A Bride for Keeps by Melissa Jagears Page B

nice to see you again, Miss Lockwood.”
    Everett swallowed before delivering the news. “She wantsto help us out here, so let her know if you need anything.” He expected to see apprehensive
     faces, but smiles played on every set of lips.
    “That’d be mighty nice, ma’am.” Caleb tipped his head at her before flipping his hat
     back on.
    Julia rubbed her hands together. “All right. What shall I do first?”
    Axel stepped in and offered his arm. “Father told me to cut that wood over there.
     You could help me hold it steady.”
    She turned pleading eyes toward Everett as Axel dragged her away.
    “Perhaps she might rather help us, um . . .” Everett looked around for something,
     anything to get her back.
    “You said she could help us with anything we needed, and I need her.” Axel threw a
     challenging look over his shoulder, then cupped Julia’s elbow, giving her a charming
     smile. “I don’t know how I could manage without you, ma’am.”
    Everett stood, clenching and unclenching his fists. Why had he given in to Axel? The
     whippersnapper was hardly older than William. And Everett was just old enough to be
     the boy’s father.
    He should have sent her back in or insisted he needed her, rather than tie her up
     with Axel for the rest of the morning. He had thought she’d distract him out here,
     and would she ever. Especially now that Axel was fawning over her. At least she didn’t
     look thrilled to be with the kid.
    The harmony of hammer, nails, and saws buzzed around him. He couldn’t just stand and
     stare. Stepping over the arranged lumber on the ground, he joined the Stantons but
     kept his eye on the group working on the other side of the barn’s floor. Imitating
     Axel, Julia hefted a board and carried it to his set of sawhorses—impressive for a
     person that small.Maybe she could survive the work his farm and the Kansas earth threw her way.

    Julia brushed sawdust from her face. Axel had stolen her again to steady the wood
     he was cutting.
    “You know, Miss Lockwood.” Axel swiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm, exposed
     below his rolled-up sleeve. “You’re just the right-sized counterweight: featherlight,
     but made of something stronger, like you’ve got pinions of silver and gold.”
    How long had it taken him to piece together that line? He should have thought longer . . .
     much longer.
    “Thanks.” She sighed and leaned her weight against the board as Axel’s saw ripped
     through the wood. She muttered under her breath, “I guess.” Flying wood shavings attempted
     to take up residence in her eyelashes, so she turned her head aside.
    Everett’s body braced a wall frame not ten feet away from her. Ned and William nailed
     the wall to the adjacent frame Dex held steady.
    If she wasn’t to be a part of Everett’s group, she really should have stayed inside
     and learned to sew, though she wouldn’t admit just yet to Everett that she didn’t
     know how. But she’d said she was willing to help however she was needed, and she would
     prove true to her word despite the sawdust flying in her eyes.
    Everett whooped and twirled a hammer in his hand. He patted William on the back before
     both men positioned themselves along a series of long boards lined evenly across the
     top of another. Dex lowered his arm and shouted, “Go!”
    Everett and William both pounded nails into the boardsfuriously. With each step Everett took, he pulled a nail from his mouth and pounded
     it in with ease and quickness. He looked over at William and shouted around his mouthful
     after every finished nail.
    The sullen Everett she’d encountered was not the one she was observing now. The playful
     gleam in his eye made his face more attractive, and the muscles under his shirt rippled
     with every hammer stroke. He was jovial and cooperative with the other men; why would
     he be so different with her?
    Everett threw his hammer down at the end of the row and flexed his arms while