He Offered Him a Marriage Deal… After His Pregnant Daughter Was Abandoned

The wind came down off the fields still dark with new turned soil carrying the smell of rain that hadn't fallen yet. Reverend Sinclair stood in the yard outside the Hartley farmhouse, hat in hand, his daughter a half step behind him. Henry Hartley waited on the porch steps, Ruth's kitchen towel still slung over

his shoulder from breakfast as if he'd forgotten to set it down before walking out to meet them. "Have you thought this through?" the reverend asked. No greeting first. He had not come for one. Henry didn't answer right away. His eyes moved past the older man to Grace and something in his face, not quite doubt,

not quite resolve, seemed to ask her the same question before he asked himself. Grace's gaze dropped the moment his met hers. Her hands found each other in front of her skirt and held on, fingers laced too tight, knuckles pale. A flush climbed her neck. When she looked up again, her eyes were bright and wet, though she did

not let them spill. "I accept," Henry said. The reverend studied him a moment longer as if the words alone weren't proof enough. "I don't ask you to love her," he said, "only that you never treat her poorly." "I won't," Henry said, "not now, not later." Nothing more passed between the two men. The reverend nodded once, settled his

hat back on his head, and walked to his waiting buggy without looking back at his daughter, though his shoulders, Henry noticed, did not sit quite as straight as they had on the way in. Henry led Grace toward the barn where Ruth was already wiping her hands on her apron, where Silas stood with his arms

folded and his jaw set, where Jonah grinned like a boy who'd been told there'd be a party and hadn't yet learned to hide it. "This is Grace," Henry said. Nothing more. No explanation, no story. The three of them would learn what they needed to in time. And he had told them already, plainly,