Dorothy Clark by Falling for the Teacher Page A

she would see Daniel again. “Please Almighty God, please. Don’t let...what happened...have made me afraid of Daniel too. Not Daniel...” She would never marry him. That dream was dead. But she couldn’t bear to have her friendship with Daniel ruined.
    She caught her lower lip with her teeth and hurried back to the kitchen door. A muted burst of laughter from her grandmother and Sophia came through the painted wood, freezing her hand on the latch. She shouldn’t interrupt their visit because she suddenly needed comforting.
    A long gash in the top left panel of the door snared her gaze. Daniel had told them it was made by an Indian trying to chop down the door with his tomahawk. How he had scared them! Deliciously so.
    The desire to see Willa surged like the Allegheny’s waters during the spring flood. She shot a look at their buggy tied behind Barley’s grocers. She had to make haste. It wouldn’t take Lehman Barley long to gather the items on Gertrude’s list.
    She lifted her hems and rushed down the stairs and along the path to the graveled carriageway that ran beside the hotel, hurried down it to Main Street, waited for a wagon loaded with bundles of bark to pass and dashed across the hard-packed dirt.
    * * *
    “And this is the side porch. Joshua and Sally like to have their midday meal out here. Matthew and I join them when he’s home.”
    Sadie followed Willa out of the kitchen door onto a deep porch cooled by the shade of a large elm tree. “You have a lovely home, Willa. It’s so...peaceful.”
    “At the moment, perhaps.” Willa laughed and shook her head. “I assure you, it is considerably livelier when the children and Matthew are home.”
    Willa fairly oozed happiness. Sadie looked around for a way to change the subject from a husband and children. “And who is this?” She leaned down and petted the dog that bounded up the steps to greet them, smiled and scratched behind his ears when he wagged his tail.
    “That’s Happy—Joshua’s dog. He got him the same day Sally got her cat, Tickles.”
    A smile she’d never before seen settled on her friend’s face. A happy, secretive sort of smile full of contentment that made her stomach tighten. She’d never know the joy of having children.
    She took a deep breath, walked to the railing, looked toward Main Street. “This was all an open field when I left. Now there is a bank—”
    “Owned by Callie’s husband.”
    “Yes.” Stop talking about husbands! She smiled to cover the revulsion the idea of marriage brought and slid her gaze to the right. “And the church. And this parsonage. All of them standing where we used to play puss in the corner...and touch wood...and I love my love with an A.” Her throat closed.
    “What’s wrong, Sadie?”
    She shook her head, gave a little shrug. “Everything is so...different.”
    “You’re not talking only about the village, are you?”
    Understanding shone through a shimmer of tears in Willa’s blue-green eyes. “No. It’s Nanna, and Poppa, and—” She stiffened, her defenses rising at Willa’s touch on her arm. She swallowed back the sudden rush of tears that threatened and moved away.
    “Stop it, Sadie.”
    Her heart squeezed at the hurt in Willa’s voice. “I’m sorry, Willa. It’s—” She stopped, looked down at her trembling hands and hid them in the folds of her long skirt. She couldn’t admit, even to Willa, that she’d been alone so long with no one to care about her troubles or comfort her that a simple act of kindness made her come undone. No wonder Cole’s actions had made her doubt her original opinion of him. She pasted a smile on her face. “I’m a little shaken by all I’ve faced since coming home. The memories...” She blinked her eyes and turned to look out at the field that was no more.
    Willa stepped to her side, took her hand and tugged her toward the steps. “Come on, Sadie.”
    There was no time to protest. It was either hurry along with Willa or fall down