A Heartbeat Away: Quilts of Love Series Read Online Free Page B

fear.”
    With a swing of her arm, Beth pushed the iron bar holding the kettle over the open fire. “I’ll clean his wound as soon as the water boils and cools.”
    Her grandmother said nothing as she laid strips of clean linen across Joe’s chest. Then: “You opened your package.”
    Gerta’s voice dragged Beth’s attention back to the open bundle on the seat of her rocker where she had left it.
    “Perhaps your mother forgot how much you despise sewing.”
    Despite the lightness of her grandmother’s statement, Beth knew there was so much more to her hatred of sewing. The pieces of the pattern were already stitched together into blocks, ever-darkening triangles on a dark background. She’d flickedthrough all of them and the directions printed in her mother’s neat, square handwriting.
    “The last thing I tried to sew was the shirt for Leo.” The stack of quilt blocks stabbed against the deep-down hurt of losing the little boy. She fought the emotion and set the blocks aside, renewing her commitment to put the past behind her. No more tears, no more guilt.
    “God will not be blamed,” Gerta said.
    She jerked her head up, searching her grandmother’s face. Is that what her grandmother thought she was doing? “I didn’t see you attending service yesterday.” The accusation left her lips before she’d had a chance to think better of it.
    Gerta’s sober expression never cracked. “It was not a good omission on my part, but Joe needed me here. And I think services would not have been much more than fear and talk. Not with the church so much closer to the mountains.”
    Someone pounded on the door. Gerta’s gaze slid to Beth, then back to Joe before she stepped to the door. Beth wanted to call out to her grandmother and ask her to stop, her nerves drawn tight at the thought of what danger might be standing on the other side of the door.
    Too late. Five Confederates, rumpled and ragged in their faded shirts and wool caps stood at the door, gaping at her, then at Gerta. The man in the forefront scratched at his chest with vigor. No doubt another louse infestation. It sickened her. These could be men who might have taken a shot at Jedidiah. Even killed him for all she knew, and the thought stirred her.
    “Ma’am, we’ve come for a meal. If you’ve got anything to offer, we’d be grateful. Me and the boys are footsore and weary.”
    Beth lunged forward, hand grasping the door and yanking it open even farther. “And killing those for whom we stand.”
    “Beth.” Gerta’s hand on her sleeve became a supplication. Beth pressed her lips together to stop the trembling, the muscles in her back rigid with hot indignation.
    “Meanin’ no harm, ma’am, but they shoot at us, too.”
    “Of course we will feed you,” Gerta waved her arm to indicate the porch. “We have a wounded soldier now who requires rest. If you’ll take your leisure on the porch, we’ll bring you bread.”
    “You tendin’ a Reb, ma’am?”
    Gerta didn’t answer but shut the door and faced Beth. Hot disapproval sparked from her grandmother’s gaze. “They are hurting as much, if not more, than Jedidiah. You saw Joe’s condition, Elizabeth. He is underfed, weary; much of his trouble began with the condition he was in before he was shot. Would you turn away a man and have the same done to Jedidiah if he were needy?”
    Shame burned Beth’s neck. Gerta didn’t wait for a reply and set about lifting loaves of bread, slicing tomatoes and the last of a smoked ham. “You must understand something, Beth. What the soldiers aren’t allowed to have, they will take. You see how desperate they are, and it is either surrender what we have to them or have them burn our house and the outbuildings in retribution. They could take revenge on us personally . . .”
    Gerta’s hand stilled as she raised the knife to slice an onion, her words—and perhaps what she wasn’t saying—lodging deep in Beth’s understanding. She gathered the onions