An Apple for a Teacher
Chapter 4: Feelings Revealed
"Mrs. Thornton, may I take Jack apple picking a little ways down?" Allie requested, in a carefully calculated effort to get her teacher and father to share some time and conversation in private. She had their best interests in mind in striving to covertly play the role of their matchmaker, as it was clear to her—and anyone back in their hometown of Hope Valley who had eyes to see and ears to hear—that there were sparks lying under the teacher and Mountie's everyday interactions, no matter how hesitant the two were about admitting their feelings to each other.
"I am trying to start babysitting in Hope Valley, and I need all of the practice I can get," Allie continued, in an attempt to conceal her matchmaking under the guise of commencing her babysitting career. "We can use the basket that my dad and I brought right here," she noted, grabbing hold of it convincingly. "Here, I'll move some of the apples that Dad and I already gathered from our basket into our saddlebag, so Jack and I have more room to put new ones into the basket," she reasoned wisely, already busying herself with transferring some of her and her dad's crimson treasures to their saddlebag, and taking out a blanket that was nestled into the confines of the saddlebag in the process. In her haste, she left the blanket on the orchard floor, unintentionally providing a comforting canopy for any ladybugs sauntering within the soil beneath it.
While what Allie had said about her babysitting goals was true, Nathan chortled internally because he sensed that she had ulterior motives. He knew his daughter well and suspected that ultimately, Allie was trying to get him and Elizabeth to spend some time by themselves, in the hopes that they might actually be candid about their feelings for each other. She sure is a smart one, he thought to himself.
"Yes, of course you may, Allie," Elizabeth responded. Allie rapidly wrapped up her apple transfer, taking her now lighter basket in one hand and Jack's little hand in the other, which felt, to her, as lightweight, supple, and soft as a pincushion. Allie knew she was once as small as Little Jack, not very many autumns ago, yet she still marveled at the thought of how tiny humans could be in their early years. Though these days, she thought to herself, Little Jack was sprouting up nearly as fast as the beanstalk in the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk! He had certainly acquired some height within the last few months and was inching his way closer to the line of her hips.
As Little Jack and Allie gradually meandered away from their immediate vicinity, winding leisurely down the row of greenery flanked on either side by apple trees, Elizabeth felt a squall of nervousness overtake her. The disquieting bluster made its way across her heart, so that once again, this life-giving muscle of hers was beating against her chest like an English clog dancer's ever-changing, rapid-fire footwork. Try as she might, she was unsuccessful at stilling her clattering heart. Without Jack and Allie nearby, she sensed the time had arrived when she would be forced to be more vulnerable in her conversation with Nathan, when she would have to rake the layers of leaves over her heart away to reveal fervent thoughts and feelings hidden underneath. She shivered timorously.
"Are you cold?" Nathan asked. His eyes, taking after stormy seas on the horizon, grew a shade darker with worry and care. "Here, you can have this extra blanket that I brought in my saddlebag and that Allie left here," he assured Elizabeth. As Nathan removed the blanket from the ground, the ladybugs resigned themselves to surrendering their canopy, sensing it was for a good cause.
"It's okay, Nathan, you don't have to..." Elizabeth started to exclaim, trying to dissuade him, as she knew her shivering was more from her maelstrom of nerves, which were ebbing one moment and whirling and flowing in full force the next, than from a physical reaction to the cold. She was, after all, wearing a fairly thick plum coat, along with a long-sleeve lavender and white dress, white stockings, and thick tan boots, attire that was normally enough to keep her shielded from the brisk autumn air.
However, Nathan had already started draping the blanket over her shoulders with care. "Here," he said, compassionately offering her warmth. "Hopefully this helps keep the autumn chill away."
"Thank you, Nathan," Elizabeth responded sincerely. Moved by his attentiveness and a bit taken aback by his closeness, a peachy pink hue billowed swiftly across her cheeks, resembling dancing coral swept up by the ocean. "You are so kind," Elizabeth replied, feeling synchronously warmed by the blanket and warmed by his consideration.
