Chapter 50—Love Taps Part 1

The cast iron stove heated the kitchen, making the small space feel cozy as the couple spent time alone after their hectic day among school students and townspeople.

Elizabeth's hands were wet and soapy so she used her forearm to wipe a wayward curl from her face as she stood in front of the sink.

"I was so busy telling you about my day, that I haven't even asked about yours", Jack remarked as he brought the dirty dinner plates and eating utensils from the table to the counter and set them down next to the frying pans. "How was it?"

"Awful. I'm not sure if my pregnancy causes me to lose my patience or if it's just time for a school holiday."

"What'd the students do?"

"I was giving a lesson on mammals and they started to argue with me."

"Over mammals?"

"I think they realize I'm a bit too exhausted or sensitive to put up much of a fight some days. It's like they see me as a weak animal they can take advantage of. You know, see how much they can get away with. I secretly think they are hoping that if they irritate me enough, it will push me into labor and I'll cancel class for the rest of the day."

"This was all over a lesson on mammals?" Jack asked in disbelief, wondering if he had heard correctly.

"Yes. On mammals", Elizabeth grumbled as wiped a dishrag across a plate and then held the plate under the faucet. She moved her body slightly to the side so Jack could pump more water. Allowing it to run over the plate and rinse away the suds.

"How can a lesson on mammals become argumentative?"

Although she had been frustrated at school, Elizbeth couldn't help but smile as she now relayed the events to Jack. "Patrick kept arguing with me that a coconut is a mammal."

"A coconut?!"

"Because it has hair and provides milk", she said with a giggle. "Of course, he got Jenny to agree with him."

Jack snickered. "What'd you do to him?"

"Nothing for that. But I gave him detention when I caught him teaching the younger students that a crib is a mammal. Because it has four legs and a baby inside."

Jack laughed aloud, took the dishrag from Elizabeth, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "You've had a long day. I'll clean up the rest of the dishes. You go sit on the couch and relax."


Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Elizabeth stirred on the couch as she felt Jack's fingers on her shoulder. Keeping her eyes closed, she wiped her mouth which she sleepily suspected had drool dripping from it.

Tap.

Long tap.

Long tap.

"Stop", Elizabeth mumbled as she swatted the air with her hand.

When she was tapped three more times, this time on her back, Elizabeth opened her eyes. "What? What is it?"

"It's time for bed. And I am not about to carry you upstairs and maybe accidentally drop you."

Jack reached out his hand and helped her to her feet.

"How long was I asleep?"

"You fell asleep sometime between me washing the rest of the dinner dishes and letting Rip out. I read two chapters of my book while you slept. So I'm guessing about forty minutes."

Elizabeth yawned as she moved across the floor. "Probably fifty minutes. You're a slow reader."

"Watch it, jellybean, or you'll be sleeping on the couch all night."

"There's not enough room. Because you'd have to join me. You know I don't sleep well without you", Elizabeth replied sleepily as she held onto the banister and made her way upstairs.


Elizabeth slept peacefully with Jack by her side. Since their fight four nights earlier, or rather, her hysterical fit as he tended to describe it in his mind, he had made sure that a part of him was touching her while they slept.

Her legs tucked under, or between, his. Her head on his chest. His arm around her waist. It wasn't the same each night, or even the same throughout the night, but it was always something.

While Elizabeth seemed to largely have forgotten the incident in the kitchen where she had cried about the dangers of Jack's job, he couldn't stop remembering her words. I can go to bed every night worrying that the man I love may die.

He was determined that rather than think of his possible demise, she was thinking about his warmth.


The next morning, Elizabeth sang a little tune as she set the plate of biscuits on the kitchen table in front of Jack, who was paging through a catalog of saddles and tack which had arrived in the mail the day before.

Sitting down in the chair across from Jack, she placed a cloth napkin on her lap and eagerly dipped her spoon into the warm oatmeal. She had eaten half the bowl's contents and was daydreaming about living on a tropical island – and eating coconuts and a box of chocolates - when she noticed the repetitive sound of metal against glass.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Pause.

Tap.

Long Tap.

Long Tap.

Elizabeth frowned slightly as she watched Jack absent-mindedly tap his spoon against his glass of orange juice. "Is everything okay?"

