Read Online Collision of The Heart by Laurie Alice Eakes - Free Book Online

right here, but with all these extra people in town, I’ll feel more comfortable having you in Ayden’s company.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” A flash in Mia’s eyes belied the humility of her response. Head bowed, she slipped from the room and vanished up the steps.
    Ayden sighed. “Ma, please don’t try to matchmake us. I am all but engaged to Miss Finney.”
    “Or to that position at the college,” Rosalie murmured.
    “Rosalie, mind your tongue.” Pa gave Ayden one of his gentle but stern looks. “The least you can do for that young lady is help her today.”
    “The least I can do for her—” Mindful of curious glances from Divine and Mrs. Herring, Ayden turned toward the kitchen door.
    “Brother?” Rosalie called after him.
    He glanced back. “Yes, sister?”
    She scowled at him. “If you don’t make hay when the sun shines this time, I’ll never forgive you.”
    Ayden stalked into the kitchen. By the time he donned boots and coat, hat and gloves, Mia had arrived in the kitchen with her face surrounded by white fur and that portfolio tucked beneath her arm.
    He sighed. “Of course it’s coming along.”
    Rather like a third person on an outing for a courting couple. At least it had been that way before. If they were still courting, or even married, apparently it would be that way again.
    “Let’s go.” He offered her his arm.
    She didn’t take it until they reached the street. Wearing boots looking far more fashionable than useful, she slipped in snow packed by prior feet and sleigh runners. She clung to his forearm, her hand small and strong. Though her wide skirt swirled around his legs with each step, she said nothing to him. A glance down told him she didn’t even look at him. She kept her head bowed as though she was praying. Or perhaps she merely watched her feet, and clutched that portfolio to her front like a shield.
    “It always was, wasn’t it?” he mused aloud.
    She glanced up, her cheeks pink in the cold. “What?”
    “That notebook of yours always was a shield between us. You cover your heart with it like you expect me to stab it.”
    “Or twist the knife you stuck in it eighteen months ago.”
    “Ouch.”
    She turned her head away, then stopped, a gasp forming vapor from her breath.
    He followed her gaze to where the rising sun shimmered on pristine snow and icicles dripping from trees and eaves like diamond crystals. It was a sight Ayden saw so often he didn’t think about its beauty. In truth, by February, he’d had enough of winter for the year. Tramping up the hill to the college grew tiresome. Now, however, seeing it from Mia’s perspective, the glory of a sunrise over snow and ice became a fresh vision, a reminder that he had once viewed the display as a promise.
    He spun away. “We need to get going.” He started walking without warning.
    She stumbled after him, clinging harder to his arm. “And where are you dragging me?”
    “You wanted to come.”
    “I have an editor expecting articles from me. Of course I wanted to come.”
    She didn’t want to come because of him. Good. That was the way it needed to be. This reappearance of hers should be one last reminder to him that her desire to be a journalist was more important to her than anything they had shared.
    “So you are working with a periodical?” He made himself ask the question as any former classmate might.
    “I’m writing individual pieces, but if I do well with this assignment, I’ll be hired as a regular reporter.” Her voice sparkled like the icicles in the sunrise.
    “It’s what you always wanted.”
    They reached Howell Street, and he turned toward the church. “We can begin here. No one knew anything yesterday, but things might have changed this morning.”
    Suddenly, Mia jerked her hand from his arm and strode away from him. A score of feet away, she swung to face him so quickly her wide skirt lifted in the wind and her hood slipped onto her shoulders. “I can go into the church and ask.