The Harvest of Grace Read Online Free PDF Page A

breath. “This is home, and no unmarried daughter of mine is moving away. It’s not respectable, and I won’t have it. You can find the strength, Sylvia. I know you can.”
    “Is Elam doing this because of those papers you two signed?”
    “No. But if I’d known then how this would turn out, I wouldn’t have taken him on as a partner. I’m sorry, Sylvia. Really sorry.” He held the leads out to her, giving her permission to go riding until she felt better. “I’ll see to it that you can get away for long weekends as much as possible. You can stay with cousins and aunts from other states for weeks at a time during our slow season. But this is home. I can’t imagine living here without you, and running away isn’t acceptable.”
    She stared at him, too broken to feel any hope for her future. It was beyond her how either Beckie or Elam could do this, but for both to betray her was more than she could bear.
    Daed sighed. “Trust me. It’ll all turn out for the best. I know it will.”

    She took the reins from him, desperate to steal away for a few hours and get as far from the happy couple as she could.
    As she rode the horse out of the barn, she didn’t bother drying her tears. Her vision blurred so much she could barely tell where she was going, and she knew it’d remain that way for a long time.

Two

    Three years later
    Faint sounds of someone moving in the next room ended Sylvia’s few hours of sleep. It had to be Elam.
    The darkness of early morn surrounded her, and she wished she could hide in it forever. She pushed the warm quilts away and sat upright.
    Light from a kerosene lantern stretched under the closed bedroom door, flickering softly. The silhouette of two cribs, both holding sleeping little ones, reminded her of where she was—trapped somewhere between love and duty.
    It’d taken a while to bury her feelings for Elam after he and Beckie married, but she’d managed it. She’d helped Beckie a lot during her pregnancy and after the twins were born, but it’d been reasonably easy for Sylvia to juggle her schedule and keep a comfortable distance from Elam.
    Then, six weeks ago, whooping cough had disrupted their routine. Sylvia had considered that illness extinct. She discovered the hard way that she was wrong. The doctor called it an easily communicable disease, and it’d spread through her family like scattered seed on a freshly plowed field. Sylvia had been vaccinated as a child when a health-care worker came to the house. Elam had been vaccinated as a child too. The doctor believed that was why the two of them remained virus free.

    Beckie and their parents were among the first to be hit, and Beckie remained as weak as a newborn kitten, so Sylvia and Elam had no choice but to tend to the farm and family around the clock like a married couple.
    His footsteps quietly echoed against the stillness, and feelings she hated burned through her.
    Her niece cried out, coughing and whining. Sylvia moved to Rhoda’s bed and ran her hand across the mattress until she located the pacifier. She placed it in Rhoda’s mouth and patted her back, hoping the infant would go back to sleep before waking her twin brother.
    When Rhoda fell asleep, Sylvia went to Raymond’s crib and placed the back of her hand against his little cheek. If he still had fever, it wasn’t much. She drew a relaxing breath. The symptoms of whooping cough wouldn’t last much longer.
    The sound of Elam’s muffled footsteps made their way through the door. Sylvia grabbed her housecoat and pulled it into a ball against her chest. Thoughts of their long night together, sitting in this quiet room, echoed through her. They’d given the twins a breathing treatment, then talked for hours while rocking the little ones. When he passed Raymond to her, their hands brushed, and desire ignited—the kind that should happen only between him and Beckie.
    Her skin tingled. She hoped he wasn’t about to enter the room, and yet a part of her wished