz for Silas later. She’d gone over the waltzes with her piano-playing friend Alice, who would play when Jacob and his fiddler friends took a break.

She nodded her acceptance, and the two of them entered the other parlor, where furniture and carpets had been cleared from the center of the room. Cherish allowed Warren to swing her around in the spirited dance amidst the other dancers. One dance led to another. About halfway through the second, she spotted Silas in the doorway. She lifted an arm in greeting and he nodded to her with a smile.

As the music ended, she and Warren moved off the dance floor. “You dance very well,” he told her as he led her toward the doorway. “Let me get you some refreshment before the musicians start up again. I’ll bring Annalise back with me.”

“Yes, do.” Maybe he could dance with his sister.

She turned to Silas with a smile. “Where have you been keeping yourself all evening?”

“Around,” he answered with a lazy grin. His thick hair was swept back from his forehead. Darker sideburns contrasted with the burnished gold of the rest of his hair. His gray eyes were alight with humor. “You are looking quite the fashion plate.”

“I trust that is a compliment.”

He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Most certainly. Another Paris creation?” he asked with a nod at her gown.

“Yes, monsieur. I’ve been looking for you,” she said after a moment.

“What for? To foist some young lady on me to dance with?”

She laughed, thinking that was precisely what she intended. “Why aren’t you dancing, anyway?”

“I told you, I’m not much of a dancer.”

“You never will be if you don’t practice.”

At that moment Warren returned with Annalise.

“Silas, you remember Warren Townsend and his sister, Annalise.”

“Yes, of course. Pleased to see you both again,” he said, giving Warren his hand and smiling kindly at Annalise.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Warren replied.

They exchanged pleasantries as Cherish sipped the cold fruit punch. She heard the first notes of the piano and looked for a place to set down her cup.

Her arm, stretched toward a low table, stopped, paralyzed, when she heard Warren’s low, friendly tone behind her. “Would you mind escorting Annalise onto the dance floor? I’d like to dance with Cherish and don’t want to leave my sister unescorted. Although she’ll deny it, she’s a wonderful dancer.”

“Uh, of course,” Silas said after a second’s hesitation. “Miss Townsend? Would you care to dance this waltz with me?”

Cherish turned, seeing the look of fright on Annalise’s face. For a moment she felt relief, certain Annalise would turn Silas down.

But her brother pushed her gently toward Silas, urging, “Please say yes. Otherwise everyone will think Silas was turned down by the prettiest girl in the room.”

Annalise’s eyes widened in concern. Silas stood by, saying nothing. The girl hesitated between the two men.

Finally Silas held out his arm, smiling encouragement. “They’ll understand once they see me waltz.”

Annalise returned his smile and put her hand on his arm.

Everything faded out for Cherish—the sounds of the waltz, the babble of voices around her—as she watched Silas, arm in arm with Annalise, walk toward the dance floor. The distance between him and Cherish increased with each step, making it a reality she could do nothing to alter.

As if coming back to the present, she heard Warren’s voice. “So, may I have the honor of this dance?”

She licked her lips, tempted to give him the set-down of his life. How dare he? He and his stupid little sister with her shy, childish ways! Cherish swallowed the words that roiled through her mind, knowing how unfair they were, but unable to stop from feeling hurt and humiliated even as she nodded her assent.

She followed the dance steps like an automaton while her heart ached with the feeling of betrayal. The warm smile she thought reserved for her, the encouraging words she’d always received from Silas, the gentle teasing were not for her alone. They were for any young lady that came along.

Obviously, he’d felt sympathy for Annalise. Was that all Silas felt for Cherish, as well?

He’d always been her big brother, pal, confidant…hero. But now she wanted something more from Silas.

As the strains of the waltz played on, Cherish refused to believe her years of waiting for Silas had been in vain. There was no other man for her. Didn’t Silas see that?

Chapter Five

Silas held Annalise gingerly. Heaven knew, he wasn’t used to dancing the waltz, and his partner looked as if she was ready to expire at any moment. He glanced helplessly across the room, but relief was not forthcoming.

Cherish was in Townsend’s arms, smiling up at something he was saying as they moved in time to the music. They both looked as if they belonged in a ballroom in Boston rather than in a front parlor in Haven’s End.

He turned back to Miss Townsend as the two moved awkwardly among the circling dancers. “Smile, or everyone’ll think I’m stepping on your feet.”

The look of fright in the girl’s large green eyes gave way to a slight relaxing of her facial features.

