Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles 03] Read Free Page B

year.” Workers swarmed like bees around several places. One was getting a fresh coat of paint, while a team of men installed window screens and shutters on another. But none was getting attention comparable to Aunt Cornelia’s. Burt gave a low whistle as they pulled up. “Well. Would you look at that?”
    Emilie just shook her head. “It was bound to happen. Mother and Aunt Cornelia may be sisters, but it’s always a contest between those two. We have a porch around ours, and last year everyone congregated over there. Especially after Mother talked Father into having hammocks put up all around. Aunt Cornelia would never let a porch and hammocks go unanswered.”
    “But…a tree house?” Bert gazed up into the massive oak tree that shaded the pink cottage. Carpenters had already built a platform around the trunk. Now, two were adding a simple railing between uprights obviously intended to support a second story. The beginnings of winding stairs circled the tree trunk.
    Aunt Cornelia stepped through the front doorway and hurried over. “You didn’t get the message? ‘Etta said she’d tell you.”
    “Tell me what?”
    “The piano hasn’t been delivered to the Tabernacle yet. You’ll have to practice at the house. The girls are waiting there.” Aunt Cornelia pointed at carpenters at work on the tree house. “Isn’t it lovely? And after they’ve finished the observation deck, I’m having them lay a lovely veranda across the open space between our cottage and the tree.” She smiled. “I just might have your uncle bring the parlor piano out for the duration.” She waved a hand in the direction of the new construction. “It’s the perfect setting for evening entertainments, don’t you think?”
    Emilie muttered something she hoped sounded positive before turning to Bert. “I guess it’s Aunt Cornelia’s next.” She bid her aunt good-bye, and Bert urged Dutch into a smart trot. As they slowed to cross the bridge across the river, Emilie said, “I hope you didn’t have plans for an early supper.”
    “The only plans I have is to do whatever it takes to give a good report to my employer after I return his buggy, his horse, and his daughter later this evening.”
    “A report? You’ll be expected to report?”
    “Not in the way you mean. But he’ll probably work it into a conversation at the newspaper office tomorrow.” He nudged her. “Don’t look so glum. All I plan to say is that I personally escorted the lovely Miss Emilie Rhodes to her destination and that she looked every inch a lady, right down to the ribbon in her hair which was, I happened to notice, exactly the shade of her green eyes.” He glanced her way. Shrugged. “You’re right. Needs editing. Too much detail.”
    “My eyes aren’t green.”
    “They tend toward green when you’re upset. And when you wear that color.”
    Emilie glanced down at her gray-green skirt. The realization that Bert could describe her ensemble made her feel strangely…strange. Did her eyes really tend toward green when she was upset? No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
    They’d made their way back into town and were passing by the Paddock Hotel and Opera House before Bert spoke again. “He wants what’s best for you, Em. He gets angry because he cares.”
    She snorted in disbelief.
    Bert was quiet for the rest of the drive. Emilie had just climbed down, and Bert was hitching the buggy when a voice sounded from the screened porch up on the second floor of the two-story white farmhouse.
    “Bert Hartwell, is that you?” And a giggle.
    “You didn’t tell me the Penners were going to be at your rehearsal,” Bert groused.
    Emilie looked over at him. “Because I didn’t know.” There was no time to say anything more, as the front door opened and the Penner twins bounded down the porch stairs, followed closely by Emilie’s three cousins. The twins fluttered about Bert as he finished tying off the buggy reins.
    April, the eldest of