Page 57 of My Heart Will Find You

“I thought you might try your hand at doing something like them. Would you like some lessons?”

Nellie’s eyes widened and she nodded again.

“Then come on, I want to introduce you to someone.”

Etta led the way back to Alice’s private glass room. The door was shut.Bolted?she wondered. Tentatively, she knocked. There was no answer. “Alice?” she said. “I have someone here who wants to meet you.”

There still was no answer.

“She’s an orphan,” Etta said with more force. She knew that her sister could never resist anyone who needed help. “Nellie’s father is here to work and she has no one. Her mother died when she was born so Nellie is all alone. She—”

Alice opened the door. Her eyes were cold as she glanced at Etta. But when she looked at Nellie, she blinked rapidly.

As for Nellie, she looked at Alice as though she knew her.

Thank you, Etta thought.By all that’s holy, thank you.

Alice put her hand out to Nellie to lead her inside the room.

But Etta stepped between them. She wasn’t going to allow the two of them to isolate themselves in Alice’s hideaway. “We’re going to the homestead. Nellie’s father has some work to do there.”Great whopping lie.She smiled at Alice, silently conveying the message that if she wanted this child, she had to come out of hiding.

Alice frowned, debating what to do.

“Max stored food in the old sod house. I thought I’d cook while you show Nellie how to paint. Her father is a hero. He just saved Rufus’s life. We all owe him a great deal.”Are lies told for a good cause acceptable?she wondered.

“I can stay here,” Nellie said. “My dad won’t mind.”

“You don’t want a picnic by the river?” Etta asked innocently. “It would be so much better than that stinky old town you live in. And I’m sure your father would appreciate some time away. But if my sister-in-law doesn’t want you to enjoy—”

Alice gave her a look to stop. “I’ll go,” she said to Nellie, doing her best to ignore Etta’s existence on earth.

Alice took Nellie’s hand and they walked out, leaving Etta behind.

Smiling, Etta watched them go. She’d completed two parts of her task. No, her quest, as Max called it. Now all she needed was to add Pat and see if he and Alice were a good match the way Phillip and Alicia were.

With fingers crossed, she followed them out.

Etta was in the sod house and using water she’d taken from the river to clean up. She was thinking of all the health codes she was breaking, but this was 150 years earlier. The water was clean. Well, maybe cows were using it, not to mention all the other critters. And who knew what the early settlers had done to it?

She stepped outside to wring out her rag. There was no sink with a handy drain. Sitting on the riverbank, under the cottonwoods, Alice and Pat were talking and laughing. To say they’d hit it off was an understatement. It had been an instant attraction.

Pat had driven them all to the homestead. On the way there, Nellie and Etta had sat in the back, their eyes in fierce concentration as they watched the couple in front. It wasn’t difficult to see that Nellie wanted them together as much as Etta did.

When Pat said something to Alice in a low voice and she giggled like an adolescent, Etta and Nellie smiled at each other. Etta taught her how to do a high five. Triumph!

Now it was hours later, and Etta was glad to see that their fascination with each other appeared to be alive and well. Alice and Pat were so hidden under the trees she could hardly see them.

As for Nellie, she was farther down in the shade, bent over her watercolor set, and absorbed by it.

It was close to sunset, and Etta knew they would need to leave soon. She went back into the house and straightened things that were fine as they were. She wanted to give all of them privacy.

When she heard a horse—a sound that was becoming familiar to her—she looked up. Max was standing in the doorway. The setting sun was shining behind him, and he was a glorious sight.

Reading her lustful thoughts, he stepped inside and twirled her in his arms. “Miss me?” He was nuzzling her neck.

“More than I can say. Every minute of every hour.”

He moved as though he meant to kiss her but then pulled away and set her down. “Time for that later. Is there any food?”

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