LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      1883

      Central Iowa

      As she peered out the window, watching a rider enter the front yard on a big black horse with three white socks, Ester Larson’s very being vaulted into awareness. She pressed a hand to her stomach. It was as if she’d swallowed a bird. A big one. The size of a crow. One that fluttered its wings and tried to peck its way out at the same time.

      She’d yet to see the rider’s face, but she knew it was him. Brett Richards. Not only did her heart say so, but she’d expected him—someday.

      Ester took a moment to watch him secretly, yet instinct told her that Brett, too, knew she was just behind the curtain. Dropping the yellow lace, closing her eyes, she fought the urge to run upstairs and change dresses, or just take a moment to check her reflection. There wasn’t time for that. Besides, everything was best faced head-on—even the man who left you standing at the altar.

      Well, not literally standing there, but she’d ordered her dress pattern, and in her mind—and half the minds of Cutter’s Corner—that was close enough.

      Pulling up that heartbreaking occurrence helped, and even though the bird in her stomach continued to flap about, she moved to the front door, opened it, and was standing on the front porch when her onetime groom-to-be brought his horse to a stop.

      He met her gaze head-on, and it might as well have been five years ago with all the stirring going on inside her. Those sterling features—a square jaw, permanent grin marks on his cheeks, hair as black as the wide-brimmed hat on his head—were all the same. As were the brown eyes that even now were looking straight into her thoughts. It had always amazed her how Brett knew what she was thinking, when she was thinking it. At this very moment, he knew she was admiring him, remembering.

      As effortlessly and graceful as a deer jumps a fence, and watching her the entire time, he swung one long leg over the saddle horn, dropped to the ground, and moved forward, barely making a sound before stopping near the bottom step.

      “Ester,” he said. A greeting no doubt, since he touched the brim of his hat and pushed it back just a touch.

      “Brett,” she replied.

      “I’m here to collect Jesse and Hannah.”

      The want to close her eyes was back. This man had always affected her like no other, from her very first memory of him. She’d fallen out of the swing still hanging in the oak tree behind the schoolhouse, and when some boys called her a cry baby, Brett had come to her defense and ended up with a black eye. The left one, bruised around the rim and bloodshot for over a week. But the three other boys had fared worse, and none of them ever teased her again. At the age of nine Brett Richards had become her hero that day, all those years ago. He’d have turned twenty-five last month. April 8. She remembered his birthday as clearly as she knew her own coming up this weekend, when she’d turn twenty-three.

      Ester didn’t close her eyes. Maybe because she was afraid he’d disappear if she did, just like before, or maybe because he still was her hero and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

      “They aren’t here right now,” she finally managed to say.

      “Where are they?”

      “Jesse’s at the feed store,” she explained. “He has a job there, after school, and Hannah is over at the Dahls’. She’s minding the children while Suzanne attends a church meeting.”

      His somewhat lopsided grin—even though it held a hint of disdain—sent that bird flapping a bit harder inside her. “Why aren’t you at the church meeting?”

      “Because I’m not a Baptist. If you’ll recall, I’m a Methodist.”

      The grin faded as he nodded. He glanced around the porch, taking note of the new paint by running a hand over the handrail. “Place looks good, I see.”

      “Thank you. I try.”

      “You?”

      She

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