Jack looked up from the catalog and smiled. "Everything's fine. The oatmeal's good. The biscuits are really good."

"Anything on your mind?"

"Nope. Just looking at saddles."

Elizabeth gave a little shrug and returned her attention to her oatmeal as Jack went back to looking at his catalog. I guess it was just my imagination that he's nervous about something. He's never been a tapper before.


The large package arrived in the mail three days later. If she would have looked back on those three days, Elizabeth wouldn't have thought much was different with Jack during that time. In fact, the only suggestion that something was on his mind was a new habit he seemed to have picked up. Tapping. And now the package.

Elizabeth wouldn't have even noticed the package except that when Mr. Yost, who ran the post office as well as the mercantile, bent down to get her a skein of string from under the cashier register, she saw it on the counter behind him. The crate – easily three feet by two feet in size - had the Thornton name written in four inch letters.

"Oh my! I didn't know we were expecting anything", she exclaimed in pleasant surprise.

"It's not for you, ma'am. It's addressed to your husband. He said he'd be by later to pick it up"

Elizabeth smiled. "I can see that it's addressed to him. But as you just noted, we're married. I can't read the return address label from here. Can you read it to me?"

"I sorry, Mrs. Thornton, but since its addressed to the Sergeant, I can't really divulge any information. Here's your string. That'll be 30 cents."

Elizabeth scowled. My goodness, he's being difficult. It's not like Jack and I have secrets from each other.

The longer she stared at the package, the more Elizabeth's curiosity was piqued. As she handed 30 cents to Ned, she gave him a friendly smile. But despite her smile and renewed request, Mr. Yost refused to allow her to examine the crate. Instead, he covered it with a cloth, leaving her to feel frustrated as she gave up cajoling him and finally walked out of the mercantile.


"Did you get the mail?" Elizabeth, sitting comfortably on the couch, asked hours later when Jack walked in the door.

Jack hung his hat on the wall hook inside the front door and reached into his pocket, pulling out a thin envelope. "You got a letter from your sister, Julie."

"What about the package? Didn't Ned Yost give it to you?"

"Yeah. I left it at the jailhouse."

Elizabeth stared curiously at Jack as she took the letter from his hand. "Why? What is it? Ned was being so secretive. He wouldn't even let me see the return address label."

"It's just something I thought might be nice to have here in the house."

"In the house? Then why did you leave it at the jail?"

"It's not time yet."

"Is it something for the baby?"

"Nope."

"When is it for?"

"You'll just have to wait and see. Although, after I ordered it, I realized we can't even use it. I guess I liked the idea so much, I wasn't thinking straight."

"We can't even use it?"

"Nope."

"Then why don't you return it?"

"Because you, my dear wife, are going to love it", he said before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and heading into the kitchen. He paused after three steps and walked back to her.

Cupping her smooth cheeks in his hands, he gave her a long lingering kiss.

"Mmmm. I've been thinking about doing that all day", he said before he moved away again. Leaving her feeling momentarily dazed.

A love-stuck Elizabeth touched her fingers to her mouth, almost still feeling the warmth of his lips on hers. How does he do that to me?!

She shook her head to clear images of his kisses and hurried into the kitchen after him. Opening the icebox, she took out the cream and handed it to Jack as he took a mug from the cabinet and then poured himself some coffee from the pot brewing on the stove-top.

"Is this warm?"

"I just made it", she answered. "I'm going to love it even though we can't use it?"

"Yep."

He leaned his back against the counter and took a long sip of the warm drink.

"And that's all I'm going to say about it", he added with a gleam in his eyes.


The next evening, while the stew simmered, Elizabeth sat at her desk, surrounded by her usual assortment of objects – papers, a thesaurus, her typewriter – and tried to concentrate on how to describe a particular scene with Constable Theodore, the handsome dashing Mountie in her stories.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The sound interrupted her thoughts of the fictional Mountie and she realized that his actual human form, who was just a few feet away from her, was responsible for the tapping.

Elizabeth looked up from the stark white paper in her typewriter and glanced at Jack, who was sitting on the couch, a pencil in one hand hovering just above the table. His body was bent over as he stared at the large calendar lying on the coffee table.

