Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy)

er drawings to anyone yet, and certainly not to Jed, who would most likely laugh at them. “Nothing.”

His interest now piqued, Jed leaned forward. “Come on. Show me.”

“No,” Ellen snapped. “Why should I?” She was gratified to see Jed look surprised and even a little hurt by her tart reply, but before he could answer Lucas strode through the long grass up to them.

“What’s going on?” he asked, smiling, and Jed, giving Ellen one last, sharp look, grinned back.

“Ellen’s got a secret.”

“I haven’t,” she protested, but she clutched the sketchbook to her chest all the same, her fingers curling around its edges.

Jed made a grab for it, as she knew he would, and Ellen scooted back, lurching to her feet before he pounced again.

She suddenly had a horrible, panicky feeling that if Jed saw her drawings and made fun of them, nothing would be the same. She couldn’t articulate the thought further than that even in her own mind, yet she knew she couldn’t bear it if Jed laughed at her for her drawing. He’d laughed at her for just about everything else, but her drawings were precious. Private. Sacred, even, and she wasn’t ready to share them with anyone, not even someone who might admire them. Jed wouldn’t.

“Come on, Ellen, show us whatever it is,” Jed called as he stalked her around a big maple tree, Ellen scrambling over the thick, twisted roots. “It can’t be that important, whatever it is.”

“Then why do you want to see it?” Ellen challenged, the sketchbook still clutched against her chest.

“Why don’t you want me to?” Jed shot back, and she just shook her head. All of a sudden he sprinted forward and with a squeak Ellen tried to run away, tripping over one of the tree’s roots. A few pages fluttered to the ground, but Ellen was too busy trying to escape to notice, until Lucas stopped them both with a simple question.

“Did you do these, Ellen?” Lucas asked, his voice filled with quiet wonder. He was crouched down, holding a quick sketch she’d done from memory of Peter, grinning broadly, his hands on his hips, every inch the triumphantly mischievous boy. “But these are good.”

“Thank you,” Ellen said with a decided lack of grace. She felt her face redden as she held her hand out for the sketch.

Before Peter could give it to her, Jed snatched it away.

“It’s private!” Ellen cried, and felt the beginnings of tears start in her eyes. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, for she knew she wouldn’t be able to wrest the drawings away from Jed until he was ready to give them.

His gray gaze swept over the page, his face completely expressionless, and Ellen steeled herself to be mocked and ridiculed. She blinked back that first sting of tears, determined not to add to her humiliation by crying like a baby.

Then Jed looked up and gave a little, one-shouldered shrug. “They’re all right, I suppose,” he said, tossing her the sketch. “Although I don’t know why you have to hide a bunch of silly old drawings.”

Ellen felt a surge of both gratification and regret. It was more than she’d ever expected from him, and yet strangely it wasn’t enough. Before she could reply, however, Jed tossed a handful of leaves in her face, and she sputtered and gasped in indignation.

“Leaf fight!” Peter crowed, and the other children rushed into the fray, chortling with delight. Soon they were all engaged in a furious battle, tossing the golden and crimson and orange leaves through the air, stuffing them down their backs, helpless with laughter.

Ellen lay back against the grass, breathless, her apron covered with leaves and bits of grass and twigs. “I don’t know what Aunt Rose will say,” she said in as stern a tone as she could manage. “We’re all a right bourach!”

All the children stared at her in surprised curiosity. “What,” Jed asked, “is a bourach?”

Ellen flushed. “A state,” she explained. “A mess.”

“Why didn’t you just say so in the first place,” Jed said, and Ellen threw a fistful of leaves at him. He brushed them off with a mocking smile.

“She won’t mind if we’re dirty,” Caro said confidently. “Mama’s good that way. She likes us to play and have fun.”

“Good thing, since you’re dirty most of the time,” Jed said, and he reached forward to disentangle a twig from Ellen’s hair, and for a moment her heart seemed to stop, and then she found herself blurting,

“It’s my birthday next week.”

“Is it?” Jed said, supremely indifferent, and Ellen flushed, wondering why she’d said anything at all, especially to Jed Lyman.

“I suppose I’ll make myself a cake,” she said tartly, and the children scrambled towards her eagerly.

“Will you really, Ellen? Will you please make us a cake?”

Lucas laughed. “You can’t make your own birthday cake, Ellen,” he chided. “I’d make one, but I don’t know how.”