The Element of Love by Mary Connealy

Author:Mary Connealy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance;Romance fiction;Western fiction;Novels;FIC042110;FIC042030;FIC027100
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2022-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Sixteen

CALEB STOOD AT THE EMPTY DOORWAY of the church and shook hands with each person who’d come to the prayer service.

“We’ll have a regular church service in an hour.”

There were four women. The one with the red welt on her face, who didn’t want to hear a word against her Barney, was Rose. She had two girls named Anna and Susie. Both shy little things, and so skinny it hurt Caleb to see it.

Next was a tiny woman, Janine. Sally Jo was her daughter. She also had an older son who worked with his father every day. He hadn’t come home last night. Janine said it would be her third son to run off this way. She seemed hostile to . . . everything. Caleb, the church, life in general.

The third was Clara. She didn’t talk, and Caleb couldn’t figure out if she was shy or a bit touched in the head. She had four children. They came to church but rushed out the moment the service was over. They had come for breakfast, too, but they ate the food near their cabin, almost as if they were scared it would be taken from them.

The fourth was Barbara. She had two children so young she carried them both. She was pale and painfully thin. She had her limp blond hair knotted at the back of her head, and she was dressed in tattered calico so faded Caleb could only guess it might once have been blue.

She looked to be at the end of her tether. Caleb was surprised she could lift the children.

He made sure she ate her full share because he saw her try to slip food to one of her toddlers. He’d done his best to act calm when he went to her with a second plate of food and took her older child, a boy of two, onto his own knee and fed the tyke.

He noticed the three Stiles sisters talking, a bit away from everyone, then Laura gestured toward the woods, and all three went out of sight into the forest.

Caleb had to force himself to stay by the church and talk to the women.

Gretel came up and said, “I’ve made a pot of coffee, and there are some biscuits and honey. We could visit and eat together between the prayer service and church. After church there’ll be dinner.”

The women already had a good breakfast, but they followed Gretel as if they were starving. There was a good chance they were.

Caleb looked toward the woods, where those mysterious sisters had gone, then his eyes were drawn to those awful shanties. Men slept there. Praying fiercely, maybe even desperately, he asked God for wisdom, guidance. Give me words to speak, Lord. What do I say to these men?

His only deep assurance was that the men needed God. They needed faith. All their other problems stemmed from their lack of faith.

But how was he to get them to even listen, let alone accept God into their lives?

And what in the world were those sisters up to in the woods?

****

“That’s quartz.

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