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felt familiar and safe and necessary.
    “Shouldn’t the men be up and at breakfast?” she asked.
    Bella swung a skillet over the flames and huffed, “Should be . . . but ain’t.” Her lean fingers sliced bacon from a side of pork hanging from a hook in the corner. Tossing the pieces into the sizzling skillet, she poked at them with a long-tined fork. Spying a grinder, Roxanna began to make coffee, marveling at the abundance all around her in light of their meager meal last night.
    Strings of yellowish-orange pumpkin slices hung from the rafters like festive Indian necklaces alongside garlands of shriveled-up apples and beans. Bushel baskets of potatoes and onions rested along a far wall beside kegs of flour and other essentials. And there were eggs—at least two dozen of them—big and brown in a wooden bowl atop a trestle table. And in the corner stood a churn.
    “I already milked this mornin’ and poured the old cream in, but I ain’t churned.” This revelation seemed more an invitation, and Roxanna wasted no time in donning an apron and taking a seat on a stool, her hands enfolding the smooth handle of the dasher like a long-lost friend. In time Bella went out and left her to all the little domestic details she’d so missed since leaving home.
    Once the butter came, she wondered where the springhouse was or if she even needed it, given the cold. Poking around in every corner and crevice, she found a tub of lard and set about making biscuits, eyeing the dried apples overhead and dreaming of pies. Before Bella returned, two pans of biscuits rose to flaky, golden heights, and she began frying eggs in the bacon grease.
    Ambrose always said I was the best cook in Fairfax County.
    With a sigh, she let her thoughts drift. Perhaps if she’d been better at kissing . . . or bundling . . . or whatever else won a man’s heart, she’d be standing in her own kitchen and not this crude one on the far frontier.
    She’d come so close to being the wife of the gentleman her mother desired for her. They’d met at a horse race at Thistleton Hall, the estate that bordered their humble home. Soon Ambrose was coming round to court her, taking her and Mama to dine at a fine ordinary or to see a stage play. Twice they were guests at his townhouse in Richmond. Mama was smitten; Roxanna was unsure. And her uncertainties sprang up like poisonous weeds between them, thwarting her mother’s best hopes. When she’d finally decided to give her heart away, having convinced herself he was the man for her, Ambrose had found comfort in the arms of another.
    Taking a pewter plate, Roxanna slid an egg onto its tarnished surface, buttered the smallest biscuit, and sampled the chicory coffee. Divine.
    “Law, but you look like you own the place!” Bella sputtered.
    Heavens, I hope not , Roxanna mused. Sheepish, she slid off her stool and presented Bella with a plate, pouring her some coffee and sliding a crock of honey toward her. For a moment the tired eyes that met hers were a deep, damp brown. The silence in the shadowed kitchen stretched on till footsteps could be heard on the other side of the kitchen door. It swung open, and there stood Captain Stewart, unshaven and unpressed, his breeches and fine linen shirt looking sorely in need of a sadiron.
    “Cap’n, sir,” Bella said between bites of biscuit.
    “You’re just in time for breakfast,” Roxanna told him, taking up another plate.
    Heaping it full of food, she moved past him to the dining room where she plunked the plate down at the place he’d occupied last night. He followed meekly and sat as if speechless, watching as she served coffee and left him to his appetite.
    “Law, but you gonna work me out of a job,” Bella exclaimed when Roxanna returned to the kitchen.
    “Just till Papa comes,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Then you can have it all back again.”
    “Maybe I don’t want it back,” Bella breathed, eyes wide as Roxanna took a chair and climbed up to