Romancing Olive by Holly Bush Page A

face when she addressed her nephew. He felt for the boy as well. The day Jacob found the children in their home after their mother’s death, John was huddled in a corner, staring blankly at some far and away spot. Mary had screamed and fought him but John limply allowed himself to be carried to the wagon.
    Jacob looked at Olive Wilkins now while the children howled and she turned a deaf ear. She went from subject to subject, issue to issue, so quickly, Jacob wondered how she kept it straight in her head. Jacob agreed that Luke indeed did need a trim and sat the squirming boy on the table. Miss Wilkins produced a small pair of sewing scissors and cut away. She revealed her concentration by sticking her tongue in her cheek and holding it there while she studied the boy’s hair. Snip, snip, Jacob heard while he watched Luke and listened to the protests and moans. When she was finished, Jacob thought a different boy sat on the stool than his own son, Luke.
    “Now, John,” Miss Wilkins said and turned to her nephew, smiling.
    John’s eyes were wide and fearful and he cried until Jacob held him in his arms so his aunt could cut his hair. She stood close to Jacob and tilted her head, wondering, he supposed, where to begin. The soft summer scent of lilacs hit Jacob’s nose and he was transported back to his childhood home and the smell the breeze brought through that kitchen window. Olive Wilkins’s dress was unwrinkled, the collar still stiff and he wondered how she managed to look so neat amidst the chaos of his house. As she trimmed and smiled, Jacob watched her hands as they moved through the task. Long, lean fingers, nearly white and he studied the veins of blood that moved through them. Loving hands, lovingly wading through dirty, dark hair, touching the child’s face as she went. Convincing the boy, with her touch that he had nothing to fear. As she bent close to trim the hair around John’s ear, Jacob found his face inches from her hair. And he could not stop the image of her brushing that hair as he spied through the window the day of her arrival.
    “All done,” Miss Wilkins declared.
    John touched his ears, as if wondering if they were still attached.
    “Mary, why don’t you let me trim the back of your hair, too,” Miss Wilkins asked.
    “Why?” the girl said.
    “I don’t know, Mary,” Miss Wilkins said as she sighed, “maybe just because it would look nice and we could pull the top back with a ribbon for church on Sunday.”
    “We’re goin ta church?” Luke asked.
    “Well, of course, children,” Miss Wilkins stated in the no nonsense fashion, Jacob was getting accustomed to.
    “You can trim my hairs,” Peg said quietly.
    “Sit down, then, little miss,” she said.
    Peg’s eyes darted but she smiled a smile that Jacob knew meant she loved the undivided attention she was receiving. Miss Wilkins trimmed an uneven inch or two and looked up to Mary.
    “Come sit down. Please Mary,” she said.
    The girl shrugged and her aunt trimmed her long hair as well.
    “What about Daddy? His hair’s long, too,” Luke asked.
    “Oh, no, children,” Jacob said and shook his head.
    Miss Wilkins studied him. “You could really use a trim, too.”
    “I cut my own hair, thank you.”
    * * *
    Olive shrugged, turned from Jacob Butler and asked, “Mary, is the water boiling?’
    The girl nodded and Olive sent Mr. Butler and the boys to the barn. Peg stripped and Olive lifted her into the tub. She scrubbed hair and ears, elbows and knees and when Olive pulled the dripping, shining child from the water she turned to Mary. “You’re next.”
    “I ain’t bathin’.”
    “I’m not bathing,” Olive corrected. “And yes, you are bathing.”
    Olive watched Mary look at the tub and then string a blanket between the water and the door.
    “I’m terribly sorry, Mary. You are old enough to want some privacy. I’ll comb Peg’s hair on the bed while you bathe,” Olive said.
    Mary stepped behind the blanket as she