Nathan's mouth curled up into a gentle smile, his stormy eyes returning to their sunnier shade once again. "You're welcome," he answered. He realized that Elizabeth's happiness was his own, just like Allie's was. After a few ticks of nature's clock, kept by a woodpecker's persistent pecking somewhere from afar, Nathan pointed his rugged chin toward Allie in the distance, so as to gesture toward her. "That girl," he stated, taking a pause. His eyes reflected ripples of love for Allie, set in motion by the years of raising his astute, vibrant daughter. "Raising her is the best decision I've ever made."
Touched by his remark, Elizabeth, whose eyes had moved to her son and Allie as they made a companionable picture in the distance, quickly shifted focus and met Nathan's crystal-clear eyes, two azure tidepools which were made all the more unclouded by the sheer honesty that shown through them.
For once, Elizabeth didn't second guess her words to Nathan, a habit brought on by the way his presence consistently made her misplace her usual poise. "You love her deeply. You would die for her. I can see it in your eyes," she said, softly. Those striking eyes I can't always bring myself to look at, but also can't seem to look away from, she noted to herself, marveling at the irony.
I would do the same for you, Nathan found himself thinking as he steadfastly held Elizabeth's gaze, wishing for a brief moment that he could tell Elizabeth those words, but knowing that such words would be too much, too soon.
"Yes," Nathan responded, emotion crowding every corner of his voice. "I do love Allie deeply, and I would die for I know you love Jack with the same level of intensity and would do the same for him." Nathan settled for that response, knowing Elizabeth loved her son with the same fierceness with which he loved his daughter.
"Yes. I always will. Even when he's grown and I won't be able to protect him as much as I do now," Elizabeth responded easily yet a bit forlornly, thinking once again about how swiftly time was passing.
The two paused their conversation, resting with each other in a snug sort of silence as the whistling breeze, peppered with the cool, yet congenial and enlivening chill of early autumn, made its way around them, rustling and disheveling Elizabeth's ringlets—which now resembled roasted chestnuts due to the afternoon shadows—and causing Nathan's own dark hair to swoop to one side. Elizabeth couldn't help but let out a series of laughs at the way the wind tousled their hair, her laughter like bales of hay that kept piling on top of one another, until Nathan couldn't help but join in.
"What, you find my scarecrow look amusing?" Nathan asked.
"Yes," Elizabeth answered plainly, laughing some more. She assessed that his windblown hair, along with his mischievous pumpkin grin that was present more often than not, were quite winsome and handsome, but she felt too shy to share those other adjectives with him. "I'm sure I must look a sight." Elizabeth said, her self-consciousness making an appearance again, an unfriendly ghost that kept creeping up on her.
"You've never looked more lovely." The words were out before Nathan could stop them, one part of his brain asking him, What have you done? and the other part having no regrets about giving voice to his thoughts, resting in complete peace that he was being fully honest for once about his feelings, without pretense.
Elizabeth, caught off guard by Nathan's forthright statement, felt the seas surge around her as color once again swept across her cheeks, this time like the cotton candy skies of an autumn sunrise. She found it maddening that she could not seem to maintain the collected composure around Nathan that so characteristically defined her in her everyday life as teacher, Hope Valley resident, and even mother.
"I mean it, you know," Nathan stated sincerely, detecting her discomposure and hoping to assuage any doubts she had about herself.
Elizabeth believed his compliment was genuine. He had the most honest pair of eyes she'd ever seen. "Thank you," she said quietly, not quite able to meet his gaze, overwhelmed by his transparency. She knew she should disclose more of her heart, but she found her brain experiencing frost. Don't let yourself completely freeze up again, Elizabeth, her inner voice cautioned. Her conscience happened to have a sense of humor, as it added, Besides, your son is the one who should be Jack Frost, not you!
"Elizabeth," Nathan said gently, trying to recapture her gaze and deciding that he should continue now that he had started down this path. "I...I..." In his vulnerability, he found himself struggling to express his thoughts. "I want to let you know that...that you're always in my heart." Nathan took a deep breath, hastily looking down at the picnic blanket before gathering his courage to once again make eye contact with Elizabeth and to attempt to lay his thoughts out on the orchard grass before them. Why does unveiling my heart feel more formidable than any mission I have faced as a Mountie? Nathan asked himself.
