Read Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 for Free Online Page B

don’t talk to him about her. It hurts him too much.”
    Unsure what to say, Anna glanced back at the door, but Gideon was still inside.
    She had to choose her words carefully; she knew from experience how the wrong ones could hurt even more than silence.
    “Your daedi loves you so much,” she said softly. “He’d want to talk to you about anything that’s hurting you. He wouldn’t care about himself.”
    Anna sighed. “And sometimes you just have to talk about things no matter how they hurt. Sometimes it can hurt more to hold things in.”
    She reverted to a childhood habit and chewed on her thumbnail. “Sometimes I do that because I don’t want to talk about how I’m hurting about—about Samuel. Sometimes I think it’ll hurt someone like my grandmother because it’ll make her think of my grandfather dying young.”
    Sighing, she shook her head. “Sometimes I’m up and down with my moods still. Sometimes . . . well, I’m not so pleasant with the people near me like my cousins and my grandmother.”
    She remembered how after she’d found out that Sarah Rose had stolen, she’d thought about how she knew people did all sorts of things, behaved all sorts of ways when they grieved, but she’d never heard of anyone stealing.
    But the way she was sometimes—was that any different from the way Sarah Rose had been acting out? The only difference was that they weren’t at the same maturity level . . .
    She almost laughed. Her cousins might have disagreed with her on that.
    The door opened, and Gideon came out.
    “What are the two of you doing sitting out here?” he asked, his tone neutral.
    But Anna saw the expression of concern in his eyes.
    “Girl talk,” she said lightly.
    “Oh. I guess I’m not invited.” He pretended to be disappointed and wiped away an imaginary tear.
    Anna watched Sarah Rose stare at her father’s blue hands.
    “ Daedi , maybe if Anna saw the d’rections she’d know what to do to make the blue go away.”
    “We read them, remember? I don’t think there’s anything else we can do. It just has to wear off.” He bent down to kiss her head. “Stop worrying. I’m not upset with you. I should have been paying better attention.”
    He glanced at Anna. “I know some things can stain, so even if I’d never used the dye kit I should have known better. After all, I use gloves sometimes working on the farm.”
    With a shrug, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’ll just be a funny story I trot out after I knit my muffler.”
    “That’s true,” Anna agreed. “Since so many people saw your hands today, they’ll want to see it when it’s done.”
    Gideon straightened and gave her a rueful look. “Thanks for reminding me how many people noticed the blue hands.”
    Anna grinned. “No problem.”
    “ Daedi , I’m hungry.”
    “You didn’t have anything to eat?”
    She shook her head. “I wasn’t hungry then.”
    “Let me go see if anything’s left.” He turned to Anna. “Did you eat?”
    “No, but I’m fine until I get home.” She’d seen a number of people leave and had a suspicion that any remaining food had been packed up and was going home with them.
    When Gideon returned, his blue hands were empty.
    “Sorry, Sarah Rose. The food’s gone. Let’s go home and I’ll make you a sandwich.”
    She stood up. “Can Anna come with us and you can fix her a sandwich while she reads the d’rections?”
    Gideon looked at her. “Anna may have plans.”
    Plans. She almost laughed. She’d been throwing herself into her work at the shop and chores at home in an effort to keep busy, her mind occupied with anything but thoughts of Samuel for so long.
    And she didn’t need to add more problems on to her already full plate. She had a feeling she could be drawn into the problems of these two people . . . this little girl and her too-appealing widowed father.
    But she suspected that had already happened.
    Sarah Rose tilted her head as she looked at Anna.