Gingham Mountain by Mary Connealy Page A

he might be better after he’s had some time to cool down.” Joshua held Grant’s gaze, clearly expecting Grant to listen.
    Grant all of a sudden realized that while he wasn’t looking Joshua had turned from a boy to a man. Then he counted and realized Joshua would be seventeen in a couple of months—based on the age and birthday Grant had urged Joshua to pick when he’d come here so they could have a special meal for his birthday. For all Grant knew, Joshua could be twenty by now.
    Grant had been on his own by that time. In fact he’d adopted six kids the year he turned seventeen. One of them was Joshua, and the boy was a son to Grant in every way imaginable without being flesh and blood.
    Grant’s older girls talked sewing with Hannah. Benny and Libby had found a new ma. And Joshua had just grown up right in front of his eyes. For the father of six, Grant didn’t have much to do. He slumped his shoulders and wondered if he hadn’t oughta adopt more kids as soon as possible.
    They got to the house, and he remembered why he shouldn’t have taken the two he’d just gotten. He shifted Libby to one side while he held the door open, thinking he could at least serve some purpose manning the door. He let the whole family troop past, minus one troubled young boy, plus one interfering female.
    He noticed Hannah having trouble getting in the door with her little vine, Benny, clinging to her. She veered a bit too close to Grant while she went in sideways, and Grant got something else in his head to worry about.
    Benny was right. Hannah did smell good.
    He had a notion to tell her. For some reason it reminded him of that strange, secretive look that had passed between Ian and Megan at church this morning. With only the vaguest idea of what it meant and why he’d think of it now, Grant fought down a surge of restlessness that he’d rarely felt before, being exhausted half to death most of the time.
    But somehow that restlessness erased his impatience with Hannah, and he didn’t mind her staying around quite so much. His mind swirled with a lot of confusing thoughts he couldn’t pin down. And he considered how nice Hannah would look in a split skirt as he followed close after her.
    Then Hannah gasped.
    He stepped well away and focused his eyes elsewhere. Before she could start in on him, he said defensively, “It’s the house my folks left me when they died. I’ve been meaning to build on, but money’s scarcer ’n hens’ teeth and time is scarcer yet. I’ve got three bedrooms. The girls, Marilyn, Sadie, and now Libby, sleep together.”
    “Parents? I thought you were an orphan.” Hannah hoisted Benny up in her arms as if she’d done it a thousand times.
    “My folks adopted me off an orphan train when I was fourteen. I lived with ’em for a couple of years before they were killed when their team ran away with their wagon. They left me this house, and it was so quiet I couldn’t stand it. I went to enlist in the Confederacy, went as faras Houston and found six kids living in an alley. I just turned around and brought ’em back home.”
    “You adopted six children when you were sixteen?”
    “I was seventeen by then. And later, after the war, I got more young’uns that were leftovers on an orphan train.”
    Hannah settled Benny more firmly on her hip as if she planned on taking him with her. “That’s ridiculous. Who allowed that?”
    “Martha was riding with the children even then.”
    “What was the matter? Did you need help on the ranch?”
    Grant stepped close to Hannah. He knew he should back off, but he didn’t quite have the self-control. “I had a home. Those children needed it.”
    “A seventeen-year-old boy isn’t a parent. What were you doing? Adopting playmates ?”
    “I’m not saying I was a good parent, but I could put a roof over their heads.”
    “Children need more than a roof. Mrs. Norris should have been reported for allowing such nonsense.”
    “Martha will be given jewels in