“That’s better. Even if you can’t manage a smile, at least it doesn’t look as if you’re being tortured.”

A tiny, tentative smile appeared on her pink lips.

“Getting better and better. I admit I’m not much of a dancer, but I don’t want to pass myself off as a worse clodhopper than I already know myself to be. I was convinced I couldn’t waltz, but I have it on the best authority that it’s as easy as counting one, two, three. Of course, having left school young, I don’t know as I’m too capable in that area either.”

Her smile grew, and he took a deep breath of relief. He couldn’t abide the thought that the girl was here by force, only to please her brother. “Thatta girl.”

Silas kept up a flow of conversation as they danced. It occurred to him he was chattering. It reminded him of the day Cherish had been waltzing with him in the meadow. He wondered now whether she had been as nervous as he felt right now.

No—he dismissed the notion as soon as it was formed. Cherish was the most poised girl he knew. He glanced at her again across the dancers, remembering her as a little lady even at the age of five when she’d come to make his acquaintance on his first day at the boat shop.

“—so many years.”

He glanced back at Miss Townsend. “Excuse me?”

“I said you’ve been in Haven’s End so many years.”

“That’s right. I always knew I wanted to build boats, so I was glad to find a place to apprentice.”

His gaze roved over Cherish and Townsend once again.

She certainly seemed to be at ease, speaking with Warren as they glided across the dance floor, and it seemed to Silas that she was as graceful in a meadow as in a ballroom.

He, himself, was finding it hard to keep up a flow of conversation and at the same time mind the placement of his feet. Deciding to concentrate on his steps, he stopped talking.

When the song ended and another started up, he wished for a moment that it was Cherish in his arms on the dance floor. But after that brief tuneless waltz in the meadow, he had resolved to avoid dancing with her. Holding her in his arms, however innocently, put too many crazy thoughts into his head.

Cherish awoke the next morning late. Turning from the window, its shade unsuccessfully hiding the beautiful spring day and sound of birdsong, she burrowed farther into her pillow.

How she wished she could stay out of sight all day.

She groaned, remembering her unwanted guests. Like her Worth creation, which now lay in a crumpled heap on the floor in her line of vision, they intruded where they were not wanted. Warren and Annalise Townsend were still under her roof, and she was their hostess.

She stared at the wallpaper before her, reliving the fiasco of last night. Oh, Lord, why do I have to go down and pretend everything is all right? They ruined everything last night. It was my party and I had everything planned. I’ve waited so long for Silas. All I wanted was to dance with him!

Her lips trembled and her eyes welled up with tears, the way they had all night as she’d tossed and turned.

It was almost as if Silas had deliberately avoided her. She’d never seen him so elusive. If he wasn’t talking in such a chummy manner to little miss whey-faced Townsend, he was nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t understand it.

She’d had to swallow her anger and disappointment and pretend everything was just fine. When they’d finished eating and gone back inside as another waltz started up, she’d turned to him and there he was, taking Annalise out onto the dance floor again, as if they were the best of friends.

After that she’d seen Annalise dancing with another man—a friend of Silas’s—and Silas vanished. She’d had to exercise every ounce of self-control to keep smiling and chatting with Warren and later with Annalise when she’d wanted nothing better than to tell her to stay away from Silas.

She swiped at her eyes now. It would do no good to go getting them all swollen. Then everyone would know she’d been crying. She wouldn’t give Silas the satisfaction!

She had guests to see to. Thankfully, they were leaving this morning. Cherish threw off the bedclothes, resolved to brave the day. First a repair job on her face, she decided, peering at the red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. Then to play the charming hostess to the Townsends as she’d promised her father. Then, finally, down to the boat shop to comfort Silas and discover why he couldn’t have spared one dance for her!

In the afternoon Silas headed up to the shop after spending the morning working in the stocks scarfing together lengths of wood. They had been cut and shaped to fit together like puzzle pieces, forming the vertical ribs of the schooner’s hull.

He hadn’t been up to the house for dinner, but had brought a lunch pail down with him.

Now he welcomed a break from the tiring work in the sun. Try as he would to deny it, he also looked forward to seeing Cherish again. Why, when he’d managed to live without her for months, even years on end, did his eyes now long for a glimpse of her daily, his soul for some moments of communion? These were questions he chose to ignore for the moment as he pushed open the back door to the boat shop.

He spied Cherish down on her knees before a large board.