Tap.

Long Tap.

Long Tap.

Jack paused again from hitting the pencil on the wooden surface of the table. Holding the pencil in one hand, he flipped through another month in the calendar.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

"Jack, is something on your mind?"

"I have looked through this entire calendar and there is not a single holiday which is celebrated more than once a year", he said as he feigned disbelief and leaned back into the couch.

Elizabeth smiled as she thought about how he had caught her in the act of searching for a box of chocolates at the jail house, and she had tried to divert his attention by discussing holidays. "You're not going to let me forget about that, are you?"

"Not only am I not going to let you forget about it, I'm going to do something about."

"What'd you have in mind?"

"Now that's part of the secret you're going to have to find out."

Jack got up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen. "I'm starving. I'll set the table."


The aroma of the beef as it soaked up the spices and mixed with the sliced onions and carrots caused Elizabeth's stomach to rumble in hunger. She was stirring the stew, getting ready to take it off the stove when she heard it.

The sound usually made by someone who was nervous.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

She glanced down and to her right.

Jack was leaning causally with his back against the long counter watching her. The boot on one of his feet moving up and down in no discernible pattern.

"Jack, is everything okay? You're not worried about anything at work, are you?"

"No. Everything's good. Work was great today. Absolutely beautiful riding."

Why has he suddenly started tapping so often? A nervous tic? The desire to be in a band?

"Everything else okay?" Elizabeth asked as she placed the pot of stew on the table and then sat down as Jack pulled out her chair for her.

"Perfect", he answered with a smile as he sat down.

"You're not keeping anything important from me, are you?"

"Not that I can think of. So how was your day?"

"Jack, seriously. If there's something . . . . scary . . . or worrisome . . .that I need to know, you'd tell me, right?"

Jack reached across the table and picked up her hand, cradling it in his.

"I am not keeping anything scary or worrisome from you. I promise. I love you. The only thing I might suggest is that you use those teachers-college brains of yours", he said with a gleam in his eye as he released her hand and picked up his fork.

"My teachers-college brains? Just what are you up to?" She looked at him suspiciously but with a small grin.

Jack chuckled. "How was your day?" he asked. Elizabeth realized that she wouldn't get any more out of him tonight.

"It was awful", she responded as she took a roll from the small basket in the table's center.

"Again?"

"I told you, the students are trying to break me. I've gone from being a stern but loving teacher to a pregnant woman. They're stir crazy with the cold weather and being stuck inside most of the day."

"What was today's problem?"

"Haikus"

"Hi who's?"

"Haiku. It's a Japanese poem which doesn't rhyme. They are three lines with only seventeen syllables. Written in a five-seven-five syllable count."

"Why?"

Elizabeth snickered. "Just because."

"Give me an example."

"Let me think."

Elizabeth looked across the table at Jack as he put a forkful of stew into his mouth. This is what love is. Creating and reciting poetry to each other! Expressing our tender thoughts in poetic verse. Gosh, it's romantic.

She sat quietly for a minute. Thinking of just the right words. The correct number of syllables. The perfect image of their lives.

"One white winter day. I kissed your perfect warm lips. I thought of your love", she finally said with a smile. "Now it's your turn."

Jack took another forkful of stew and slowly chewed the food while Elizabeth enthusiastically watched him. Anticipating a sweet haiku of their love.

Maybe about my hair. It is very pretty today. Or maybe about my beautiful blue eyes. Your beautiful eyes. That's five syllables. . . . .

He certainly is taking a long time. . . .

Maybe he can't decide between his romantic thoughts. I'm sure he has a lot of them about me. Maybe my lips! Like I said something about his being perfect.

What thoughts fill his mind?

Jack took his right index finger and tapped it to the fingers on his other hand, silently counting syllables. When he was satisfied, he swallowed and took a sip of water before speaking.

"This delicious stew. White potatoes and warm meat. Yummy yummy yum."

Elizabeth threw her napkin at him in disgust. "You're as bad as my students."

"It's good stew!" he exclaimed with a chuckle.


The moonlight shown through the window as the couple lay quietly.

