A Time for Giving Read online

  A Time for Giving

  Raine Cantrell

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1993 by Theresa DiBenedetto

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition July 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-347-2

  Also by Raine Cantrell

  Wildflower

  Silver Mist

  Western Winds

  Calico

  Desert Sunrise

  Tarnished Hearts

  Darling Annie

  Whisper My Name

  The Homecoming

  Novellas

  The Bride’s Gift

  Miss Delwin’s Delights

  The Secret Ingredient

  More than a Miracle

  A Time for Giving

  Apache Fire

  A Time for Giving

  Stone Ridge, New York, 1864

  Jacob DeWitt let the chilled winter’s silence seep into him as he stood at the bottom of the drive on Lilac Hill. In the woods behind the two-story farmhouse, the faint snap of a dead branch cracking beneath the weight of ice made him start. But it wasn’t sniper fire. There were no moans of the wounded and dying. No ear-deafening roar of continuous cannon. Blessed peace surrounded this last farm on the road outside of the New York village where he had been born.

  The air he inhaled was spiked with a clean innocence. The smoke rising from the house chimneys held only a welcome of the warmth he would find inside, and not the terror of finding a barn burning with soldiers trapped inside. His gaze swept the shadows cast by the bare-limbed apple trees on the snow-crusted sloping lawn. No enemies hiding there intent on killing him. There was no blood. There was none of the stench that the devastation of war had brought to the southern lands far from his home.

  He could leave the war behind, would force himself to do so, and think only of how to convince Miss Ellie Wintifred to marry him. The precious two-week Christmas leave granted him as the war between the states dragged into its fourth year was little enough time for him to renew his bond with his children, much less get married. In the letters exchanged over the past eight months, Ellie’s obstinate refusal to consider his proposal was all that stood in his way.

  He had recently been promoted to quartermaster captain for his sharp assessment of farmlands and their possible yield. He had met his quotas, but without leaving families stripped of all foodstuffs. Nor had he ruthlessly set fire to barns and fields so that it would take years before the land could once again be planted. His skills to coax, negotiate, and threaten when all else failed had been sharply honed by war. By the same means, he would use those skills to obtain security and a home for those he loved.

  Marriage to spinster Ellie Wintifred was not a sacrifice; it was expedient for his peace of mind.

  This small village of Stone Ridge was about to see another revolutionary battle fought near the old New York state capitol of Kingston. The weapons would be words, not sabers or guns, but it was a battle he intended to win. War had taken two of his brothers’ lives, and his grief had nearly destroyed his marriage that ended in his wife’s death. But he no longer mourned Lucy’s passing. He had come to terms with death and grief. War left little time for sentiment when a man struggled to stay alive.

  Despite the cold seeping into army boots from the ice-encrusted ruts of the drive and the weariness of his body after traveling for three days to come home, Jacob remained where he stood.

  He desperately needed to clear his mind and keep the taint of war from his children and younger brother.

  He had discovered what a powerful weapon memories could be. He never allowed himself to dwell on them while he was on duty; he couldn’t afford to let his memories surface and distract him, but after each skirmish, each battle, he called them forth to help him cope with the destruction of war.

  The Wintifred homestead was prime farmland. His own adjoining farm was larger in acreage but barely matched its yield. With so many of the young men gone to fight, his land lay fallow, but he would survive to see it green from seeds he had sown.

  He loved the stillness, the clear sky, and remembered the times he and Ellie stood on the knoll behind the house, trying to reach for the brilliant stars. He had fallen from the tallest pine and broken his leg after promising Ellie he would get a star for her. She had picked buckets of blackberries for him while his leg healed, swearing she would never ask him for another thing if he promised to hurry and get well.

  They had played hide-and-seek in the cedar trees that stood like sentinels along either side of the road, their thick green branches acting like a windbreak.

  Up near the house, on the same side as Ellie’s bedroom, the man-high lilac bushes were stripped bare, with snowdrifts piled against their thick root branches. But in the spring, the tiny blooms were heavy clusters releasing their perfume to fill the air. Ellie loved lilacs almost as much as she loved maple syrup.

  He eyed the tall stately maples scattered up the slope of the front lawn. Jacob could almost hear his grandfather’s deep raspy voice declare the trees were ready to be tapped. It seemed to take forever in those days before the sugar buckets were at last filled with the sap dripping from wooden spigots tapped into the maples’ trunks. Then came the waiting for the yield to be boiled down for a few days before it was cooled and stored in jugs. He licked his lips at the thought of tasting sweet maple syrup dripping off the edges of a towering stack of hotcakes.

  From the long, low milk barn behind the house came the lowing of a cow. Jacob knew evening milking chores were long over. Ellie was likely in the kitchen almost ready to serve supper. He fought the guilt that wormed its way up, guilt caused by his thought that hunger wouldn’t prowl like another hidden enemy while he was home. There’d be soft, sweet roasted chestnuts and sweetmeats from the hard-shelled hickory trees that Ellie loved.

