Free Before the Larkspur Blooms by Caroline Fyffe

written. I know it was the same for her when she wrote to tell you about your pa. It also came back unopened. She grieved over that a lot. That you didn’t know.”
    He stood silent.
    “I have her things. There aren’t very many. Let me know when you’re ready.”
    He nodded.
    “Anne Marie finally wrote to me a few weeks ago. She lives up in Montana. Until now, nobody knew where she was. She’s expecting a baby,” she said, wanting to cheer him up. “I can give you her address.”
    He looked down at her, his eyes unreadable. “Thank you.”
    Unable to stop herself, she slipped into his arms and laid her head against his chest. His arms came around her.
    “Hannah, please. I smell like a week-old stall. I can notice it myself, and that’s saying something.”
    He hadn’t yet set her away. “You smell fine to me. I’ve been dreaming about giving you this hug since the moment I saw you sitting in the restaurant with Albert.” She squeezed, but it wasn’t returned.
    “I think I know where you’re going with this, Hannah.” His husky whisper sent a tingle up her back. His heart beat slowly against her ear. “It just can’t be. Too much has happened. We’re different. It’d be nothing but heartache for you, and you’d be a problem for me, too. It would be a whole lot easier if you didn’t keep this up.”
    She leaned back so she could see into his face, search his coffee-brown eyes. “Keep what up?”
    “You know. I see it in your eyes.” It might have been her imagination, but she thought he pulled her closer. “You don’t have to say a word for me to know what’s going on in your head.”
    All the years yearning for him fell away. Now, it was just the two of them, and she didn’t want to regret not taking a chance. “Thom, I have something to tell you,” she started slowly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    H annah.” He stepped back, putting space between them. “I can tell by your tone it’s nothing I want to hear.”
    Hurt blossomed in her chest, but she knew Thom, knew he couldn’t mean it. He’d been through a lot, and it was his own hurt talking. She reconsidered her actions, but only for a moment. Too much time had already been lost, and truths that should have been said a long time ago needed saying now. She folded her arms across her chest and stepped in front of the water pump, making it impossible for him to get to the contraption without going over the top of her.
    Thom’s eyebrow arched. “Go on, then. Spit it out.” He also crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her, giving as good as he got. “I’ve yet to be able to stop you from doing something that you’ve set your mind to. Go on, or I’ll never get home.” There was irritation in his voice, but she didn’t miss the smile tugging again at the corner of his lips. “The time you wanted to come with Caleb and me to deliver a plow to New Meringue and we said no because you were just a girl, you squirreled away in the back of our wagon until it was too late for us to turn around. I was so blaming mad at you! We had a hard time explaining that one away.”
    “I remember. That was just a few weeks before you ran off.”
    He nodded.
    “Well, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not a girl anymore. If your leaving has taught me anything, it’s that every day is precious.” She stopped. Worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “I know I never told you,” she began uncertainly. “But…” She searched for the right words to show him how much he meant to her. How devastated she’d been when he’d left town. How overcome with pain when they’d heard he’d been sent to prison. The look on his face said he’d not make this easy.
    “After you left, I waited for you to come back. I prayed you would. Night after night I begged God to bring you home. Your sister got fed up with me, and my mother was beside herself thinking I’d lost my mind.”
    “You had a schoolgirl crush.”
    Hannah sucked in a breath. “You knew?”
    He