Jack, propped up in bed against two soft pillows, turned the page in the novel he was reading and glanced off to his side at Elizabeth.

She had fallen asleep sometime between his reading of the mysterious murder of the fictional banker and the arrest of the chambermaid two chapters later.

He looked at the pale skin of her face on her pillow, the way she was sleeping curled slightly on her side, and he smiled as he counted the syllables in his mind.

Dear Elizabeth

You are forever the one.

You're my love always.

Much better than my stew haiku, he thought with a chuckle as he went back to reading his book.


The air felt like snow two days later.

It did more than feel like snow - It smelled like snow.

It was that kind of smell that was indescribable. If Elizabeth had been asked to explain why it smelled like snowfall was coming, she would have used words like crisp and clean. Heavy. Excitement. None of them had anything to do with her olfactory senses, but it didn't matter. To her, it smelled like snow.

"How's the Morse Code working out so far?" Abigail asked as the women walked down the street.

"Not so good. He's too fast. So far, I've got only the first two letters. And I'm not even sure if they're right. It might be the first three letters."

"That's it? This has been going on for days."

"I know. I know", Elizabeth grumbled. "But it took me awhile to figure out what he was doing. And he does it so quickly."

"And he won't give you a clue?"

"I haven't asked him."

"You haven't asked him?"

"Nope. Two can play at this game. I am not about to admit that I need help. I haven't even told him that I finally know what he's doing. And I don't plan on telling him that I know. So don't say a word, please. Ned gave me the list of how many dots and dashes there are for each letter. He also gave me one of those strange looks. Like I was going to try and take his job or something."

Abigail shook her head in amusement. Her own marriage to Noah had been full of love, but it certainly had far less confusion and intrigue than Jack and Elizabeth's relationship.

If ever a couple was a perfect match of emotions, love, and enthusiasm, it was the two of them.

When Elizabeth had mentioned to Abigail that she suspected Jack was tapping her a message in Morse Code, Abigail had rolled her eyes and wondered why the couple couldn't be just another ordinary boring couple. But when she saw them together, she knew why.

There was something special between them. Something that had been there since the first day they had met each other.

Abigail suspected that if Elizabeth and Jack had never met each other, they could have been content married to other people.

But what they had with each other was much more than contentment. So much more.

It was love. Full of excitement. Comfort. Joy. Worry. Hope. Dependability. Adventure.

And now apparently secrets and Morse Code, Abigail thought with a slight snicker.


Elizabeth wiped her hands on her apron and then wiped the sweat from her brow. This recipe was far more difficult than she had anticipated. Desiring to make a delicious meal for Jack, she had finally opened the book which his mother had sent months ago.

Mrs. Seely's Cook Book: A Manual of French and American Cookery with Chapters on Domestic Servants, Their Rights and Duties, and Many Other Details of Household Management.

Believe me, if I had a domestic servant, I wouldn't be in the kitchen making this meal myself, she grumbled.

Nothing was going according to plan.

Halfway through the preparation, Elizabeth realized she shouldn't have chosen Chateaubriand as the entrée.

Shallots. Onions. What's the difference?

Reduced sauce?! Why do I have to make so much in the first place if I'm just going to reduce it?!

She took a small sip of white wine from the bottle before she poured more of the liquid into the pan with the chopped onions and watched it sizzle.

Demi-glace? I don't understand, she whined to herself as she continued to read the recipe.

Why do I need demi-glace if I have a reduced sauce?

Looking at the clock on the wall, Elizabeth noted the time, shoved the beef into the stove, and returned her attention to the recipe instructions. After browning on all sides, cook in the oven for exactly 11 minutes. . . . That's fine. That gives me plenty of time.

Wiping her hands on her apron again, she continued reading.

Oops. I skipped this part. I'll have to do it now. Add mushrooms. . . . No problem.

Then add veal stock in proportions equal to the amount of wine that was originally used before the reduction. Reduce this liquid to half its size, she read carefully.

WHAT?!

Veal stock?! I don't have veal. I don't have veal stock! I don't want to have veal stock! It's horribly mean. Poor baby calves!

Just thinking of baby calves being turned into veal stock caused Elizabeth's eyes to water. She suddenly found herself sobbing uncontrollably as she imagined the small animals, only a few weeks old, being slaughtered to please a wealthy diner.