  The two of them dared each other one autumn to see who could eat more chestnuts. They both became sick, and neither one of them won, but it was the last time he had shared anything with Ellie.

  Lucy had come to live with her cousin Ellie that winter. And Jacob had had no time for the painfully shy Ellie. Childhood memories swamped him, tangled with images of soft-spoken Ellie, always standing apart, never joining in the parties and church socials that began the pairing of Jacob and Lucy, resulting in their marriage. He couldn’t remember who had first called her the little winter mouse, but the name remained with her.

  When had Ellie developed the thick streak of stub-borness she revealed in her letters? He felt somehow cheated that he didn’t know.

  His little winter mouse presented an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. Despite all of the reasonable advantages he had pointed out in his correspondence with her, Ellie refused him. Jacob knew how deep his own stubborn streak ran, and he intended to find out why she said no.

  He was aware there were no suitors beating a path to her door. No one had ever courted Ellie. Now that she had taken in his younger brother and two children after a fire had destroyed his house and his elderly aunt had died, no one would. He didn’t like calling Ellie a spinster, but she was twenty-eight years old.
She had used her age and the fact that she was two years older than him as one of the reasons for refusal. But despite saying no to marriage, she insisted on keeping the children with her.

  It made no sense to him. And he was foolish to stand there freezing while attempting to work out the contradictory female mind. Light spilled from the lower windows and the two post lanterns near the front door. Green garland festooned with ribbon reminded him of Christmases past. Jacob slung his haversack over his shoulder and lifted the heavy carpetbag filled with Christmas presents. With every step he took up the long drive, he couldn’t ignore the feeling he was coming home.

  Ellie twitched the edge of the worn velvet drape back in place. Jacob was home at last. She grew worried as she stood watching him remain out in the cold staring up at the house, and had to fight the need to run down to him and see for herself that he wasn’t wounded. His letters mentioned little about the war, or the deprivations he had suffered. But she read as many of the newspapers as she could find, and knew the sufferings for soldiers on both sides.

  Smoothing her apron, she tried to still the excitement inside her. They had been waiting every night for the past week for Jacob to come. Tonight, when his younger brother Thomas had wanted to light the post lanterns, Ellie found she had to be the one to do it. Some inner sense warned her just as she was about to close the door, and minutes later the creak and groan of wheels alerted her to the farm wagon stopping at the end of the drive. Dusk cloaked the lower end of the hill, and she couldn’t see, but knew Jacob was home. The very air was charged with the same tension she had begun to feel that last summer before Lucy came to live with them.

  She rushed from her sentry post in the front parlor and went into the kitchen, blaming the flush heating her cheeks on the warmth of the cedar-paneled room. Each room in the farmhouse had tongue-and-groove wood planks cut and fitted from the trees in their woods. Cherry, pine, oak, and hickory gleamed on the walls. Ellie tried to distract herself from thinking about Jacob’s arrival.

  From the dining room came Thomas’s instructions to his little niece Krista on the proper placement of napkins. He then sent Caleb upstairs to wash his hands again. A smile teased her lips when the thirteen-year-old’s voice pitched from low to high, then broke somewhere between. He loudly cleared his throat before repeating his instructions.

  Ellie knew how hard he tried to fill the man of the family role, and when opportunity presented itself, she allowed him. She knew the DeWitt pride. Until she had been fifteen, she had gleefully challenged Jacob’s at every chance.

  But that was before Lucy. This wasn’t her real family no matter how she pretended it was. Thomas was the last of Jacob’s brothers alive. Caleb and Krista were Jacob’s children. They were the ones with claims on him. She was only his deceased wife’s distant cousin, and she warned herself not to forget it.

  Lifting the lid on the simmering pot of chicken and dumplings, she pressed each steamed dough top and saw that they were cooked. Sliding the heavy pot to a cold burner, Ellie gave up and thought how easy it would be to accept Jacob’s proposal. He had set forth the practical advantages for her, even one that made her laugh. Jacob thought the farm was too big for her to manage it on her own. This, despite the fact that she had done quite well these past three years. Of course, Jacob had been gentleman enough not to mention that her father’s will left him the farm if she never married. She did love the children, longed to have her own, but there were no suitors.

  All perfectly sensible reasons for her to marry him. But Ellie couldn’t forget that she was the lone child of a loveless marriage. She would never marry without being loved.

  “Will he come tonight, Ellie?” Thomas asked, impatience in his voice.

  “I know it’s been hard, but maybe the wait will be over sooner than you think.” Ellie couldn’t look at him. She was afraid he would sense the excitement she felt. Excitement that melded a bit with fear.

  Taking the biscuits from the warming oven over the stove, she placed them in the linen-lined basket. “Will you take these inside to the table? And see what’s keeping Caleb. He’s been gone long enough to take a bath.”

  Thomas laughed, and Ellie with him. Caleb was almost nine, and it was a game to get him near bathwater. She had turned to give Thomas the basket, and her smile deepened, for the gangly boy so resembled Jacob at the same age.

