Free Purling Road - the Complete Second Season: Episodes 1-10 by M L Gardner Page A

Whittley asked if you might take a look at some of her stories and see if she’s good enough to write articles for you—and maybe publish one as a serial.”
    Muzzy was buzzing with excitement, but she had one concern. Her usual concern. “I can’t…”
    “Pay her, I know. Mr. Whittley knows, too. He seems to think that subscriptions will rise, and you will be able to hire her eventually, especially with a serial being published. He knows a lot of people. And his daughter is involved with every book club in the county.”
    With the prospect of a writer joining the team and a diamond in the rough home for her paper, Muzzy felt giddy. “Peter, I think I might name you hero of the year,” she said with a lopsided grin.
     
    ***
     
    Caleb came in from the barn mid-afternoon. “Looks like rain,” he said as he took off his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. Savrene and Samuel rushed up and each hugged a leg.
    “I’d better get the clothes off the line.” Arianna dried her hands and hurried past in search of her basket. When she returned, he caught her arm.
    “Can I talk to you?” he asked quietly.
    “The clothes will get wet.” Her eyes were fixed beyond him. There was an iciness in both their words and actions that had dragged on for days.
    “Later then. After dinner.”
    She nodded curtly. He let go of her arm, and the spring of the back door squealed as she rushed outside.
    When she returned, her hair was glistening with the first drops of rain. “How long do you think this will last? I have piles of laundry to get through.”
    Samuel and Savrene went back to their toys at the staircase landing. He went to the window and surveyed the skies. “Looks like a short summer storm. Thunder for certain.”
    Arianna huffed with irritation. Even Mother Nature wasn’t willing to cooperate with her.
    “Where’s Felicity?”
    “Sleeping.”
    Caleb went to the cradle by the window. He closed it with a grunt, saw that the thin blanket was tucked in well around her and stroked her cheek with his finger. He wouldn’t say so out loud. In fact, he wouldn’t even admit it to himself, but he felt a pull to Felicity that he didn’t feel with his other children. He loved the twins no less, indeed. Savrene was so strong and independent, and Samuel was kind and gentle. But there was something about Felicity that made him favor her just a bit more. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d missed her birth and had tremendous guilt over that. Felicity’s small pointed nose and jet-black hair were so much like her mother, and she, even as an infant, had that same air about her that demanded love and attention, bordering worship. Caleb was helpless to not.
    With a wistful smile still on his face, he turned.
    “Hey, Mom,” he said as he passed Ethel’s chair. Her arm was hanging out the side, her chin to her chest, a book lay open on her lap.
    “Don’t wake her up!” Arianna hissed. “I’m hoping to get dinner on first.”
    “How’s she been today?”
    Arianna shrugged, grunted, and poured him a cup of coffee. It was leftover, reheated from the morning, and the way she sloppily poured and plunked it on the table was a clear indication she was doing so out of sheer obligation.
    “Quiet, thank God. Gave me a chance to mop the floors and clean the cupboards.” One was standing open where she’d pulled the spices out for the night’s rabbit.
    Caleb frowned. He didn’t like how they’d become progressively more barren as the weeks had gone by.
    He spoke suddenly and without thinking. “I was considering asking Jon if I could come back to the boat on the weekends.”
    “They don’t fish on Sunday,” she replied, unimpressed with his sacrifice.
    “I could go out alone on Sunday.”
    She fluttered her hand. Do whatever you want it seemed to say.
    He glanced off to the side, frustrated. He desperately wanted everything to be normal again and it was far from that. He heard Arianna violently chopping a carrot. The noise