The One True Love of Alice-Ann by Eva Marie Everson

Author:Eva Marie Everson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Historical, FICTION / Christian / Historical
ISBN: 9781496418968
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2017-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

What did that make her, indeed?

Her two best friends—Claudette and Maeve—both either heading down the aisle or about to become engaged. Nelson and Irene, new parents. Even Papa and Aunt Bess seemed to have found their places in life, in spite of the world’s circumstances. Papa clucked around the farm like a rooster in a henhouse all protective over his flock, and Aunt Bess practically glowed, what with having so many new mouths to feed.

“I tried out Mama’s pear salad on the prisoners,” she said one afternoon, as though she’d had Bynum’s finest ladies out for tea. “They really seemed to like it, especially that Adler. Boy, he sure can put some groceries away.”

Now, sitting across the bench seat from Nelson, Alice-Ann shook her head, pondering the question again.

“What does that make you, doodlebug?”

She sighed.

“Nelson?” Alice-Ann eyed her brother. His wrist rested against the top of the steering wheel, and with his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes, he looked every bit as handsome as Mr. Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath.

“Hmm?” Nelson kept his watch on the road, never once breaking to look over at her.

“If I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?”

With that, he looked, pursing his lips before turning back. “Whatcha got going on inside that head of yours, Alice-Ann?”

“Do you think I’m—you know—pretty?”

Nelson applied his foot to the brake as he shifted the truck into a lower gear, then turned the steering wheel hard to the left. “What in the world?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I know. I’m not.” A large insect flew into the cab—she had no idea what kind and didn’t bother to ask—and she batted it back out.

Nelson increased speed, shifted the truck back into a higher gear, and shook his head. “Alice-Ann, what kind of fool question is that to ask your own brother?”

Alice-Ann shoved her arms across her middle. “I’m only asking for honesty. I’d think that of all the people in the world, you’d be honest with me.”

“Why don’t you ask questions like that to Aunt Bess or Pop?”

She shifted in the seat, felt the sweat along the backs of her thighs slide between her skin and the simple, A-shaped cotton skirt she’d so diligently picked out that morning. “Because Aunt Bess will remind me that folks say I look an awful lot like her—which may or may not be a compliment, I’m not sure—and Papa will tell me I’m the prettiest girl he knows, which we both know is a lie only a father could say to his daughter and get away with it.”

Nelson chuckled. “Yeah. You’re right about that.”

She waited. When he continued to stare out the bug- and dust-sprayed windshield, she cleared her throat. “Well?”

“Honestly?”

No, lie to me . . . like Carlton did earlier. Because surely he had. “Yes.”

“No, I wouldn’t call you pretty.”

She frowned. “I didn’t think so.”

He smiled at her to soften the blow. “You have a beautiful spirit, though.”

Alice-Ann cocked a brow. “You’re just saying that because you’re my brother.”

“No, I’m not.

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