Anna's Gift Read Free Page A

was so close, he could have kissed her full, rosy lips.
    â€œAnna?” he said, out of breath. “Are you all right?”
    She gave a gasp, wiggled out of his embrace and scrambled up, her back foot slipping. Throwing both arms out for balance, she caught herself before she went down again.
    Samuel knew he had to say something. But what?
    Anna sucked in a gulp of air, threw her apron up over her blue-streaked face and ran through the doorway, nearly running into Susanna and Mae, and out of the room.
    â€œAnna,” he called, trying to get to his feet again, but having less luck than she had. “Come back. It’s all right.” He dropped onto all fours and used his hands to push himself up. “It’s only paint. Anna!”
    But Anna was gone, and the only evidence that she’d been there was the warm feeling in his chest, and a trail of bright blue footprints across the wide, red floorboards.
    â€œYou spilled the paint.” Susanna began to giggle, then pointed at him. “And you have paint in your beard.”
    â€œBeard,” Mae echoed, standing solemnly beside her newfound friend.
    Samuel looked down at his blue hands and up at the two girls, and he began to laugh, too. Great belly laughs rolled up from the pit of his stomach. “We did spill the paint, didn’t we?” he managed to say as he looked around the room at the mess they’d made. “We spilled a lot of paint.”
    â€œA lot,” Susanna agreed.
    Mae stared at him with her mother’s bright blue eyes and clutched the older girl’s hand. The fearful expression in his daughter’s wide-eyed gaze made him want to gather her up in his arms and hug her, but in his state, that was out of the question. Two painted scarecrows in one house was enough; the hugs would have to wait until later.
    â€œSusanna, could you go and see if your sister is hurt?” Samuel asked. His first instinct was to follow Anna to see for himself that she was okay and to assure her that she had no need to be embarrassed. Anyone could havean accident, and the wooden ladder had obviously seen better days. But he’d heard her run up the stairs, and it wouldn’t be seemly for him to intrude on her. With her mother out of the house, he had to show respect and maintain proper behavior. If he was going to court Anna, he was going to do it right and behave the way any man courting her would be expected to.
    â€œYa,” Susanna agreed. Still giggling, she trotted off with Mae glued to her skirts.
    Turning in a circle, Samuel exhaled and wiped his hands on his pants. The way he’d been swimming in the paint, they were a total loss anyway. He rubbed a bruised elbow and the back of his head as he studied the floor, the wall, and the broken ladder. How, he wondered, had so much paint come from one gallon?
    This was a fine barrel of pickles.
    After putting it off for so long and practicing his proposal of marriage to Anna over and over in his head, it had gone all wrong. It couldn’t have gone worse. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but he certainly hadn’t thought the statement of his intentions would frighten her so badly that she’d fall off a ladder, or drop into his arms—although that had been a pleasant interlude. He didn’t know why sweet Anna had been so surprised, or why she’d run away from him. He hoped that it wasn’t because the idea of marrying him and instantly becoming the mother of five children was so preposterous.
    Samuel picked up the paint can and set it upright—there couldn’t have been more than half a cup of paint left in the bottom. The room was a disaster. He decided he’d better get a start on cleaning it up before the paint began to dry. If he was lucky, maybe Anna would come down and join him and they could talk. He would need rags, a mop and maybe even a shovel to start wiping up theexcess paint, but he didn’t have the faintest