Free Her Safe Harbor: Prairie Romance (Crawford Family Book 4) by Holly Bush Page B

laughed. “What are your interests? Do you volunteer with
a hospital or your church as so many young ladies do?”
    “I do not.”
    “Do you enjoy music, perhaps play an instrument?”
    “No.”
    He wondered if the pain in her side had returned as she was
sitting very still and looking at her hands where they held a glass of
lemonade. He was content to be quiet with her, though, even in the bustle of
the festivities all around them. He realized he would perhaps be content with
her anywhere. She looked up at him then, her cheeks flushed.
    “I go to my family’s business four days a week, the Crawford
Bank that is, and greet important customers as they arrive for appointments
with my father and with vice presidents of the bank,” Jennifer said, and then
squared her shoulders, looking at him directly. “And I unravel difficult
accounts that cannot be balanced by the clerks. I have an assistant, O’Brien,
and we tally rows and sheets of figures, looking for errors.”
    “You’re an accountant?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never called myself that. I go to the
bank to help my father.”
    “I am in awe, Jennifer. I cannot remember or add five
numbers in a row, and you do pages of them in your head?”
    “We also use a new addition machine from the Burroughs
Company. It’s very exciting actually. I can tally . . . oh, do forgive me, I
don’t mean to prattle on.”
    Zeb had never seen Jennifer Crawford as animated and engaged
as she was when she began to talk about her work. She was staring at him now
with pleading eyes, as if starved to have someone listen to her. He shook his
head and reached for her hands. “Please, do go on. I’m very interested. I want
to hear about what you do.”
    Jennifer told him more about the new addition machine and
how she used it to spot errors. She said numbers were natural for her and
sometimes she knew instinctively where to uncover mathematical mistakes within
a complicated portfolio, and that seeing pages and pages of figures was
exciting to her. Zeb was fascinated and surprised; if he were truthful, he
would have never guessed Jennifer Crawford had such a hidden passion.
    “I was at the top of my graduating class for mathematics at
the Ramsey School when I finished my studies there. Oh, dear, I did not mean to
be a braggart,” she said finally, as a blush climbed her face. “I really have
gone on and on. They are serving supper and I have kept us back.”
    “I could always tell you were very clever, Jennifer, but I
had no idea you were brilliant. I should have known, though. As my mother would
often say when she was alive, ‘still waters run deep.’ Let us go into supper
now because everyone else will be seated and I can arrive with the most
beautiful and the most talented lady at the ball on my arm. It will do my ego
good.”
    She laughed. A light, musical sound free from worry and
concern. “You are a flatterer, Zebidiah Moran.”
    I am a man falling for a woman , he thought.
     
    * * *
     
    “Zebidiah Moran is very handsome,
and he is clearly very interested in you. He couldn’t take his eyes off of you
last night,” Julia said to Jennifer as Eliza fixed her hair in her sleeping
room the morning following the ball.
    “He is very handsome,” Jennifer conceded.
    “And I saw that you were whisked out the door of the
ballroom and gone for ten minutes or more. Was he stealing a kiss?”
    “He . . . stepped on my toes and just took me outside to
catch my breath.”
    “ Hmmm ,” Julia said as she turned to the door from
where she sat on Jennifer’s bed. “Whatever is that noise? Is that Max
shouting?”
    “I think it is.”
    “How peculiar!”
    Julia and Jennifer stepped into the hallway and saw Max
striding toward them. He stopped, turned back to the closed door of his wife’s
room, and shouted, “This is not over, Jolene Crawford Shelby! By damn, it is
not over.” He turned to Julia and Jennifer. “Good morning, ladies, and pardon
my coarse language. I’m