“Hi, there. At work already?” he asked in a friendly voice. In her simple cotton dress and pinafore apron she appeared so different from last night, yet just as captivating.

She did not look up at him, but continued drawing a straight line down from top to bottom of the board. “Yes.”

Feeling slightly put out that she’d started without him, he squatted down beside her. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. I had to finish framing a section of the hull.”

She finished the line. “That’s quite all right. Excuse me.” She indicated she wanted him to move and he complied, wondering why she was behaving as if he’d done something wrong.

“Sure. Need some help?”

She finally sat back on her heels and addressed him directly. “I’m marking out a grid on this board. I’ve figured out the scale of the half-hull model measurements, which I’ve plotted on this chart. See, ‘two inches equals one foot, zero inches.’ So we’ll divide the board into a grid of one-foot spaces. Here, you can do the next one.”

He took the yardstick and pencil from her and followed her directions. In the meantime, she began measuring out the horizontal lines on the board, explaining how she’d calculated those spaces. The two of them worked silently, crisscrossing paths every once in a while.

The flowery scent of her hair came under his nostrils when this happened. She seemed completely unaware of him, her focus intent on the pencil and yardstick in her hand. He noticed how slim and attractive her hand looked, splayed against the white board. Its only adornment was a thin silver ring with a small amethyst stone set in a filigreed mount.

“Tired after last night?” he asked.

“A little,” she replied, her back to him.

“It was a nice party,” he offered, hoping to make her feel better if she were upset about something.

“Thank you.”

“Miss Townsend seemed to flounder a bit there, not knowing anyone but you.”

“Thank goodness you were there to rescue her.”

He eyed her back. Did he detect a trace of sarcasm? What had he done? “She’s all right, once you get to know her. We spoke about you,” he said humorously.

That caused her to crane around to look at him. “What about me?” she asked with a frown.

He grinned, hoping to get a rise from her. “Oh, I just told her she’d better follow you around if she wanted to learn how to socialize.”

“What does that mean?” She didn’t sound pleased.

“Just that. You know how to talk to people, dance, put on the charm—”

“Is that what you think I do?”

He cleared his throat, wondering why she was so touchy. “Anyway, she was a bit shy, and I thought you could help her.”

“Is that so?” She drew another line across the wood. “What else did you talk about?”

“She admires you. Maybe you could befriend her, you know, take her under your wing. She seems to be in mortal fear of strangers. I felt kind of sorry for her last night. I told Charlie he’d better dance with her and treat her nicely if he wanted me to help him with his next boat.”

Cherish turned his way and began to measure the next line. “I thought I treated her rather graciously last night. What more do you want me to do—bring her along to the boat shop?”

Now he was certain she was upset about something. She never brought her girlfriends to the shop. “No-o, but you could, oh, you know, have her over, be her friend, talk about whatever it is girls talk about when they’re together.”

She didn’t reply, but continued working.

He drew another line. “What’s up?”

She glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“I know when something’s bothering you.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She took up the chart and began studying it intently.

“Come on. You can tell ol’ Silas.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“What is it, Cherry?” he asked in a cajoling tone, using his childhood nickname for her.

“Don’t call me that! You know I can’t abide it!”

He thought of something. “Is it Townsend? He stuck by you most of the evening. Did he say anything to offend you?”

“No. He was the perfect gentleman.”

Silas frowned, remembering how good the two had looked dancing together, each one so elegantly attired. “Your father seems to think highly of him.”

“Perhaps justly so.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he answered dryly. Seeing his questions were getting him nowhere, he gave up, telling himself Cherish was just in a mood. He’d heard women got into funny humors, although Cherish had never done so before she’d gone away. Maybe that was something she’d picked up on her travels.

But Cherish wasn’t ready to let the topic end. “I noticed you had no trouble dancing last night,” she said, and again Silas noticed the edge to her tone.

“Well, I couldn’t very well refuse Townsend’s request to dance with his sister.”

“You were very gracious to take her out onto the dance floor so many times. It’s a pity you couldn’t spare one dance for your hostess.”

Silas stared at Cherish. He read hurt in her unblinking gaze, and he finally understood. She had wanted him to dance with her.

He swallowed hard and turned away. How could he tell her he had deliberately avoided holding her in his arms?

He cleared his throat, his fingers fiddling with his pencil. She deserved an explanation, but he didn’t think she’d accept the only one he had.

“You were pretty busy on the dance floor all evening. I didn’t think you needed me to fill up your dance card.”