Tears ran down her face and she wondered if mother cows missed their young. If they knew they were being turned into veal.

She held her belly and sat in the chair crying into her apron as she envisioned the tiny creatures with their trusting eyes and their cute big ears.

They had discussed cows, including her pet which she kept at the Coopers, in class when she had been teaching about mammals. She remembered telling the students that mother cows are pregnant for nine months before they give birth. The same amount of time that she would be pregnant! For some reason, this thought made her cry even harder.

She had never cried about an ingredient in a recipe before. Unless you count onions, and that was not for sentimental reasons. Now she found herself wanting to run outside and free every calf she found.


It took ten minutes for a pregnant and emotional Elizabeth to regain her composure and re-focus on preparing the meal.

Julienne the carrot sticks, she read as she wiped her eyes and took a deep breath.

Elizabeth washed the carrots under the cool pump water. Carefully scrubbing the dirt from each piece before peeling them and cutting off the green stalks.

She began slicing the root vegetables, paused to look at the size, and then moved to the drawer and took out a box of matches. Removing a single match, she placed it on the cutting board next to the carrots and stared at it.

Each carrot slice should be the approximate size of a matchstick, she read.

I can do that. I made these too big. But that's okay. I'll just re-cut them.

The time on the clock ticked by as Elizabeth meticulously cut the carrots into thin strips.

Ouch. Darn.

Elizabeth popped her sliced finger into her mouth.

It was then that she remembered the time.

No! she wailed.


An hour later, Elizabeth stood in Abigail's kitchen as the older women wrapped up a chicken pot pie for her.

"How's the deciphering going? Any more progress?"

"I thought I was making progress but I'm not still sure where the letters begin and end. I'm barely able to distinguish the pauses between them. Last night when we were playing "Crazy Eights", he was holding his cards and tapping them while I was trying to think of the next move to make. I didn't know whether to concentrate on the tapping or the cards I was holding. I ended up getting confused and lost the game. Now I have to take out the trash for a week."

"Good thing you weren't playing for money. So what letters have you come up with so far?"

"You don't want to know."

"Tell me!" a curious Abigail insisted.

"He's either telling me that he wants to eat a sock or that he thinks he saw Bigfoot."

Abigail let out a loud laugh. "I think you need to listen some more."

"I'll figure it out. A Thatcher never runs from a challenge."

"But you're a Thornton now", Abigail reminded her with a smile as she handed the package to Elizabeth.

"Well, a Thornton certainly doesn't give up either. And I'm pretty sure that it has something to do with the mysterious crate which arrived earlier in the week."

"Still no idea about that either?"

"Just that I'll love it but we can't use it. Thank you so much for helping me out here, Abigail. This looks delicious." Elizabeth quickly changed the subject.

Despite what she had just told Abigail, she was actually pretty sure she had figured out Jack's message. Although she still had no idea what was in the crate, she had spent an hour this afternoon going over the repetitive taps. Looking over the notes she had been making on scraps of paper. Comparing her notes with the Morse Code sheet which Ned had given her. She didn't like to keep things from Abigail, but once Elizabeth had finally deciphered the message, she realized it was so . . . cute. So personal. So singularly meant for her, that she couldn't bear to share it.

"Do you need a dessert?"

"No, my dessert should be fine. I just have to borrow a blowtorch from one of the railroad workers to finish it up", Elizabeth replied happily before she turned and walked out the door.

Leaving a stunned Abigail standing in the kitchen and praying that she had heard incorrectly.

A blowtorch?!

Up next: Chapter 51 Love Taps Part 2

Dear Readers, this is somewhat of a milestone as it is the 50th chapter to this story. Just over a year ago, I started this story on a whim. I had just finished the sixth story in my Vignette series on Jack and Elizabeth, when someone jokingly challenged me to write a story totally different from anything else. When I flippantly replied, "yeah, right, like a role reversal?", the answer was "Why not?" What started out in response to a simple challenge has now turned into one of my favorite evening past-times. Thank you all for reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing! I hope my story of a rich Jack and a middle-class Elizabeth makes you smile and adds a little happiness to your day.