Read Online Love Without End by Robin Lee Hatcher - Free Book Online

rap sounded at her door, followed by Violet’s voice. “Anna, are you awake?”
    “Yes.” She swiped away the lingering tears as she sat up. “I’m awake.”
    The door opened and Violet stuck her head in. “Merry Christmas, Anna. I’ve made pancakes. Put on your robe andcome down to eat. There are presents to open when we’ve finished breakfast.”
    Guilt hit Anna again. She didn’t have anything to give to the Leonards. Why hadn’t she thought of presents before this moment? How could she be selfish and thoughtless when they’d been so kind?
    Violet smiled. “Hurry now. I’m a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning.”
    Anna reached for her robe. A short while later, slippers on her feet and robe cinched around her waist, she went down the stairs and entered the kitchen. Violet was there ahead of her, turning bacon on the griddle. A stack of pancakes waited on a plate nearby.
    “Good morning again.” Violet glanced toward the back entrance. “Abe went to check on something in the barn. Could you call for him to come and eat?”
    “Okay.”
    She walked to the door and opened it. But she didn’t have to shout anything. Abe was standing in the snow, just beyond the steps, holding the lead rope to a palomino mare.
    “So, Anna,” he said, “what do you think of her?”
    “She’s beautiful. Did you buy her? Is she yours?”
    “Yep. She’s ours. She’s sort of your Christmas gift to me and Vi.”
    Anna shook her head. “My what? I didn’t—”
    “I got to thinkin’ about what you said, a couple months back. About raising Quarter Horses. Goldie here is the start. Golden Girl, her papers say. As long as Shiloh’s Star is willing to do his part, she oughta throw some nice colts.” His eyestwinkled in the early morning light. “What do you think, Anna? Can we do this?”
    There was that stupid lump in her throat again. “I think it’s wonderful. Yes! Yes, we can do this.”
    “Abe,” Violet said from close behind Anna, “put the horse back in the barn and come inside. Breakfast’s getting cold, and there are some packages under the tree to be opened.”
    “Yes’m. On my way.”
    “Anna?”
    She turned to face Violet.
    “You okay, honey?”
    She nodded—lumpy throat, threatening tears, and all. Mama had told her to keep trusting the Lord, even when trouble came. Things would work out. And so it seemed they had.

Seven
    A NNA SURVEYED THE COLLECTION OF BOXES AND odd household rejects that filled the living room of the cottage. Beyond a closed door, there was more of the same in the bedroom.
    Today, she and Tara would get to work on clearing the clutter, although she was in no hurry to get the job done. She liked being part of the hustle and bustle of the family in the main house. The two teenage boys always on their way somewhere or returning from somewhere. The ranch hands eating lunch in the kitchen. Chet sitting at his desk, reading glasses perched on his nose as he studied the account records or a horse journal or sitting in his easy chair in the evening, visiting with Anna over a cup of decaf.
    Still, this small house had been Anna’s home once upon a time, and everyone expected her to want to live in it again. Even she’d expected it. Abe and Violet had built the cottage especially for her. She’d moved into it on her twenty-firstbirthday and hadn’t left it until she’d married Walter thirty-three years later. And though she’d never told her husband, a piece of her heart had grieved for this little house, for this ranch, for this place all the years she was away.
    A poignant smile curved her mouth as she remembered how hard it had been to say good-bye to the Leonard family all those years ago. If she hadn’t loved and adored her new husband to distraction, she never would have had the courage to venture so far away. Florida had been more than just another state. It had been another world. A flat, flat world. Glory, how she’d missed these mountains.
    The creak of the screen