A Love Undone Read Online Free Page A

her brothers and sisters be more scarred in the long run if her best efforts to do them justice were pitiful?
    He gazed up at her, and she saw relief overtake his grief for a moment. “Together? Really?”
    A knot formed in her stomach, but she put on her best parental face and smiled at him. “Together.”
    His eyes filled with tears. “I’ll do my best to be good. I promise.”
    “Me too.” Tightening her grip around him, she kissed the top of his head and began singing the song to him again. Josiah, Michael, Naomi, and Hope piled into the closet with her, snuggling into a huddle of Keim legs and arms as they held each other.
    Van came to the door and peered inside.
    Jolene swallowed hard. “I can’t let them be scattered to the wind.”
    Hurt etched itself deep in his face as he nodded. Was that a look of compassion for her and her siblings or heartbreak for himself?
    Maybe he already knew what she was just beginning to see. The life they’d wanted was already gone, whether they housed the children or not. They could never be the couple he’d been dreaming of because she was no longer the girl he’d fallen in love with. But she would be. Someday. And she longed to ask, Will you wait for me? Wait for me to raise my siblings? Wait for me to heal and become me again?
    But that was too much to ask of anyone. All she could do was hope he’d remain her friend until he fell in love with the person she was becoming.

3

    Ten years later
    Andy put fresh straw in the horses’ empty stalls before filling the feed and water troughs. A refreshing May breeze flowed through the open barn doors, bringing with it the aroma of an earth coming alive after a long winter. Once the chores were done, he moved to the corridor between the stalls on each side of the barn and began coiling the hose. Amigo stuck his head out of his stall, bobbing it and making low rumbling sounds. He should be eating his oats, but instead the horse was talking to him—in his own way of course.
    Andy hung the hose on its wall rack and walked over to him. “What’s going on with you today, Amigo?” The horse lowered his head, trying to reach Andy, and Andy moved in closer. Amigo rested his head against Andy’s chest. “
Ya
, I hear you.” Andy patted the horse’s forehead with one hand and rubbed his cheek with the other.
    Sometimes the thoroughbred was aloof and self-assured; at other times he was as needy as a lonely lap dog. Andy assumed it was the ruckus from the newly delivered group of horses corralled in the round pen that had Amigo needing assurance. “It’s okay, ol’ boy. It’s just new thoroughbreds—stallions and mares—stomping around in the pen. They’ll settle down in a day or two.” The Fishers regularlybrought in plenty of new horses to train, but this was a particularly large and aggressive group.
    Andy picked up a brush and went into Amigo’s stall. He talked to the horse while he brushed him. Years ago Amigo had thrown his brother, Levi, fracturing his neck and breaking his leg, but Amigo would never be sold. He was trustworthy ninety-something percent of the time. That was good for an animal. Even humans weren’t on their best behavior more than that. As horse trainers, he and Levi had learned to develop a gut feeling about a horse and stick with it.
    “Daed.” Tobias took long strides toward his dad, stretching his nine-year-old legs as far and fast as he could without running, because rowdiness was forbidden in the barn unless it was done intentionally to help train the horses. “You’ve got to see what I discovered. Uncle Levi didn’t see it until I pointed it out.”
    Andy smiled. What could possibly be in that group of horses that he hadn’t seen a hundred times over?
    “Tomorrow will be your last day of school for the year.”
    Tobias grinned. “It’s the Friday I’ve been looking forward to for months. But no changing the subject. Kumm. You’ve got to see it to believe it.”
    Andy hoped his son never