Page 71 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
The porch was large enough all three children could divest of their muddy boots before entering. As she met Virgil’s gaze, she saw his eyes were silver as a pond under a stormy-gray sky, silently asking a question she wasn’t prepared to answer.
With a flicker of a smile, she stepped over the threshold.
The inside was much brighter now it held a window on three sides of the original cabin. The fourth wall had two doors cut into it, leading into the rooms added to the east side.
There was now something closer to a kitchen with shelves and a cabinet with doors. A waist-high bench held a recess for a basin and water jug. Above it, the window looked up the valley away from the work site, affording a pretty view of the mountains in the distance.
The floor was solid wood planks, and the space where Levi’s bed used to fold down now held the wood stove. Where the original sleeping bunks had been, the table and benches stood. The children could do their schoolwork where it was warm near the stove and still have light from the window that looked up the hillside behind the house. There was a door behind the table, but they were all distracted by Levi’s voice above them.
“Nettie. Come see!” Levi was in the fenced loft, grinning ear to ear.
The ladder-stairs next to the entrance door went up about four feet to a small landing. A window there caught the southern light. A second ladder went from the landing to the loft at a different angle over the door beneath it. It had a small catch rail on it.
“Emmett thought this would be a safer configuration for—”
“Me!” Harley demanded as Nettie scampered up to Levi.
“You watch him close,” Virgil warned Levi as Harley went up the ladder after his sister. “Don’t let him come down until I can watch and see that he can do it by himself. If he can’t, he’ll sleep with me until he learns.”
Levi nodded. There was only room for the children to move on their hands and knees up there, but that seemed to be its charm.
“Come on, Harley. Come see my bed,” Levi said.
“Harley, our toys are here!” Nettie was breathless with excitement.
“I’ll turn that leftover lumber into shelving this winter.” Virgil pointed at the scraps stored beneath the landing. “This is my room.”
Marigold hung back at the door, glancing in warily. Someone had made a sizable bedframe from sturdy log rounds and thick, skinned branches. Floor planks were braced across the frame as a sleeping surface, and Virgil’s old, skinny mattress was on it.
“I need to string the ropes. I had Stoney place an order for cotton-stuffed mattresses for the bunch of us while he was picking up the lumber. They should be ready when supplies are picked up next. View isn’t much to speak of.” He looked out, and his profile flexed with some odd reaction she couldn’t interpret.
She glanced out the window. Now the logs were gone, she easily saw down the track toward the torn-up riverbed. It wasn’t pretty, but once the snow came, it might be.
“You’ll want to check on things when you rise and again before you sleep. It’s perfect for you.” She realized the men’s voices outside were fading because they were being ushered down to the cookhouse by Emmett.
“Emmett says there’s not much to see when you’re lying in the dark with your eyes closed anyway,” Virgil said drily.
Alone? Or…? Guilt flushed heat into her cheeks. She flashed a look up at him, hoping he couldn’t read her mind.
He was staring at her so hard, he was practically boring holes through her skull. His cheeks might have pinkened, but she looked away so quickly, she probably imagined it.
She hugged herself and hurried back to the main room, glancing up to see the children were busy negotiating the arrangement of toys and blankets. She smiled faintly at how happy they sounded.
“Everyone seems to have worked very hard. The men should be congratulated on their excellent craftsmanship.”
“This is your room.” Virgil moved along to the door she had been ignoring, the one behind the table and benches. There was a shadow of admonishment in his gaze as if he knew she was trying to find a reason not to stay here with him.
She swallowed, genuinely unsure what to do. Looking around the main room, she saw potential. She was itching to sew curtains and put a rag rug there and fill those shelves with the jars of preserves she’d been working so hard to put up.
She couldn’t do any of those things in that branch hut across the way. Tom had pointed out that it hadn’t been built to hold a fire. One spark would ignite it, especially since it had been drying all summer.
At best, Marigold could hold out for a few more weeks if she wanted to continue nursing her pride. Eventually, she would have to seek a sturdier shelter if she planned to winter here.
Apprehensively, she slipped past Virgil into the tiny room next to his. It was only big enough to hold the old bunk she had shared with Nettie and Harley. Drawers beneath it were unfinished, but they would be tremendously handy when completed.
The small window looked mostly at the john, but she supposed there wasn’t much to see when lying in the dark, asleep.
The washstand was wedged between the bed and the window, the hand mirror hung from a nail above it. Next to it hung a tarnished brass picture frame holding—
