Free Christmas at Harmony Hill by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

to think about the future.
    The future. How easy it had been to dream about the future through the cold months of that winter of 1861. He wrote to her. She wrote him back even though her father frowned on the exchange.
    “Plenty of good boys right here in the neighborhood,” he told her. “No sense you pining after some boy way up north.”
    But she hadn’t given any other boy the time of day no matter how they sidled up to her at church. Gideon had taken her heart back to Ohio with him, and she was doing no more than marking time until he returned. Then he would ask her to marry him. Then her father would see Gideon’s good points. Then they could find a little place and settle down to begin the rest of their lives.
    She didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in the world. It didn’t have all that much to do with her back on the ridge where they lived. At least that’s what she thought until April when the Rebels fired on Fort Sumter and tore the country apart. The North on one side and the South on the other, with Kentucky right in the middle, leaning first one way, then another. Neighbors became enemies. Families split, with brothers lining up in opposing armies ready to shoot at one another. Gideon stayed in Ohio—a Northerner through and through.
    After Simon shouldered his hunting gun and headed south, Heather’s father threw Gideon’s letters in the fire when they came. Yankees were the enemy, and he forbade Heather to persist in imagining herself to be in love with one of them.
    But she had persisted. Oh, how she had persisted. Nothing could keep her from loving Gideon then or now. She shifted in the chair by the Shakers’ stove to ease her aching back as she cradled the baby growing inside her. Sweet evidence of her persistence.
    “Little one, we will see your father again. We will.” She spoke the words aloud for she needed them for her own ears, and even though she kept her voice very soft, it seemed too loud in the silence of the Shaker house.
    As if her spoken words had drawn them, Sister Muriel and another woman came into the room. Sister Muriel carried a tray that Heather tried not to eye too eagerly. She moistened her dry lips and looked away from the steaming cup and bowl on the tray to the woman who had come in with Sister Muriel. She wore the same type dress with the overlapping white collar and the same bonnet covering her hair, but she was much older and even sterner looking than Sister Muriel.
    Heather pushed up out of her chair to meet the women. She didn’t know if she should smile or try to look as serious as they did. Perhaps smiling was against their rules here.
    Sister Muriel stepped back from the tray without speaking. She tucked her hands under her apron and lowered her eyes. The older woman motioned toward the tray and spoke in a voice that had a quiver in it. Heather wasn’t sure if that was due to her age or perhaps from infrequent use in this silent place.
    “Please, bring your chair over and eat,” the woman said. “It appears you have double need of sustenance.”
    Heather didn’t hesitate to do as she was told. She was hungry. The breakfast Willie had brought her that morning was no more than a faint memory. She did bend her head and silently thank the Lord for his provisions before she picked up the cup. She had expected coffee or tea, but it was warm, spiced cider. She tried not to guzzle it, but she didn’t know when last she’d had anything so delicious. She tasted the apples as the warm liquid slid down her throat. When she spooned up bites of the vegetable soup, it was even better. With each bite, she could feel her energy reviving.
    “Thank you so much,” she said between bites. A frown flitted across the older woman’s face as behind her Sister Muriel gave a slight shake of her head in warning. Heather wasn’t sure why, butshe decided not to chance any more wrong words. She’d concentrate on the soup and wait for whatever they had to say.
    The