"I'm on your side!" I protested.

"Who said anything about sides?" she replied as she gave me an annoyed look. I sighed and threw up my hands not understanding the role in which I'd been cast. Danny turned to Honor and quickly signed something that made Grace and Verity laugh.

"No, I'm not trying to be difficult," Honor scowled at him. "I'm just trying to be honest, unlike the rest of you."

"Honor, that's uncalled for," Grace said as the smile slipped away from her lips. "We're all doing the best we can."

"Yeah, well, maybe that's not good enough!" Honor shouted as she pushed her chair back and bolted from the table. She ran for the door and was half way across the yard before the back door slammed.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wallace," Verity said quietly. "She's having a hard time coping with the loss of our parents."

"It's perfectly understandable," I said, looking over at Grace who was staring at the screen door with a pained look on her face. "Everyone deals with loss differently."

A few minutes later, Grace got up from the table and, without saying a word, walked out the back door and across the yard toward the barn. I looked at Verity, but she had gotten up from the table and had her back to me as she ran water in the sink and prepared to do the dishes.

"Clear the table for me, would you, Danny?" she said without turning around, and I took that as my cue to clear out of the room. When Danny returned to the table to grab the plates, I motioned to the back door with a questioning look and he nodded and signed what I took to mean go.

I exited through the back door and started toward the barn before deciding not to interrupt Grace and Honor. Instead, I walked out back toward the fields and stood looking out over the verdant carpet of corn and soybeans as the sun slowly sank behind the trees and tried to figure out how I was going to turn this ship around.

Chapter Twenty-One

Grace

"Grace! Verity! Where are you?" Faith called as she and Hope hopped down out of the shiny black buggy Hope had borrowed from her in-laws. "Honor? Danny? Are you around?"

"I thought I saw someone in the barn," Hope said as she walked across the drive and into the barn. "Oh, there you two are!"

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I stood up and brushed the hay off my dress. Honor remained seated on a bale of hay with her arms crossed across her chest stubbornly refusing to look at any of us.

"We wanted to come talk to you, Grace," Faith said looking nervously at Honor as she pulled at the strings on her kapp. "Just you."

"Fine, why should this be any different than any other time?" Honor said as she pushed herself up off the bale and stomped out of the barn.

"What's wrong with her?" Hope asked wrinkling her nose.

"Oh, I don't know," I said in exasperation. "Maybe she's upset about something, like losing her parents?"

"There's no need to be sarcastic, Grace," Hope said sharply. "We're here to try and help."

"You could have fooled me," I muttered as I led them out of the barn and back to the drive. "What do you two want?"

"Grace, we talked to Uncle Amo

s and you just can't keep that English stranger here at the house with the younger ones," Faith blurted out. Hope grabbed her arm and shushed her before she could say anything more.

"Why does it matter to him? Or you, for that matter?" I asked. I was annoyed by their gossip and the fact that they didn't even try to hide it. "He's not a threat to anyone and he'll be gone in a few days."

"But Grace, it just doesn't look right," Faith said as she looked down and fiddled with the pins on her dress.

"It doesn't look right?" I said. "My goodness, Faith, since when did you become so concerned about what things look like? You, the woman who was pregnant with her first child at her own wedding."

"No need to be mean, Grace," Hope warned.

"I'm not being mean," I shot back. "I'm just sick of you two always judging everything I do and how I do it. You're no better than I am!"

"Who's calling who judgmental?" Hope shouted. "You're the one who looks down on us and our simple, little lives!"

"I've never said that!" I shouted back.

Tags: Claire Adams Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net