The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich by Marcia Lynn McClure Read Free Book Online Page B

house.
    “Jennie?” Calvin McKee called as he entered the bedroom. The man immediately removed his hat and lunged toward the bed. Without so much as a word to Evangeline, Calvin began kissing his wife in quite a passionate manner. “How are you, honey? Are you feeling okay? Did you stay off your feet today?”
    Jennie giggled, kissed Calvin squarely on the mouth, and answered, “I’m fine, Cal. I’m fine. And I’m all the better now that Evangeline has arrived.”
    Calvin stood then, turned to Evangeline, and offered her his hand. “Calvin McKee, Miss Evangeline,” he said.
    His handshake was so firm and strong, Evangeline felt it all the way to her bones.
    “It’s so nice to meet you at last, Mr. McKee,” Evangeline greeted him. “And thank you so much for allowing me to come and visit.”
    “Oh, you call me Calvin, Miss Evangeline,” Calvin chuckled. His blue eyes lit up like stars, and something about the bright sincerity of his smile made Evangeline giggle a little. “And we’re just so glad you were willing to come all the way up to Red Peak! I’ve had to work so much at the mill, and I worry so about my Jennie. It will ease my mind like you’ll never know to have you here to care for her when I’m away.” He paused a moment, sniffed the air, closed his eyes, and sighed, “Do I smell stew and biscuits?”
    Evangeline laughed. “Yes, you do! In fact, I best see to the biscuits before they burn right through.”
    Calvin sighed once more, again sniffing the air. “I never thought I’d say this, but it is so nice to smell something other than bacon cooking in the house.”
    As Calvin stretched out on the bed next to Jennie and began telling her about his day, Evangeline hurried to the kitchen to tend to the biscuits and stew.
    “Mmm!” she hummed as she stirred the stew. Chicken stew was one of her favorite meals to cook. Evangeline found that it soothed her soul, mind, and body, and she hoped it would soothe Jennie’s and Calvin’s as well—and Hutch’s. She wondered if Hutch really would arrive for supper. She hoped he would, for she would love nothing more than to have another look at him—just to make certain he really was as attractive as he’d appeared when he’d met her at the station.
    She opened the oven door and used her apron to remove the herbed biscuits. “Ouch!” she exclaimed when the hot pan penetrated the fabric of her apron more quickly than she’d anticipated. Almost dropping the biscuits onto the counter, she put her burnt fingers in her mouth for a moment. But the delicious aroma of the hot thyme and parsley in the biscuits made her smile, and she quickly forgot her singed fingers.
    Evangeline turned when she heard the front door to the McKee house open again. She couldn’t keep from smiling as Hutch stepped into the entryway, glanced over to where she stood in the kitchen, and said, “Mmmm mmm! What smells so good? Have I died and gone to heaven?”
    “Nope,” Evangeline answered, smiling at him. “But you have arrived just in time for supper.”
    “Well, I’m glad I did!” Hutch exclaimed. “My mouth is already watering just from the aroma in the house!”
    “You come in here and see your sister first, Hutchner,” Jennie giggled from the bedroom.
    Hutch nodded to Evangeline, removed his hat, and placed it on the hat rack just inside the front door before heading to the bedroom to greet his sister.
    Turning back to the stove to stir the stew, Evangeline shook her head and whispered, “Yep…he really is as handsome as I imagined he was.”
    She could hear Hutch and Jennie laughing at something Calvin had said, and it warmed her heart. She thought of her own sisters—of sitting around the breakfast table with them and her father those first glorious days after they’d arrived in their new home in Meadowlark Lake. It was a comforting, blissful memory and at the same time bittersweet—for the Ipswich family’s move to Meadowlark Lake had begun a chain of