Read In All Places (Stripling Warrior) for Free Online

laid out before me as I wanted to, I felt hope that I would see it when the time was right. The war was not over, but for me, the fighting was done.
    I couldn’t fight my feelings for Gideon, but I wouldn’t dishonor Zeke or my family.
    “Keturah.” His voice was gentle and so familiar, and somehow it belonged there in that garden with me.
    I uncurled and looked up to see Gideon. At the sight of his face, my mind calmed, my heart unclenched, and I felt traitorous all the more for it.
    He went to his heels beside me and brushed some dirt from my forehead. Then he wiped the lone tear from my cheek. Answering the question in my eyes, he said, “I felt like I should come find you.”
    A bird took flight, and my eyes tracked it upward. The sky was still brilliant blue.
    Gideon touched my arm, and I looked back down at him.
    “Did you get any answers?”
    I shook my head.
    “You will. I’m waiting on mine too.” After a moment he said, “Do you want to pray together?”
    Yes! I wanted our combined faith to carry mine. I wanted to lean on Gideon’s strength. Instead, I just shook my head. I could not think of a worse betrayal of Zeke than to pray with another man about our future.
    He seemed to understand. He rose and helped me to my feet, and after he held me for a long, long time, he walked me back to camp where I collected my weapons before we started toward the training ground.
    I would not let an empty stomach keep me from doing what I knew to be right. I would deliver my countrymen from the hands of the Lamanites. And God would deliver me.
     

Chapter 4
     
    “Heads up, Ket.”
    We were halfway to the training ground. Hunger clawed at my stomach, my head ached from crying, and Gideon tossed a ball up between us. He wanted me to hit it back, but I snatched it from the air.
    “I don’t feel like it,” I told him.
    “Come on, Ket.”
    I hadn’t even known he carried a ball like the other boys did. He never refused to play when someone else brought out a ball, but he never initiated a game either.
    He took the ball from my hand and tossed it into the air again. After he hit it a few times with his knees and feet and elbows, he knocked it back in my direction.
    “What’s the point?” I snatched it from the air again.
    When he tried to take it back, I held it out of his reach— as far out of his reach as I could.
    “ Life is not meant to be a drudgery, even during hardship. Men are that they might have joy, Keturah.”
    I stopped walking and put my hands on my hips. “And what about women?”
    He made a grab for the ball again, but I quickly put it behind my back. In a playful attempt to get it back that was completely out of character for him, he snaked an arm around my waist and pried the ball from my fingers. But he didn’t let go of my hands.
    “Women are that men might have joy , too,” he said.
    A little gasp came from my throat, and I did something I hadn’t done in a long time, maybe since I had been at home with Cana. I giggled. I tried not to. I ducked my head so Gideon wouldn’t see my smile. He was so close, with his arm still around me, that my forehead rested on his chest, and I could feel his low chuckle.
    It was entirely too wonderful.
    “Let me go,” I said as I tried to wriggle away.
    “I don’t want to,” he said, and he had no trouble holding me in place—maybe because he was strong, maybe because I wasn’t trying very hard to get away.
    We were both laughing when I noticed Seth and some of his men coming up the path.
    “Really, let me go,” I said. “They will see.”
    “I don’t care who sees,” Gideon said, but he gave my hands a final squeeze and let me go.
    In a moment, Seth and the others had stopped before us and we all stood awkwardly staring at each other. I sent a look to Gideon, a reprimand for embarrassing me. Gideon tried to wipe the grin off his face, he really did, but he just couldn’t. He raised his brows at me, and I covered my mouth to keep from