She paused.
The knife lay safely flat on the board.
Samuel looked down.
Clara looked up.
The room changed.
It happened easily between them now.
A brush of hands.
A look held too long.
A voice lowering without either planning it.
They had been married eight months.
Long enough to know each other.
Not long enough for wanting to become invisible.
Samuel’s thumb moved once along the side of Clara’s waist through the blue dress.
She smiled.
“Your onions are burning.”
“They’re fine.”
“You aren’t looking at them.”
“No.”
Her smile widened.
“What are you looking at?”
Samuel’s gaze dropped toward her neckline.
Then returned to her eyes.
Clara pretended surprise.
“Samuel.”
“Yes?”
“Shameless.”
“I’m married.”
“That doesn’t cure shamelessness.”
“It gave mine legal structure.”
Clara laughed.
Samuel leaned nearer.
She smelled smoke, cold air, and him.
His beard brushed lightly near her temple.
Clara’s fingers curled into the edge of his vest.
“You know,” she murmured, “supper cannot watch itself.”
Samuel’s hand tightened slightly at her waist.
“Then perhaps supper should learn.”
She turned enough that her body pressed lightly into his.
His eyes darkened.
Clara enjoyed that effect more than she admitted.
Before Samuel, she had spent years believing her size made attraction something available only through jokes, bargains, or men who treated desire as a favor.
Samuel had destroyed that belief almost immediately.
Not with speeches.
With attention.
The unguarded way he watched her enter a room.
The way his hands found her waist as if touching her were the most natural thing in the world.
The way he never turned admiration into ownership.
Clara tilted her face upward.
Samuel lowered his.
Their mouths were inches apart.
Then the skillet hissed violently.
Clara pulled away.
“The onions.”
Samuel swore.
Clara laughed while he stirred.
“You nearly ruined supper.”
“Worth considering.”
“Not if you want to eat.”
He returned the cabbage to the skillet.
Pepper.
Salt.
Crisp bacon.
Nothing more.
That was the secret.
Patience.
Fat.
Heat.
Clara had learned long ago that poor food did not need to taste poor.
They carried the skillet to the table.
Cornbread rested beside beans.
Samuel ate one bite.
Then another.
He frowned.
Clara noticed.
“What?”
“Needs something.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Samuel reached toward the salt.
Clara slapped his hand lightly.
“No.”
“Clara.”
“Eat it properly.”
He chewed again.
Then smiled.
“Nothing.”
Clara smiled too.
“Exactly.”
By the end of supper, the skillet was empty.
The cornbread almost gone.
Beans too.
Samuel carried dishes toward the wash basin.
Clara took the remaining bread.
“I’ll put this away.”
The pantry was a narrow room built into the north wall.
Three shelves.
One small flour bin.
Hooks for dried herbs.
A crock of salt pork.
Very little remained.
Clara opened the door.
Then stopped.
Samuel nearly walked into her.
“What?”
Clara did not answer.
On the center shelf sat a cabbage.
Fresh.