One Day, My Prince by Linda Jones

Author:Linda Jones [Jones, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: ereads
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

It was easy to avoid Sarah throughout the day. The barn needed a good cleaning, the animals needed tending to, and the large garden behind the house ... that needed a lot of work. Weeds were decimated, rocks were dug up and flung aside, clumps of hard dirt were pounded into grains of yielding soil. This was work the girls couldn't possibly do. They'd worked around the unmanageable areas, skirting the rocks and the clumps of hardest dirt.

Joe had almost forgotten what it was like to work the land. Almost. By the time the girls returned from school his shoulders and back were aching. He'd worked Tess's garden, after she'd married Sheriff Harvey Draper. Harvey had been the one to survey and assess Joe's work, always finding fault, always finding something he'd missed. Nothing was ever quite good enough for Draper—nothing he did, and nothing Tess did.

Still Joe couldn't make himself hate Harvey, even though there were times he truly disliked the man. His brother-in-law had taught him to shoot, given him his first job in law enforcement, and introduced him to Marshal Webb. Harvey hadn't purposely set out to make Tess miserable. In fact, there were times when Joe was sure Harvey loved his wife, in his own way. He just had a hell of a time showing it.

He sighed.

The only time he'd seen Sarah today, except for the occasional glimpse through an open window, was when she'd stepped out the back door to call him in to lunch. After he'd washed up and stepped into the kitchen, he'd found his meal waiting on the table. And no Sarah. She didn't even want to sit at the same table with him, and in a way he was glad. He couldn't possibly make idle conversation with her and pretend nothing had happened between them.

But for the evening meal she sat in her usual place. Better not to disturb the girls’ routine, he supposed. With seven children seated around them and chattering about their day, it was ... easier.

"I don't like Mrs. Handy,” Glory said, pouting as she poked her fork at a pile of butter beans. “She made me stand in the corner."

"And why was that?” Sarah asked calmly as she passed a bowl of corn to Clara.

Faith piped up. “Mrs. Handy said that Glory is a little chatterbox and she needs to learn to mind her manners."

"I am not a chatterbox!” Glory insisted. “Poppy, you go to town tomorrow and tell Mrs. Handy that I'm not a chatterbox. I do mind my manners! Sarah never made me stand in the corner when she was my teacher."

Joe started to tell Glory that he didn't have time to go to town and confront her teacher about making her stand in the corner, but he never got the chance.

"Mrs. Handy does have a mean face,” Dory said as she cut a bite of ham off the slab on her plate. “She always looks like she's mad at somebody."

"She's an old grouch,” Clara added.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.