“Where do you want to go, Theodosia?”
“I was under the impression that you had a place in mind.”
He finished his sandwich in three bites. “All I thought about was getting you away from that cabin and the town of Enchanted Hill. The next town is Sundt, about five miles west of here. Do you want to go there to find—to have your fliers printed—” He paused, battling angry frustration. “Well, to do what you always do when you get to towns.”
Stretching out upon her bed, she watched tree branches sway. Droplets of water splashed to her face, but she didn’t care. “Without my gold, I cannot pay—one hundred dollars in gold was to be payment for…” She closed her eyes. In light of all that had happened, how was she to conceive a child for Lillian?
“I cannot pay you either,” she whispered.
“One day I’ll send you a bill,’’ he said softly, and smiled.
She tried to return his smile, but failed. “I do not know what to do now, Roman. The child…I simply do not know what to do.”
He moved to where she lay and kneaded the tense muscles in her slim shoulders. “Go to sleep.”
“I shall awaken in the morning and still not know what to do.”
Lying down beside her, he took her into his arms. “Then don’t do anything, Theodosia. Just be with me for a while.”
She looked into his eyes, which shone with moonglow and blue twinkles. Perhaps he was right, she mused. In time, maybe she would know what to do about her dilemma.
Cuddling closer to him, she breathed deeply of his familiar scent. “What shall we do together, Roman?”
“Nothing,” he replied, smiling tenderly. “And everything.”
Theodosia finishedher two hotcakeswell before Roman finished his stack of ten. She couldn’t imagine what he had in mind for their first day of doing nothing and everything, but counted on his ideas to ease the confusion she continued to feel over her plight.
That thought in mind, she decided to hurry the morning along by cleaning up the pan she and Roman had used to cook the hotcakes. Using a small, thick towel to guard her hand from the hot metal, she reached for the pan handle, then prepared to pour stray bits of hotcakes onto the ground. “Stop!” Roman shouted.
His shout so startled her, she dropped the pan. “Roman, what on earth—”
“There are still hotcakes left in the pan.”
She glanced at the empty pan and his full plate. “Roman—”
“You were going to throw away the baby hotcakes,” he explained. “They’re the best part of a hotcake breakfast.” He pointed to the tiny round cakes still left in the pan. “Those are the ones that drip off the spoon after you’re finished pouring out the big ones. Come on, Theodosia, don’t tell me you’ve never eaten baby hotcakes. I thought everyone had done that.”
She picked up one of the dime-size hotcakes and popped it into her mouth. It crunched between her teeth, but held the same flavor as the larger ones. “There now, Roman, I have sampled a baby hotcake. Are you satisfied now?”
“Good, huh?”
She realized he was not going to drop the subject of baby hotcakes until she confessed to feeling the same way about them as he did. “I do not recall ever having dined upon a more savory food. Why, I am surprised that the best restaurants in Boston do not serve such delicacies.”
“Go ahead. Make fun.”
She wondered if she’d hurt his feelings. “I am not making fun, Roman. I—”
“You should be.”
“Should be what?”
“Making fun. Inventing fun. Having fun. You know what else you can do with baby hotcakes besides eat them?”
She couldn’t think of a single use for the hotcake scraps, but suspected Roman knew of thousands.
Roman reached for a few of the small cakes, then examined the area and spotted the exact thing he’d been looking for. “Watch this.” He lay on his belly and dropped a few tiny hotcakes beside the anthill he’d found.
Curious, Theodosia lay down beside him.