  “Ellie,” Thomas began, taking the basket from her, “you will let Jacob stay here with us, won’t you?”

  “Silly question.” She couldn’t help herself and reached out to ruffle his thick dark brown hair so like Jacob’s. He had already begun to shave, and there was a hint of dark shadow on his cheeks. “Where else would your brother stay? There’s no house left on the farm, and the barn roof needs repair. I’m sure Aunt Faye would put him up, but then he would spend time traveling to and fro to see you and the children.”

  It was the way he shuffled his feet and stared down at his boots that made Ellie hesitate. “There’s something more to you asking me about this.”

  “I just—” Thomas cleared his throat. “You don’t go down to the village much, and there was some talk. Folks were saying how it isn’t right for him to stay here with you.”

  “With me? Oh, Thomas, we do not listen to gossip. Idle tongues make mischief. And your brother is not staying here with me, he is going to be with you and his children.”

  “Well, I said as much. But I didn’t like hearing them say that you’re a maiden spinster lady.”

  “Oh, Thomas,” she said with a sigh, cupping his cheek. “Pay that talk no mind at all. I tend to go along my own way, and make folks uncomfortable doing it. Go on now, take the biscuits in.”

  She turned away, hiding the hurt she felt. She should have thought about the gossip that would spread. Krista tugged on her apron, and Ellie gave her a quick hug. The children had filled such a void in her life, she didn’t know what she would do if Jacob tried to take them away from her.

  “Lambkin, I need one of your smiles,” Ellie whispered, smoothing the neat crown of braided hair that was as soft and fine as her own deep auburn braids. Krista gave her one, clinging as she sometimes did when something bothered her. Ellie thought she had heard what Thomas said, and anger rose inside that gossip should hurt these children. At least no one suspected that she.…

  The sharp knock on the mudroom door off the kitchen interrupted her thought. Her breath seemed to lock itself inside her for a moment, but before she could move, Thomas ran in front of her and Krista to yank open the door.

  “Jacob!” The rest of Thomas’s greeting was muffled, and Krista took off in a flurry of short skirt and petticoats.

  Ellie had a glimpse of Jacob through the doorway, but Krista’s cry of “Papa!” brought Caleb running, and Jacob was lost as he knelt to be engulfed in their hugs and kisses. He gathered his brother and children close, and Ellie longed to be able to fling herself into his arms, too.

  She had never felt so alone. Not when Jacob married Lucy, not when she stood by her parents’ graves and realized she would live alone.

  For a brief moment, she felt the start of tears and fought to hold them back. She glanced up and saw that Jacob’s dark piercing gaze was on her. “Welcome, Jacob. Welcome home,” she managed to whisper, unsure if he heard her over the children’s cries. Moved by the glimpse of tears in his eyes, Ellie turned away and took the forgotten basket of biscuits into the dining room.

  What did you expect? Jacob isn’t yours. He never was.

  She closed her eyes and prayed for strength to get through his visit. His face was thinner, lines bracketed his light brown eyes and mouth. She wondered how much of a toll the war had taken on him.

  Ellie didn’t even realize she had crossed to the mantle in the dining room. The fire blazed, and she stared at the flames knowing she had to give them time alone. Reaching for the wooden matches in the china holder, she was surprised to see that her hand trembled when she lit it. Jacob was really here. For
a little while she could pretend he … no, no, that would never do. Pretending would only make his leaving harder to bear.

  Cupping her hand around the match flame, she moved to light each of the candles gracing the round dining table’s centerpiece of fragrant pine and cedar cuttings in her best silver bowl. The candlelight set a glow to the good china and soft patina of the silverware. These, like the handmade lace tablecloth, had been part of her mother’s dowry. There were five places set as there had been each night this past week in expectation of Jacob’s homecoming. She had no intention of keeping the room for Sunday meals and holidays.

  Ellie glanced around at the gleaming cherry-wood panels, the high-polished glow of the sideboard with its silver tray and pewter bowls arrayed with silky soft green and pinecones. She felt chilled as the wind picked up and rattled the small-paned windows. The same worn velvet draperies that hung in the front parlor covered the windows here, for her mother had insisted on bringing some of the elegance she had left behind in her home in Albany when she married her father’s choice.

  She understood where the chill had come from. Inside herself. Now that Jacob was here, now that she had seen him again, she wasn’t at all sure she could continue to hold out against his practical proposal of marriage.

  Jacob had charmed his way out of trouble and into the affections of any young woman that caught his eye. He had become the leader of boys at school, a role he continued when they all reached manhood. No matter how she tried to stem them, memories came, one after the other. Lucy in the dry-goods store in Kingston one day, claiming to her friends that Jacob could coax the skin off a bear if he set his mind to it. The giggles that followed when Lucy was asked what he had coaxed from her. Gay, lovely, flirtatious, and daring Lucy had wanted Jacob for her own. She was everything that Ellie was not. It came as no surprise when Jacob courted, then married her. When she died, everyone knew Jacob’s grief had sent him off to war.