Page 54 of A Secret Heart
“I know we once talked about you running an ad for yourself. Or answering one. What did you ever decide?”
This wasn’t going away. She placed the washrag in the sink, then faced her friend. “I was writing letters to Isaac, in response to his ad.”
Kaitlyn waited. If this news had surprised her, she certainly didn’t show it. Had Ed told her? Or Isaac?
Embarrassment flared, but with Aunt Opal gone for the foreseeable future, Rebekah didn’t have another woman to talk to. Maybe Kaitlyn could give her advice to help her out of this muddle.
She told Kaitlyn all of it. Answering Isaac’s ad. Holding back the letters. Mr. Sullivan’s anger.
“Now I don’t know what to do.” The words from her proposal letter to Isaac flashed through her mind.
I would like to define our relationship. I need to know if you truly feel as I do.
Isaac hadn’t even wanted to talk to her. And Ed was there, with his steady warmth.
“For so long, I thought I hated Ed,” she murmured. “But spending time with him…he’s not who I thought.”
Now everything was a muddle.
“I always thought I wanted a hero like my father wrote in his books.” Rebekah looked straight at Kaitlyn. “Like what you’ve got with Drew.”
Kaitlyn’s eyes danced as she covered her mouth with one hand. “Drew isn’t perfect. Is that what you heard when we talked? Oh, Rebekah, things were difficult when I came. Surely you remember all that happened? It wasn’t easy. When I arrived, I had to convince Drew to let me stay. As a business arrangement.” Kaitlyn’s eyes peered into Rebekah’s as she slid her hands down to hold her friend’s hands. “We had to get to know each other. We had to make a choice to love.”
Had Rebekah let her imagination run away with her in this too? Drew and Kaitlyn always appeared so perfect. Rebekah’s pulse thudded in her ears. Were those roses without thorns existing only in her mind? All running through the filter of her books?
“But the love you read about in books is so, so—” Rebekah released her grip on Kaitlyn’s hands to wring her own in the air. Why didn’t she have the right word? She always prided herself on having the right word.
“Real love is a choice.” Kaitlyn searched Rebekah’s face as she spoke. Her words were gentle.
Rebekah had been in love with the idea of Isaac. The hero. Yet Ed had acted the hero on the boardwalk in town, shielding her from the shooter. But hadn’t it also been heroic when he’d patiently explained his tool to Tillie? Helped David with his chores? Set aside his dreams for the sake of his family?
The knowledge sank into her, settling deep.
Chapter15
Hours later, Rebekah carried a stack of bowls to the table as Kaitlyn settled the pot of stew on a hot pad in the middle. Tillie darted around her to place spoons at each chair.
“Where are you going to sit?” Tillie glanced up at Rebekah from the other side of the table.
“We need to wait and see,” Rebekah hedged.
Isaac had come inside with the other McGraw brothers, and everything she hadn’t said to him was right there. He stood in the parlor, speaking in low tones with Drew and Nick, while Ed had come to her by the dining table. Until David had distracted Ed with a hand-drawn map laid out on a corner of the table.
“Everyone come and sit down,” Kaitlyn called from the kitchen. A pot rattled.
Ed’s eyes met Rebekah’s as Isaac strode toward the dining table. Ed moved to stand beside her, one hand coming to rest on her lower back. From the corner of her eye, she saw the way his chin jutted out. In Isaac’s direction.
Heat flamed Rebekah’s cheeks.
There was a shuffle as the kids scrambled for the table.
Ed pushed in Rebekah’s chair before taking his own next to her. Somehow, Isaac landed in the chair on her other side.
Rebekah caught the twitch in Isaac’s cheek as he glanced past her at Ed, then back to the bowl in front of him. She shifted in her chair. Could things be any more awkward?
“Let’s bow our heads,” Drew said.
“Hold hands,” Tillie instructed Rebekah enthusiastically.
