Read Though My Heart Is Torn: The Cadence of Grace, Book 2 for Free Online

nose. “That’s where Jebediah almost shot you.” She leaned her headagainst Gideon’s shoulder. “Now there’s a memory that brings a smile to my face.”
    His deep laugh awakened a spring inside him, and she felt her cold chills chased away.
    “Thanks!” He gave her that grin. “I’m glad at least somethin’ about this place makes you smile.”
    “Oh, I assure you it does. Though”—Lonnie tilted her head to the side and stared up at Gideon—“I don’t remember it well. Remind me. What was that look on your face again?”
    “Uh … utter terror. And now you’re just hurtin’ my feelings.” He stifled another laugh. “I deserved that one.”
    Lonnie glanced from side to side but knew there was no other way around. “Well,” she began. “In the name of reconciliation, Mr. O’Riley”—she nodded toward the trail they were bound to walk—“would you mind helping me downhill this time?”
    Gideon held his arm out for Lonnie to take once more. “It would be my pleasure, Mrs. O’Riley.”

    Cassie peeled a chunk of bark from a red oak and flicked it toward the water. Her thoughts, having strayed from her chores, had carried her bare feet to the edge of the creek. The water was low this time of year, but enough flowed through the narrow gully to carry the piece of bark over a moss-coated rock and away. She sank to her knees, draped an arm across her lap, and grazed fingertips through the icy water.
    Jack called her name from the house, his voice distant. Cassie knew supper was on, but she ignored him. She wasn’t hungry. Her soaked hem swirled in the water, and she stumbled back. “For heaven’s sake.”She bent over and wrung out the blue and white calico that, like most things she owned, had more frays than trimmings.
    “Cassie!” Jack hollered again. “Supper’s ready. Ma wants you
now
!”
    “Comin’!” she hollered back. Her voice startled a red-breasted woodpecker, and it rushed from tree to tree.
    She watched Jack return to the house. At sixteen, he was her younger brother by six years. As if the age difference mattered not, he stood a head taller than she was. His shoulders, though wiry, were nearly as broad as Eli’s.
    Her feet clung to the damp hillside as she staggered up the creek bank, trying to keep her wet hem from dragging in the dirt. Despite her efforts, her ma would wonder what she got herself into. Cassie should have been setting the table, but she had slipped out, leaving the task to her younger sister, Libby. It was the third time that week.
    A dozen brown hens swarmed around her ankles, and she gently kicked at them. “Off you go, now. I ain’t got nothin’ for you.”
    The ornery chickens followed her toward the house in a chorus of clucking, and Cassie stumbled around them as she tried to keep from stepping on feathers and wings.
    Weathered boards creaked underfoot as she climbed the three porch steps. Hattie, the old basset hound, lifted her droopy face. Knowing she had but a moment to spare, Cassie quickly scratched the dog between the ears. Her ma peeked through the window and waved her inside. Cassie slipped into the warm house.
    “Where have you been?” Libby groaned as she took her place at the table beside Jack. She glared at Cassie and tucked a strand of hair behind her mouselike ear.
    “I wasn’t gone that long.” Cassie stepped toward the oven. She tookthe heavy pot her mother offered her and set it in the center of the table.
    “Is something burning?” Samuel asked, tipping his chair back lazily.
    Cassie hurried back to the oven and, with a crumpled dishtowel in one hand, lifted a pan of hot biscuits from the oven.
    “Cassie’s baking again.” Samuel elbowed Eli and the two chuckled. “This should be good.”
    She fought the urge to fling a biscuit at them. They’d probably just eat it anyway. The faint burnt smell tickled her nose. She quickly moved the hard biscuits to a bowl, scalding her fingertips.
    Her pa cast her a warning glance