be for a widow alone. I’ve been there. But you have to make choices that are in your best interest. And those of your children. If Luke’s willing to make the repairs you need and you pay a fair wage, you’re not obligated to him. He’s an employee, nothing more. He could do the job and then move on. And you and your children would be much better off.”
Honor shook her head. The insides of her eyelids stung and she could feel the emotions building up inside her, but she wouldn’t cry. There was no way Luke would make her cry again. “He didn’t tell you what he did to me, did he?”
“He wanted to, but I wouldn’t hear of it,” Sara said. “As I said, I don’t need to know. What I do know is that he seems to be a good man.”
“I believed that, too. Once, a long time ago.” Honor gripped the back of a chair. “But then he walked out on me nine years ago.” Against her will, tears filled her eyes. “The morning we were to be married.”
* * *
As soon as Luke walked into the barn, he could tell where the feed room was by the muffled shouts and thuds. He found his way past a dappled gray horse, a placid Jersey cow, stray hens and a pen of sheep to a door with a wooden bar across it. He swung the bar up, and the door burst open. Out spilled a slight, sandy-haired, teenage girl with tear-streaked cheeks.
“They locked me in again!” she declared. She seemed about to elaborate on her plight when she suddenly saw him and stopped short in her tracks, eyes wide. “Atch!” she cried and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“I’m Luke,” he said. “Honor sent me to let you out.” That wasn’t exactly true, but close enough without going into a detailed explanation. “Are you all right?”
“They are bad children! Bad!” she flung back without answering his question. “And that oldest is the worst. Every day, they lock me in the feed room.” She thrust out her lower lip, sniffed and began to weep again. “I want to go home.”
“Don’t cry,” Luke said. “You say they lock you in the feed room every day? So why...why did you give them the opportunity to lock you in? Again and again?”
“Aagschmiert. Tricked. I was tricked.” She wiped her nose with the back of the sleeve of her oversize barn coat. “And it’s dark in there. I hate the dark.”
“Ya.” Luke nodded. “I’m not overly fond of it myself. At least I wouldn’t be if someone locked me in.” He reached out and removed a large spiderweb from the girl’s headscarf.
She shuddered when she saw it. “Wildheet,” she insisted. “Wild, bad kinner.” She pointed at a chicken. “See? They let the chickens out of their pen, too. And yesterday it was the cow. Everything, they let loose. Me, they lock in.”
Luke pressed his lips tightly together and tried not to laugh. “As I said, I’m Luke. I came to make repairs to the house. And who are you?”
“Greta. Silas’s niece. From Ohio.” Another tear rolled down her cheek. “But going home, I think. Soon.”
“Well, Greta from Ohio, best we get back in the house before they send someone else out in the rain to see if I’m locked up somewhere, too.”
Still muttering under her breath about bad children, Greta led the way through the cluttered barn and, hunching her back against the downpour, made a dash for the house.
They went inside, leaving their wet coats and his hat hanging on hooks in the laundry room, and made a beeline for the woodstove in the kitchen. Greta’s teeth were chattering. Luke had the shivers, but he clamped his teeth together and refused to give in to the chill. He put his hands out to the radiating heat, grateful for the semidry kitchen, and glanced sideways at Honor.
In the time since he’d gone to the barn and returned, she’d twisted up her hair and covered it with a woolen scarf. Her plain blue dress had seen better days and her apron was streaked with flour and mud. Her black wool stockings were faded; her slender feet were laced into high black leather shoes. Honor had always been a small woman, and now she was even more slender and more graceful. Life and motherhood had pared away the girlish roundness of her face, leaving her stunning to his eye, more beautiful than he’d dreamed.
“Again?” she said to the girl. “You let them lock you in again?”
Greta began to sniffle.
“None of that,” Honor said, not unkindly. “Go change into dry things and then find the boys. They need a bath and clean clothes.”
“The wash is still damp,” Greta protested. “I hung it in the attic like you said, but it’s still wet.”
“Then bathe them and put them into their nightshirts. I won’t have them running around the house in those muddy clothes.”
“They won’t listen to me,” Greta muttered. “Justice won’t get in the tub and the little one will run off as soon as I turn my back to him.”
“Never you mind, child,” Sara said. “I’ll come along and lend a hand. I’ve bathed my share of unwilling kinner. And, I promise you, they won’t get the best of me.” She fixed Luke with a determined gaze. “Honor and Luke have some matters to discuss in private, anyway. Don’t you?”
He nodded, feeling a little intimidated by Sara. She reminded him of his late mother.
“I wrote to you,” he said when they were alone, as he held out his cold fingers to the warm woodstove. “I wrote every month since I heard that...that your husband passed. You refused my letters and they were returned.” He searched her face, looking for some hint that she still cared for him...that she could forgive him. “I apologized for—”
“I didn’t want to hear what you had to say then or now,” she answered brusquely.
He exhaled. “Honor, I was wrong. I regret what I did, but I can’t change the past.” Only a few feet separated them. He wanted to go to her, to clasp her hands in his. But he didn’t; he stood where he was. “I’m sorry, Honor. What more can I say?”
“That you’ll go back to Kansas and leave me in peace.”
“I can’t do that.” He gestured to the nearest leak in the ceiling. “You need help. And I’m here to do whatever you need. I’m a good carpenter. I can fix whatever’s broken.”
“Can you?” she asked softly.
And, for just a second, he saw moisture gleam in her large blue eyes. Emotion pricked the back of his throat. They weren’t talking about the house anymore. They were talking about their hearts.
“I can try,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “It’s over, Luke. Whatever we had, whatever I felt for you, it’s gone.”
He stared at the floor. Despite her words, he still felt a connection to Honor. And he had a sense that what she was saying wasn’t necessarily how she felt. So he took a leap of faith. He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning with my tools. I know you hate me, but—”
“I don’t hate you, Luke.”
“Good, then we’ve a place to start. As I said, I’ll
