In the last chapter, I took a guess about when Rosemary and Lee's wedding was. I figured the land slide happened in the late winter or early spring (snow melting along with the rain) and since they said the wedding was a few weeks after Jack recovered, so I took a guess it was in April. This chapter is going to be a fluff one. I wanted to give Elizabeth a talent she would be good at since she isn't a good cook.

Jack returned to the café at 6 to find Elizabeth sitting on what they had begun to call "their swing", writing in her journal. She looked up as she heard him climb the stairs. "Hello, Jack" she exclaimed with a smile on her face.

Jack sat down next to her and leaned over to give her a quick kiss. "Hello, Sweetheart. I missed you this afternoon. I had a little trouble concentrating on my paperwork because all I wanted to do was spend time with you. I had to get myself to buckle down so I would be able to spend some time with you tonight. What have you been up to? Did you get your telegram sent?

"Yes I did. I told them about our engagement and wedding date and said we would love for them to come here for the wedding. It's in their hands now if they decided to come either for the wedding or to try to talk me out of it." She paused before continuing. "I don't want to talk about them anymore. After I got back to here, I decided to work on a table cloth I have been making but haven't been able to find the time to work on. Now that we are getting married and will have a home of our own, I decided I'd better get it in gear and work on it" She pointed to the basket next to her. "I brought it out here to work on. Do you want to see it?

Jack nodded his head in agreement. He wasn't sure what to expect. It was common knowledge that Elizabeth was not that talented in house hold chores and cooking. He couldn't help but wonder if the table cloth would be a disaster. He watched her as she pulled out a small piece of cloth and handed it to him.

"This is the matching napkin I made to go with the table cloth." She looked at him expectantly, waiting for a response. She hoped he would like it. Even though she wasn't a good cook, she felt her homey talents lay with needle work and knitting. Since coming to Hope Valley, she hadn't had much time to work on her crafts but she had made up her mind to start putting aside at least 30 minutes a day for her projects.

Jack took the cloth and looked down at it. It had a beautiful design of leaves in falls colors. Vibrant reds, oranges and yellows. He liked what he saw and gave a smile to Elizabeth. "You made this?" He asked before he continued. "It's beautiful."

Elizabeth smiled at his compliment. "Yes I did. I drew the design and had a friend back in Hamilton make a print on 8 napkins and the table cloth. Then I picked out embroidery floss in bright, autumn colors. I love the autumn." She reached into her basket and pulled out the matching table cloth. She opened it up in front of her and laid it out on both her lap and Jack's. The table cloth had a circle of leaves going around it. Only about a quarter of it was completed.

Again, Jack liked what he saw. His face light up as he examined her work. "Elizabeth, this is great. I love that you picked autumn leaves as the design." His mind went back to something she had said earlier. "Did you say you drew the design for this?

Elizabeth laughed a little then reached one more time into her basket. She pulled out a sketch pad much like the ones he had. "I am not the artist you are but I can manage to get my ideas across. Would you like to look at the sketches I have made? Maybe you could fix them up a little and then I can have the design stamped on another table cloth for us."

"I would love to look." He took the pad from her and opened it up. The leaf design was the first one in the book. It didn't look exactly like what was on the table cloth but it was good. It just needed some refinements. The next page was of interlocking roses. Another page was of fruit. He turned another page to discover interlocking poinsettias for a holiday table. All of them were good. "These are really good, Elizabeth." He said and he meant it.

Elizabeth looked at him strangely. "Come on Jack. You can say it and I won't get offended. You are clearly the better sketcher than I am. I was hoping you would take these drawings and fix them up for me. I thought maybe you could do the Christmas one first. I know we are a long way off from it, but if you could get something down on paper now, I can have the cloths back in enough time to work on it, even at the snail pace I work at now that I am teaching."

"I would be happy to help out. But may I make a suggestion for the Christmas cloth?" She nodded. "We should add some mistletoe and pinecones, maybe even a wreath for the center."

Her face light up excitedly. "That's a great idea. Do you think it would be too much to add a couple of Christmas trees?

"I don't know. How about I draw a couple of different holiday sketches and we can decide together which one we like. Or if you like we could do the Christmas trees on the matching napkins. Do you mind if I borrow you pad while I work on some ideas?

"Be my guest, Jack. Oh my. This is so much fun. Even something as small as a tablecloth has become a joint project for us. I like it!"

"I do too." He said as he leaned over to kiss her again. "I brought my pad over so we could talk about plans for our house. What do you say we go have some dinner and talk things over?" He stood and held out his hand to help her up.

"Why, thank you Jack. I would love to have dinner with you and talk about our future." Together they walked inside the café.