Читать книгу Frontier Agreement - Shannon Farrington - Страница 4

“Your mother seems to be enjoying herself,” Mr. Lafayette remarked.

Claire watched her for a few seconds. She recognized that smile, that look of fondness on her mother’s face. “She’s telling him about my father.”

“They must have loved each other very much.”

“They did.” She could feel a lump growing in her throat. Would she ever know such a love? Such a partnership?

“My father is not an outdoorsman,” Mr. Lafayette said, “but every Christmas Eve he takes my brothers and me into the woods to collect pine boughs and berries because he knows my mother loves the smell of them.”

Claire returned his gaze. “My father did the same. Our cabin was filled with greenery.”

“Then after reading the account from Scripture, my father would tell us to place our shoes in front of the fire and hurry off to bed—”

“Or Père Noël would not come?”

“Yes.”

She couldn’t help but smile again. “I was always told the same.” She wondered what sort of boy he had been. Was he affectionate and expressive like Spotted Eagle or rough and rambunctious? Somehow she suspected the latter.

“We have lived very different lives,” he then said, “but I think we ourselves are not so different.”