Raising honor, p.21
Raising Honor, page 21
If only they’d talked it out. Instead, the Ballards did what they do best. They went to their own corners and became silent and stubborn.
“Are you okay, Claire?”
Claire turned to Nan, terrified of what she’d see in the older woman’s eyes. “Nan, Reece didn’t want to know anything six years ago.”
Nan smiled gently. “He’s changed. So have you.”
Fear began to stake a choke hold on her heart. Claire bit back emotion. “What if he decides Zoe needs to stay in Rebel?” She swallowed past the thickness clogging her throat. “What if he wants to take her away from me?”
“Now you’re overreacting and getting yourself all worked up for no good reason.”
“What about the fact that Reece owns half of this farm? What am I going to do about that?” Claire stood and paced back and forth. Reece wasn’t a dirt-poor cowboy anymore. No, he was a prosperous and respected businessman.
“There’s nothing to do about it right now,” Nan said. “Just take it one step at a time, and try to remember that with a little prayer, things always have a way of working out.”
Though Claire admired Nan’s assurance, she admittedly felt anything but confident. At this moment, she didn’t see any possible way for God to fix the mess she was in.
Claire made another pass across the porch and stopped when the screen door creaked open.
“Mommy, may I have a cupcake now?” Zoe called from the doorway.
“Sure, sweetie. Go ahead. I’ll be right there.”
“Are you off tomorrow?” Nan asked when Zoe disappeared.
“Yes. I had plenty of personal days accumulated, so I took two weeks.”
“Good, because you look like you need a vacation.”
“Do I?” Claire turned to examine her reflection in the tall windows of the porch. She pushed her hair back from her face. All she saw was the usual—dark shadows that reflected too many night shifts and too little sleep.
“You’re wound tight as can be,” Nan said. “And your eyes are filled with worry.”
Claire didn’t respond. Nan was right. Maybe a little rest and relaxation were in order.
Nan stood. “Two weeks is plenty of time to figure things out.”
Plenty of time? Claire moved to the door and held the screen for Nan.
But was it enough time to persuade Reece to buy her out and make him understand why she’d never told him he had a daughter?
Copyright © 2020 by Tina M. Radcliffe
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ISBN-13: 9781488060335
Raising Honor
Copyright © 2020 by Jill Buteyn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Jill Lynn, Raising Honor
