Where The Heart Is (Choices of the Heart, book 1) Read Online Free Page A

years of working together, Martin hated the idea. “I don’t like to think of you growing old, Gyp. We’ll wait another year, perhaps.”
    Martin worked his way through the rest of the barn chores, then turned his thoughts toward supper. The house faced the byre across the cobbled yard, both structures built of the unyielding local stone that made light of two hundred years of weather. The years hadn’t left much more of a mark inside. Eleanor had liked the place as it was, and Martin felt no need to change the familiar surroundings of his youth. He washed his hands, lit the lamp and kindled a coal fire in the range. Once it was hot, he pulled a few smoked sausage links from a hook in the rafters, tossed them into a skillet and put some potatoes on to boil. Then he lit another fire in the old fireplace that took up a whole wall of the sitting area and ate his supper beside it, sitting in the threadbare armchair that knew all his kinks.
    Afterward, he tried to read the newspaper he’d picked up at the store that morning but found he couldn’t concentrate. His gaze wandered to his fiddle case, leaning in the corner near the door.
    He hadn’t touched his fiddle since losing Eleanor, hadn’t wanted to. It reminded him too much of the dances they used to attend together, of all that life no longer held. But tonight, for some reason, his fingers itched to play.
    Martin took the fiddle from its case, returned to his chair by the hearth and plucked the strings. They were badly out of tune but hadn’t lost their vibrancy. He coaxed them back to their proper pitches and drew the bow across them. They sang in response.
    Disconnected notes formed an improvised melody that gathered pace until it swept along like the wind off the dales, full of anger and frustration. The music stabbed at Martin’s heart until he had to stop playing. Fighting for self-control, he put the fiddle away and took a bottle and a glass from the pantry cupboard.
    He’d acquired a taste for Scotch during the few months he’d spent in London years ago. This wasn’t the finest, but it was more than good enough for a plain farmer like him, and it would help him sleep for a few hours. He poured a generous shot and downed it quickly, wanting the liquor’s burn to erase the pain the music had dredged up.
    When it didn’t, a black rage swept over him. The next thing Martin knew, he’d hurled his glass across the room to shatter against the door of the pantry cupboard. Shards tumbled across the floor, glittering in the lamplight. Pieces of something that had once been bright and whole.
    “Damn it, you should have known better!” Martin’s vision blurred with tears. Cursing, he swept up the broken fragments, blew out the lamp and went to bed.

Chapter Three
     
    The chill winds died down, as Chelle’s father said they would. She welcomed the change. Back in Georgia, the seasons slid into each other seamlessly. The languid heat of summer cooled to autumn; the air took on a slight bite, and that was winter. Then winter warmed gently into spring again. Here, the distinctions were sharper.
    The dales began to bloom, enticing Chelle out for long walks. She still ached with grief for her mother, but when she sat alone in the fragrant stillness of some hollow in the grass, listening to the hum of life around her, the ache lost its bitterness. She’d done enough grieving over the past year while Maman was ill. Now she was healing. It shamed her, but Chelle couldn’t deny it.
    Her father was healing, too. There wasn’t always enough work for him at the forge, so he’d cast his net a little further and found work with one or two of the local landholders who owned racing Thoroughbreds.
    He was away the morning Chelle washed her hair and went out to sit on the kitchen step with Leah while it dried. With the baby settled comfortably on her lap, Chelle closed her eyes and turned her face up to the warm sun.
    The jangle of trace chains brought her back to earth.