When Love Calls Read Online Free PDF Page A

girls doing?”
    “We’re fine.”
    “Then the rumors aren’t true?” She glanced across the yard to the road, refusing to meet Hannah’s gaze. “I heard you may be losing the farm, and Mr. Calloway and I feel badly about not being able to help you girls more.”
    Hannah swallowed hard but forced an indifferent shrug. “We’ve had a lot of neighbors and church friends offer to help, but the farm is still too much for three girls to tend. I found us a place in town, and I’m starting operators’ school on Monday.”
    “That’s wonderful, dear!” She draped her arm around Hannah’s shoulders and squeezed. “Congratulations. I heard they only hire the loveliest and the brightest young women to be operators.” She pulled a dishcloth from her pocket and knocked down a cobweb in the corner of the porch. “And with your silky voice, I’m sure they snatched you up.”
    Her heart grabbed. That same silky voice, her father had said, would help win cases in front of a jury. Would he be disappointed to know she’d quit college?
    Holding her hand out over the porch railing, Hannah noted only a few raindrops dampened her palm. “I think it’s beginning to clear.”
    Mrs. Calloway laid her hand on Hannah’s arm. “If you girls need anything . . .”
    Hannah’s first impulse was to turn down the offer, but something stopped her, and warmth spread over her chest. Had God answered her prayer so quickly? She and the Calloways’ son, Walt, had been friends for years.
    She turned to Mrs. Calloway. “We could use help moving on Saturday.”
    The middle-aged woman withdrew her hand. “You’re moving so soon? This Saturday? I sure wish I could promise Ethan and Walt’s help, but with spring plowing, I don’t dare, Hannah. You understand.”
    She forced a smile. “Of course, Mrs. Calloway. Thanks all the same.”
    Stepping off the porch, she made a mental list of others who had wagons. All of them would be plowing. She sighed. Oh well, she and her sisters would move themselves, heavy pieces and all, using her father’s wagon and his matched pair of plow horses. The only one she could count on was herself, and she might as well get used to it.
    Mr. Cole would simply have to understand if they borrowed the wagon. If he didn’t, he’d soon learn she could argue as well as any uptown lawyer.

 4 
    Hannah leaned against the door frame of the parlor and waited for her bickering sisters to notice her. Spending every evening packing up their possessions—and their memories—had taken its toll on all of them, and now it was moving day. They’d be moving across town, and everything would change—their schools, their friends, and their whole way of life.
    “We can’t take it all, Tessa.” Charlotte wrapped a footed cake plate in a dish towel and set it in the wooden crate.
    “But we can’t leave the rosebushes.”
    “Where will we plant them? At the rental house?” Charlotte shot a stern look at Tessa. “Don’t be ridiculous. Roses aren’t a necessity.”
    Tessa swept her arm over the boxes. “And all these pots and pans are? How many could you possibly cook with at the same time?” She jammed her fists on her hips. “And besides, the roses were Momma’s favorite.”
    Hannah stepped into the room. “They certainly were, Tessa. Yellow tea roses.”
    “We can take them, can’t we?”
    Flowers meant as much to Tessa as they had to their mother. Both of them loved tending the garden and watching things spring to life. The roses were as important to Tessa, she supposed, as the pots and pans and rolling pin were to Charlotte, who had so lovingly packed them to take along. Charlotte and her mother hadshared a love of cooking and baking. Hannah sighed. She and her mother had shared a love of knowledge, and that was more difficult to pack up in a box and take with them.
    “How long have you been standing there?” Charlotte secured another dish in the box.
    Hannah grinned. “I came in somewhere between