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Josiah scratched his forehead. “I remember playing with it, but I wouldn’t have taken it. Not on purpose. I’m pretty sure I put it back.”
    â€œPretty sure?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
    â€œI was eight years old,” he said. “You can’t hold me responsible for something I may or may not have done that many years ago.” But her look said that it was their more recent history that riled her the most.

Chapter Five
    He thought she was smart. Of course he did, but he didn’t think she was pretty enough, or lovable enough, or something. Since that kiss, he’d made himself scarce, which told her she lacked something he was looking for in a woman. Katie Ellen locked the barn and slid the key into her pocket. Lately he’d come around more, trying to tease her into the easy friendship they used to share, but they weren’t children, however much she might wish she could be so carefree. Josiah waited with the two-by-eight planks raised over his head, partially shielding him from the never-ending rain.
    â€œYou don’t have to wait on me,” she said. “I’ll stay dry.”
    â€œJust being a thoughtful husband,” he said.
    Something in her chest fluttered. This pretending wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t real, and Katie Ellen preferred real life to any whimsy moonshines Josiah could spin.
    But if it were real . . .
    She splashed across the yard to the house, frowning once again at the broken window. She’d kept everything perfect thus far, but she couldn’t produce a pane of glass out of thin air. Pa andMa would see her mistake the minute they drove up. But they couldn’t drive up, could they? Did she have to fix the bridge, too?
    Once on the porch, she began her complicated routine of disrobing. Tedious to some, perhaps, but it kept her without a drop of precipitation on her. Josiah shook his head like a wet dog and sent water flying in all directions.
    â€œYou’ll have another puddle on your floor if I go inside.”
    She’d noticed how his clothes were drenched again. “I suppose if this were your house, you’d have something dry to change into.”
    He lifted his head, his wet eyelashes framing concerned eyes. “Katie Ellen, have you paid any mind to what we’re going to do tonight?”
    Katie Ellen scanned the drenched field. Water ran down the hill toward the river in ever-widening rivulets. Silas wouldn’t be leaving. Not until morning, at least.
    â€œHe thinks you sleep in the barn.”
    â€œI’m not leaving him in the house with you alone.”
    Her face warmed. “I’ll send him to my parents’ room in the loft. You can wait until he’s up there, then sleep on the floor in front of the fire.”
    His eyes narrowed. “You mean to tell me that your parents sleep in the loft while you have the room downstairs?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You are one spoiled gal, Katie Ellen.”
    â€œI am not.” But the familiar itch of shame tinted her protest. She hung her coat on the hook she’d designated for herself. She wished she could go to bed at a healthy hour, but she always found just one more thing that needed doing. “I’m usually the last one to go to sleep and the first one up in the morning. Ma said they just got tired of hearing me banging around in the kitchen.”
    Her voice had risen, as Silas was more than happy to pointout. “That’s all the shut-eye you’re going to let me catch?” he called from inside.
    How much of their conversation had he heard? The considerate look on Josiah’s face seemed out of place as he gazed at her. He was probably thinking again what a stick-in-the-mud she was. Well, she wanted him to think that so he couldn’t turn her world upside down again.
    â€œSimmer down, Silas,” Josiah hollered back. “We have to fix this window you