She turned away from him and resumed her work. He couldn’t tell whether she’d accepted his explanation or not.

“You’re right, Silas. I didn’t need you as a partner. I would have liked you as a partner.”

He had no reply to that. How much he would have liked her as a partner he knew only too well. And the less she knew of it, the better.

On the night of choir practice Cherish put on her hat and grabbed up her shawl to walk to the church. As she walked out the door after supper, she saw Silas walking up the front walk.

“You ready to go?” he asked her.

“You didn’t have to come all the way here to fetch me.” She had deliberately not reminded him of choir practice when they’d worked together in the boat shop earlier in the day.

He looked unbearably handsome, his dark golden hair brushed back from his forehead, his skin bronze against the collar of his white shirt. He wore no jacket, only a vest.

“Of course I was going to fetch you. Come on.” Not waiting for her reply, he turned back on the path.

They were quiet on the walk there. Halfway to the church they were joined by another couple going in the same direction.

“Evenin’, Cherish, Silas,” said the man, the woman beside him nodding with a smile.

“Evening, Billy,” Silas replied. “Going to choir practice?”

“Yep. Fine evening, ain’t it?”

“Sure is.”

“When you gonna launch that schooner?” Billy asked, indicating the ship in the stocks as they passed the boatyard.

“By summer’s end, we expect, or early in the autumn.”

“Don’t see any more keels being laid. Don’t you have any new orders for the summer?”

“We’re working on some dories in the workshop right now. Charles Whitcomb may commission a sloop.”

The man nodded. “Not like the old days when the yard was littered with hulls.”

The two men continued chatting as they neared the white clapboard church.

During the practice, Cherish stood with the women. The pastor wasn’t present—only his wife, Carrie, who played the piano. Another gentleman from the congregation directed them.

“Let’s turn to hymn number eighty,” he told them. They sang a rousing “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” about half a dozen times before the man was satisfied.

By the time they left, Cherish thought the words to the hymns would be revolving in her head all evening. Several people walked along with her and Silas as they turned homeward.

“You don’t have to go with me. I’ll walk along with this group until I reach home,” she told him.

“I agreed to accompany you there and back, and that’s what I’m going to do,” he insisted.

She sighed. How nice it would have been if he’d said he would walk with her because he wanted to and not because he felt obliged to. Hugging the shawl around her, she contemplated the night sky, which was just turning a deep blue, its edges still pale and edged by a wash of orange where the sun had set.

“Chilly?” Silas asked softly.

She shook her head.

“I’ll be settin’ out my onions and taters tomorrow,” Billy said to them. “Too early for the squash and corn. We could still get a frost.”

“We have peas, radishes and lettuce coming up nicely,” Cherish told him. “Aunt Phoebe and I will probably be planting more seeds tomorrow.”

“’Spect we’ll have some rain in another day or two, so it’s the time to get some seed in the ground.”

They waved goodbye to the other couples when they reached Cherish’s gate. Silas followed her up the walk to the veranda. When they approached it, Cherish climbed up the first step before turning to bid him good-night.

He stood on the ground at eye level with her. “For the past few days you’ve been looking as if you’ve lost your best friend,” he said jokingly. “Don’t be sad. You’ve still got me.” His lips crooked upward in the dim light.

Her throat tightened at his words. He didn’t realize what he was saying. She had lost her best friend, who wasn’t even aware of it. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.

Not able to speak, she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, wanting somehow to express what she felt for him.

At the same instant Silas turned his head to hers and began saying “Good night.”

He never finished the words, as her pursed lips touched his half-open mouth. She could see his eyes widen with the shock of the contact.

She didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe. All that she could think was she never wanted the moment to end.

A second later he jerked back.

“Well,” she said, too awed by the contact to say anything more.

His eyes stared into hers, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I—I’m sorry about that,” he stuttered, taking a step away from her. “I’ll say good-night. I’ll—I’ll see you tomorrow.” Already he was hurrying down the path.

“Good night,” she called after him, laughter in her voice, her high spirits returning. He had kissed her and it had not left him unaffected! If it hadn’t actually been a kiss, it had been close enough! If he was going to act shy about that, well, she’d make him see it was all right. More than all right!

Thank You, Lord, oh, thank You, Lord!

She stayed on the veranda until Silas was out of sight over the rise in the road. She brought the shawl up over her mouth, hugging herself with it, reliving the feel of his lips against her mouth, their softness and warmth.

It was a sign, a definite sign, that she and Silas were meant for each other.

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