Read Online Faking Faith by Josie Bloss - Free Book Online Page A

kitchen that afternoon, she was wearing a pastel pink apron and had a smudge of flour on her cheek. She’d given me a warm hug that felt like snuggling with a pillow.
    I couldn’t help but compare her to my mom, who was all hard angles from her obsessive Pilates practice.
    “Really neat,” Matthew said obediently, glancing at his father, who grunted.
    Mr. Dean was still an unknown entity to me. He owned a small house-building business, and when he came home from work, he’d greeted me politely, asked me a few questions about my trip, and then seemed to dismiss me. He had an outwardly jolly appearance, broad chested with an ample beard and ruddy skin. But there was something about his eyes that I couldn’t quite read. There was a hard and watchful quality about them.
    He caught me looking at him and I stared back at my food, my cheeks burning.
    “Asher, your turn,” Mr. Dean said.
    Asher cleared his throat.
    “I enjoyed teaching Matthew how to process chickens,” he said, smiling at his little brother, who grinned back. I had a good idea about what processing chickens involved, and it wasn’t something that required further details.
    “A-A-And … ” Asher seemed to be having trouble forming the words; his face looked anxious. Everyone was waiting patiently for him to continue, as if this occurred normally, and I realized that Asher must have a speech impediment.
    “Spit it out, son!” Mr. Dean said, with a harsh laugh. The rest of the family stayed quiet.
    I coughed to cover up my gasp at Mr. Dean’s casual cruelty. No one else seemed surprised by it.
    Asher closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then he looked at me.
    “A-And I was glad to help Abigail welcome her new friend, Faith,” he said quickly. He blushed and gave me a small smile. Even though I didn’t really want to, I couldn’t help but smile back, charmed.
    The table went even more still. Except for the youngest children, everyone stared at Asher and then at me. Mr. Dean was stern, giving a raised-eyebrow look to his wife. I glanced at Abigail, who pursed her lips and shook her head a little.
    Something was very wrong. And very weird.
    “Thank you,” I said, to break the silence. “I’m very thankful to be here with all of you. Thank you for your nice welcome.”
    At that moment, the baby burst out babbling and broke the tension, and everyone went slowly back to eating.

TEN
    F aith! Faith, wakey-wakey!”
    I moaned and turned over to bury my head under the pillow. “Go ’way Scottie. Too early.”
    The voice laughed. “Scottie, who’s that? You silly thing. Wake up! We have to go milk Maybelle.”
    I’d never been so instantly conscious in my entire life. I shoved the pillow off my head and looked up at Abigail leaning over me in the gloom of pre-dawn, smiling.
    “Good morning, sleepy head!” she said brightly.
    It all came back in a rush. The bus, meeting Abigail, Shady Acres, looking through Abigail’s impressively extensive Hope Chest, dinner, the weirdness with Asher at the table, a whole hour in the living room of Mr. Dean droning on and on from the Bible as we sat around and listened quietly. And then up to Abigail’s room, where I was given Chastity’s bed. Chastity had been shipped off to sleep on the floor of the nursery, which she was obviously none too pleased about.
    “Are you getting up or what? It’s almost past six!” said Abigail, putting a hand on her hip. She was already washed and dressed, and I could hear the voices of people in the hall and downstairs.
    “Six? Like in the morning?” I said, trying not to sound whiny. “Okay, okay. Yeah, I’m up.”
    I didn’t even get up at six during the school year, let alone during the summer.
    Slowly, I sat up and swung my feet around to the floor. I didn’t feel remotely ready for the whole fish-out-of-water scene when I was this tired. All I wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep until a more reasonable hour.
    “Rejoice, Faith!” Abigail said, leaving the