"You and my heart...they're interconnected," he went on, trying to further explain his feelings, but struggling to effectively put them into words. While language was beautiful and integral to communication, he found it to be an imperfect tool for conveying and capturing the depths of his heart, like a fisherman's slightly torn net. "You mean a great deal to me, and I think of you often. Over the last few months, you've established a permanent place in my heart." Nathan decided to stop there for the time being, and let his words settle like autumn rain into the soil of Elizabeth's mind and heart.
Armed with the knowledge that Nathan had been regularly thinking about her and touched by his candor, and gathering that he cared for her in a way that surpassed friendship, Elizabeth felt a swell of inner strength propel her to speak.
"Nathan, it's my turn to be honest," she began, taking a shallow breath. "I...I also...think about you a lot. The reason I...hid from you today...well...it's not because I do not like you," Elizabeth imparted, her voice like choppy seas, rising and falling, stopping and starting. "And the reason I sometimes become mute in your presence isn't because I'm going crazy. Well, maybe I am." Elizabeth giggled at her ramblings, feeling as if she might have indeed misplaced part of her brain. You've made it this far; there's no turning back now, her inner voice advised, urging her on.
"The truth is," she continued, trying to breathe the cool autumn air but finding it didn't fully make it into her lungs, "You are very dear to me, and I like you very much, so much that it actually terrifies me, hence my continual hesitation and my hiding today. I know that my late husband Jack would want me to move on, but I'm nervous about being vulnerable and letting myself love again, fall again...especially after what happened to Jack...and with you also being a Mountie...I've never been very good when it comes to surrendering control. Honestly, there's a part of my heart that's still healing from the trauma of what happened to Jack. But you also have a home in my heart, and...I often lose my brain in your presence. It's frustrating. I'm supposed to have it all together!" Elizabeth let out an exasperated sigh after her monologue, her secrets finally out into the open.
Nathan's face burst into a grin that was one of his most lopsided yet, and that was simultaneously extremely sly yet chock-full of jubilation at Elizabeth's confession. Why is he looking like a kid in a candy shop who's up to no good? What in the world is this man going to say next? Elizabeth wondered to herself, a bit irked that he was looking so mischievous after she imparted her heart to him and shared its depths with him. She pressed her eyebrows downward and gave him a scowl at first, in an attempt to implore him to take things more seriously, but then found that she couldn't stop the edges of her lips from lifting up and surrendering into a smile. She couldn't help it...it turned out that Nathan Grant's grins were contagious!
"Really? I make you lose your brain?" Nathan looked mirthful at Elizabeth's confession. "So, now you're the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, and I am losing my scarecrow status?" He deduced cleverly.
"Nathan..." Elizabeth groaned in mortification at his teasing, though there was a part of her that secretly treasured it all the same. She appreciated how he reminded her not to take things too seriously in life. And as a lover of literature, she could not help but appreciate his Wizard of Oz reference.
"But to be honest, Elizabeth," Nathan said, a twinkle still in his eye. "I'm not sure how someone like me could have that effect on you, but I also feel the same way about you."
"In case I wasn't clear earlier..." Nathan trailed off and then carried on, suddenly transforming again into the stoic, shyer version of himself, and rounding up every fiber of gumption he could locate inside himself in order to lay his heart into the open, as if he were mobilizing troops for battle: "Though I always hope to be your friend, I have feelings for you that run deeper than friendship." His cheeks briefly turned ruddy at his admission.
While Elizabeth had comprehended the magnitude of Nathan's feelings earlier on in their conversation, his direct declaration about the extent of his feelings made things all the more real and stirred her heart to dance like a fiery red autumn leaf detaching from its branch's grasp. She felt herself losing her fight of stubbornly holding onto her fears. Perhaps she could surrender to the unknown. Perhaps she could strive to die to herself, and give herself and Nathan a chance.
"I also share those same feelings toward you," Elizabeth echoed back to him, her heart's truths fully unleashed, her voice shy and soft as she delivered the words. Her voice in that moment was similar to the muted tones of a winter forest after bursting forth into color during the previous season, subdued and pensive but nevertheless present.
The next few moments were marked by a contemplative pause as the Mountie and Teacher pair, finally having disclosed their hearts, gradually absorbed all that had been said between them.