The Wind Harp by BJ Hoff

Author:BJ Hoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736932899
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers, Inc.

Maggie sat watching Jonathan from the chair opposite his desk while he poured their coffee. She shouldn’t be doing this. He was obviously still distraught over the Lazlo children. She had no right to burden him even more.

But she needed to talk to him. He was her only friend. He was a man who unfailingly invited the confidence of others, and she was certainly no exception. As a child and as his student, she had probably made a nuisance of herself, going to him with her questions and her problems. Most of her troubles back then had probably seemed trivial to him, but he had never once hinted that they might be unimportant. She had no doubt whatsoever that he still managed to make all his students feel special, as if anything that concerned them concerned him.

When a problem was critical, he always managed to ease the tension and the worry simply by listening and, when feasible, helping with a solution or at least offering a bit of advice.

Maggie knew for a fact that he would risk his own safety to protect a student. The night Billy Macken and Orrin Gaffney had attacked her and Kenny, for example. That night, though in poor health and physically frail, Jonathan had helped Da and Mr. Tallman rescue them.

More than once over the years, Maggie had wondered at the seeming unfairness of a man who loved children as Jonathan clearly did spending his life childless. What a father he would have been.

“It’s Eva Grace, isn’t it?” she heard him say.

Maggie looked up and nodded.

He came around and sat down on the corner of the desk. “You don’t have to tell me anything you think she wouldn’t want me to know.”

“No, that’s not it. If Evie would confide in anyone besides her own family, it would most likely be you. There’s no one she’s ever trusted more than you, Mr. Stuart…Jonathan.”

He smiled a little. “That’s progress. You’ve called me Jonathan at least twice in one day. Now, tell me about Eva Grace.”

Maggie sighed. “Evie left Richard—her husband—for good. She’s not going back to him.”

Sympathy crossed his face. “What happened?”

The room was growing shadowed, the late-afternoon gloom fading into an early twilight. Jonathan lit the lamp behind him before settling himself on the corner of the desk again. He took a sip of coffee.

“Richard was beating her,” Maggie said tightly.

He held his cup suspended, and this time there was no mistaking the pain that crossed his features. “Oh Maggie,” he murmured.

“She’s going to have a baby,” she blurted out. “And Richard knew it. And he still beat her.”

He set his cup on the desk, shook his head slowly, and passed a hand over the back of his neck. “So she’s come home to stay.”

Maggie nodded. “Richard came to get her Saturday, but she stood up to him and refused to go.”

“Good for her!”

“Yes, but she’s so wounded…and sad. I’ve never seen Eva Grace like this. It’s as if her whole world has fallen in on her.

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