Free Where Willows Grow by Kim Vogel Sawyer

you a treat this afternoon.’’
    ‘‘Okay!’’
    Anna Mae kept one eye on Marjorie as she pulled the weeds that intruded and tried to steal nourishment from their garden plants. The weeding finished, she took the baby inside and prepared a simple lunch of bologna sandwiches and canned peaches.
    Dorothy came in just as Anna Mae put the plates on the table. ‘‘Mama, I put the bucket back in the lean-to.’’
    ‘‘Good girl.’’ Anna Mae sent her daughter a smile. ‘‘Now climb up to the sink and get your hands washed. I think you’re wearing half the dirt from the garden.’’
    While the baby napped and Dorothy curled up in her bed with a picture book, Anna Mae followed through on her promise to treat Dorothy. She pulled out her mama’s sugar cookie recipe and got to baking. When the first batch came from the oven, mounded high with bits of sugar sparkling on the light brown tops, the aroma made her stomach growl. She smiled as she glanced out the open kitchen window. Harley could smell Mama’s sugar cookies baking from a mile away. Shouldn’t be long, and he’d be heading for the house, an eager grin on his face, ready to beg a fresh-baked treat.
    Her smile vanished as she remembered Harley wasn’t out in the barn or the fields. The smell of cookies wouldn’t reach him—not with him miles down the road. Slumping forward, she fought tears.
    How she disliked tears. A sign of weakness, that’s all they were. Strong people didn’t sit around boo-hooing over every little thing. And hadn’t she always been told she was a strong person? Lord, this crying doesn’t fix anything. I know it’s just because the baby’s got me all mixed up inside, but I’ve got to be strong for my girls. Please make these tears go away .
    The brief prayer helped. Mama always said ask and you’d receive. So she asked once more for strength, straightened her shoulders, and sniffed hard. The tears dried up. She reached for the spatula to remove the cookies from the tin sheet. While that batch cooled on a wooden rack set beneath the window, she rolled balls of dough and pushed them flat with a glass dipped in sugar. She hummed as she worked, imagining Dorothy’s pleased face when she came out from her rest.
    Just as she leaned down, apron protecting her hands, to remove the last batch from the oven, she heard a scuffling behind her. Shaking her head, she said, ‘‘Dorothy, I told you to wait until Mama called you. What are you doing out here?’’
    ‘‘Sorry. Wrong again.’’
    Anna Mae snapped upright, spinning from the oven to face the back door. A man stood in the open kitchen doorway, leaning against the doorjamb with arms crossed and one toe propped against the linoleum floor. A familiar, lazy grin lifted one side of his mouth.
    Anna Mae forgot all about the cookies still inside the oven. She also forgot that she needed him to take her milk to town. Giving the oven door a slam, she spouted, ‘‘Jack Berkley, I thought I told you to git!’’
    Harley wiped the sweat from his brow and maintained a brisk pace. He’d lost half the morning, thanks to Mrs. Farley’s insistence that he sit in on Bible reading with the family before his leave-taking. He couldn’t complain—she had generously filled his poke with slices of ham, radishes and carrots, half a loaf of bread, and half a dozen boiled eggs. But if he’d left first thing, he could be a good five miles farther down the road and that much closer to his new job.
    What was it with females and Bible reading? Annie would be tickled to know he’d sat through a whole chapter. She’d also have a few choice words concerning his reading with the Farley family instead of his own. How many times had she pestered him about reading the Bible with her and the girls?
    Dirk strode easily beside him, his wide face creased into a permanent grin. For a big man, he sure could move. His long legs had never faltered as the two crossed a pasture to follow the railroad tracks. Dirk