Loving Against the Grain (Into the West #2)

Chapter 3

 

"Order's up, Emmie!"

 The ring of the bell, plus Muriel's strident tone, roused Emmaline from her seat by the kitchen fire, where she languished despondently between trips to the dining room with steaming plates brimming with lumberjack vittles. It took another incessant bell clang before she stirred to claim the meals and deliver them to one of the long tables laden with hungry tree-climbers ravenous after a long day's work. Her discourteous lack of response to their "Thank yous" brought shrugs and eye rolls, but Emmaline remained oblivious, going through the routine of work without mishap, but also without spirit. So it had been for the last two weeks, the long two weeks since her secret jilting by Captain Lancelot Fairchild. No one knew the cause of her preoccupation except Noah Lawson, but Emmaline's brother, and her so-called only friend, Muriel Preston, guessed the reason for her dejection. They just didn't realize the extent of her abandonment; that she'd been ready to run away with the sea captain. Only the lumber company's horse wrangler knew that, and so far he'd remained mum on the subject, thank goodness.

On Emmaline's return trip to the kitchen, laden with empties on both arms, plump, round-faced Muriel deliberately blocked the kitchen doorway, a coffee pot in one hand.

"Darlin', you're walking around here dead on your feet. Why don't you go on home? I can take care of the rest of these varmints! You still got that handsome brother of yours to cook for, don't you?"

 Emmaline gazed into the other woman's sympathetic face, and tears of exhaustion and self-pity started to flow. Oh, heck! She'd cried so much these last two weeks, you'd think she'd be dried up by now! But, no; here they'd commenced once again.

 "You don't mind, Muriel? Really?" Emmaline swiped at moist eyes with the most animation she'd shown in days.

 The other woman shrugged. Yes, it was slightly irritating to always have to cover for Emmaline. But it was obvious to the married waitress that Emmaline Townsend was going through a rough patch, and Muriel hoped that maybe Emmie might step up for her if she needed help in the future. So she shook her head with a sympathetic smile, replying gently, "Not at all, Emmie. Go take those dishes to Cookie, and then hang up your apron. The main dining room rush is over, anyway."

Surprisingly, Emmaline leaned forward and impulsively kissed Muriel's cheek, breathing, "You're a great friend, Muriel! Thank you!" before going to deposit her burden at the cookhouse's oversized kitchen sink, where the youth hired to wash the dishes frantically attempted to keep up with the ever-growing pile of dirties. Muriel watched her coworker for several beats before shaking her head slightly and sailing on out to the waiting men, and their lively chorus of "Coffee!"

 Removing her apron with leaden fingers, Emmaline blew wisps of hair off her face, said a lack-luster goodbye to the grizzled cook and young dishwasher, and headed out the back door of the cookhouse, dragging heavy feet down the plank steps into the gloaming of a Pacific Northwest summer evening. Not even the purple sky infused with fingers of twilight magenta succeeded in rousing Emmaline from her exhausted stupor. Nor did the swaying pines as they reached for the first twinkling stars of dusk. No, Emmaline faced the walk home as she had every other day these past two weeks: with a resigned fatalism that each day unfurled exactly the same; that her life would from now on consist of serving huge platters of slop to large, sweaty men who would, after slaking their hunger, return home to other women, leaving Emmaline to her solitary existence, accompanied by her just-as-solitary brother.

 As she had every night prior, Emmaline spent her walk home gnawing on the reasons why Lancelot chose to jilt her, to leave her standing on the shoreline waiting for what would never appear: his undying love. He'd spoken words of devotion, made plans with her for living happily ever after, told her of all the places they would travel together. And yet, here she walked, alone and lonely, along the same, beaten down, muddy road of her similarly exceedingly-trodden, mundane existence. It just wasn't fair!