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Pain lanced into Leah’s chest, so sharp it shut off her breathing.
Ellie’s blue eyes snapped. “It’s your eyesight that is failing, Darla. Mrs. MacAllister is an American, just like you and me.”
“Oh, no, she’s not,” the one called Lucy hissed. “She will never be one of us. Never.”
Leah stepped back as if she had been struck, sank onto a chair and sat stone still with her eyes on the carpeted floor.
Ellie bent over her. “Oh, Leah, I do apologize for them.”
Numb, Leah could say nothing. She started to rise, but Rita, the plump, red-haired waitress, appeared at her elbow with a cup of hot tea.
“I’ll bring another cup for you, Miz Johnson, if you’re stayin’.”
“Thank you,” Leah said, her voice not quite steady. “We are most certainly staying.”
Rita grinned and hurried off toward the kitchen. Ellie sat down across from Leah, her lips twisted. Unexpectedly she reached across the table and took both Leah’s hands in hers.
“There is an old saying in my family, Leah. ‘The enemy of my friend is my enemy, too.’”
“Oh, Ellie, you must not—”
“Yes, I must. Don’t argue, Leah. This is important. I think perhaps—” she lifted Leah’s cup off the saucer and swallowed a gulp of tea “—this is going to be war!”
Rita came with a second mug of tea, and the two women raised their cups and chinked them together.
Rita moved off to one side and shook her head in sympathy. “If there’s gonna be a war,” she muttered, “I sure know which side I’d pick.”
It was raining hard when the two women arrived back at the house. Leah scrambled out of the buggy, grabbed up her new skirt and raced toward the front porch, while Ellie drove off down the muddy road. On the first step, Leah turned to wave, and stopped short.
Across the rain-swept pasture strode a tall, long-legged figure wearing a water-soaked gray Stetson. Thad. She watched him for several seconds, wondering why he wore no jacket or rain poncho in the downpour. He marched through the stinging drops, apparently unaware of the rain pelting his chest or the rivulets of water streaming off his hat brim.
Without slowing down or even looking up, he moved steadily through the sopping grass, splashing through spreading ponds of rainwater without altering his pace. Then he raised his head for an instant and Leah caught her breath. The piercing gaze that usually missed nothing was focused on something in the far distance.
The set of his shoulders was so stiff it sent goose bumps up her arms, and he was so distracted he walked right into a low-growing coyote bush. Her heart began to hammer. Thad MacAllister was a courageous and kind man. A man she was beginning to care about. She cringed at the obvious distress in his face.
What could be wrong? Had Teddy done something without his approval? Had she?
She glanced down to where the wet hem of her new gray melton skirt poked out from under her coat, hiked it up and started across the yard toward him. In the next instant she found herself running.
“Thad! Thad!” Her voice did not carry over the drumming rain. She was within three arm lengths of him when he stopped and raised his head. Leah stumbled to a stop in front of him.
His surprised voice rumbled deep inside his chest. “Well, now, what’s all this?”
“Where is your jacket?” she said in a choked voice.
“In the barn. Wasn’t raining when I started out.” Awkwardly he reached out and ran his hand over her damp hair. “You’re soaking wet, Leah. What are you doing out here?”
“I—I saw you from the porch, and I wanted—”
What? What did she want?
The answer came in a flash of understanding.
“I wanted to be close to you,” she blurted. “I—I mean I wanted to come and meet you.” She dropped her head in the submissive gesture she had learned from long years of training at her mother’s hand, then slowly lifted it until their eyes met.
His face looked tired, his eyes worried. His gaze wandered, focusing on her forehead, then on her nose, her mouth, her hair. “You’re wet, Leah,” he said again.
“So are you, Thad. I saw you coming across the field and I… You looked worried about something.”
“Lord in Heaven, I am worried about something. I’m half eaten-up inside with worry.”
“Your wheat field?”
His eyes had an odd, haunted look, and he was trying hard to slow his breathing. “If this storm keeps up, all my new-sprouted seedlings are gonna wash away. And there’s nothing—nothing—I can do to stop it. Dammit, I don’t like feeling helpless.”
Leah nodded, took hold of his arm and tugged him forward. “Come into the house, Thad. I…” Oh, what could she do to take his mind off his worries? “I—I planned to bake cookies for Teddy, and I might need some help.”
