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

longer stiff from cold, until they glowed as rosy as her cheeks and were warm enough to melt falling snowflakes.
    His own cheeks suddenly far too warm, he stamped his feet into his boots and stalked from the house, away from the heat and into the cold. He closed the door behind him, wishing he could so easily close the door on memories of how happy Euphemia Roper had made him before that first kiss, during those glorious moments, and long afterward.
    “Think about Charmaine.” He spoke the words aloud, then repeated them.
    While raking soiled straw from the horses’ stalls, he focused on Charmaine’s face, her curls the color of ripe wheat, her eyes the color of the sky on a clear day in August, the luscious strawberry hue of her lips—lips he hadn’t yet kissed. Maybe he should. Maybe that would once and for all drive memories of Mia from his head.
    But he couldn’t get Mia out of his head while she slept under his parents’ roof.
    He forked fresh straw into stalls and hay into mangers with so much vigor the carriage team backed against the walls of their stalls as if they expected him to grab their manes with the tines and haul them behind the stable. His own mount snorted and stamped, as though more than a little sympathetic.
    “Charmaine is restful.” Ayden grabbed the shovel and attacked the snow drifting across the walkways. “She will make a perfect hostess.” He flung snow into piles Rosalie would no doubt diminish to produce one of her snowmen. “She’s had a great deal of practice.”
    She had played hostess for her father since her mother’s death a year earlier. And Dr. Finney entertained a great deal, as the director of the Classics Department at the college was expected to do. Ayden should attend because he was the newest lecturer awaiting Finney’s approval for the position to become permanent.
    A shovelful of snow sailed off the walk and struck the kitchen window, then tumbled atop one of Ma’s lilac bushes. Two branches snapped beneath the onslaught.
    Ma yanked open the back door. “I think you’ve done enough shoveling, Ayden. You should get yourself in here and warm up before you do any more damage.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” He set the shovel beside the back door, then gathered an armload of firewood before shouldering his way into the kitchen.
    The aromas of fresh-brewed coffee, fried ham and potatoes, and baked apples and cinnamon caused his mouth to water and his stomach to growl. After dumping the firewood into the box, he removed his boots and coat and crossed the room to slide a stack of plates from the cupboard. “Should I set these in the dining room for you?”
    “Thank you, and get a fire going.” Ma didn’t look up while flipping sliced potatoes in a skillet. “Then maybe you could go wake up that sleepyhead sister of yours.”
    Ayden paused in the doorway and faced his mother with a shake of his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “Why not?” Ma drew her silver-flecked eyebrows together.
    Ayden let the kitchen door swing shut behind him. She would work it out. If the creak of floorboards overhead was any indication, Rosalie was already awake. She must be trying to let Mia sleep, since no voices drifted through the ceiling plaster. Kind of her, but then Rosalie was nothing if not kind. If only she’d go to the college or find a beau more worthy of her lively goodness.
    He set the plates on the table with a clatter of crockery, then stooped before the hearth. A fire had been laid. All he needed to do was crumple newspaper and wood shavings atop the logs and set a match to the kindling. They ignited with a whoosh and blaze of heat. He held his hands to the warmth while cold cloaked his back. The kitchen was far warmer, yet Rosalie’s voice, sparkling like sun-dappled water, told him she spoke of Mia.
    “I think her wrist is paining her, and we should make her stay in bed. She looks so tired and sad. I don’t think the city agrees with her.”
    “It’s a