A Family's Blessing - Carolyne Aarsen Page 0,2

to slow his truck down for a second look.

When she had tried to help out his nephew, she struck a chord in his heart. And then he’d tossed out that lame question.

Do I know you?

He blamed his lapse on the hint of laughter in the shape of her arching eyebrows and her soft mouth. Brown hair flowing like melted chocolate over her shoulders and down her back had also added to his momentary brainlessness.

In spite of his rather uncharacteristically gauche question, he still wanted to go after her and ask her a few questions, which would have violated his hard-won rules for living.

Keep your pride. Don’t go running after any girl. Let them come to you.

This had been his mantra ever since Colby left him the day before their wedding because she suddenly decided she couldn’t move onto the farm.

It took him four months to get over her, five months to use up all the envelopes that came with the thank-you cards, and six months to decide he would never go running after a girl again. Ever.

“Hannah was supposed to be here by today, so that girl could easily have been her.” Morris Westerveld gave his newspaper a shake and dived into the news of the world again.

Ethan sighed and picked a crumb off his fingertip.

If that girl was Hannah, she would bring nothing but questions and potential trouble to the family and—more specifically—to him.

The family had all breathed a collective sigh of relief when Sam came back from Ontario thirteen years ago. Grandpa Westerveld, Sam’s partner on the family farm, had been injured in a bad accident, and Sam was needed. Ethan was sixteen at the time and chafing to quit school so he could work full-time with his grandfather on their family farm. Ever since he could throw a bale, Ethan had spent evenings and weekends and every holiday helping his grandpa.

Sam slipped back into the groove but never said much about the nine years he’d been gone or the woman that he’d been living with and her little girl. Nor did he ever get married.

After Grandpa Westerveld died, Sam, his son, took over the struggling farm, and when Ethan graduated from high school, Sam took his nephew on as his new partner.

Now Sam was dead. A mere three months after his stomach cancer diagnosis. And, per Sam’s request, Hannah Kristoferson and Ethan Westerveld would be present at a private reading of his will, an event which had been put off until such time as one Hannah Kristoferson could be tracked down.

Though no one understood the reasons for Sam’s unusual request, the Westerveld family all knew about Hannah and her mother, Marla, and their involvement with their brother and uncle.

Sam and his father had had a falling out, and Sam had left, determined to make it on his own. He started hitchhiking across Canada and got as far as Toronto, where he met Marla and Hannah at a laundromat. Hannah was three. He dated Marla for a time and then moved in.

During Sam’s stay in Toronto, the family kept up a regular communication with him. They all wrote and phoned, asking him to come home. When he returned, he never mentioned Marla or Hannah. The only reminders of those lost years were a few pictures, some homemade cards, and the cheques he sent Marla Kristoferson every month.

When Sam was admitted to the hospital, he asked the family to try to find Hannah so he could see her before he died. By the time they finally found her, Sam had been dead and buried for three weeks.

With the will in limbo.

Ethan pushed himself off the couch. He didn’t need to give Hannah or her mother any more headspace. He had too much work to do and too little time to do it in.

Chapter Two

Hannah paused at the entrance to the acreage to check the name on the sign: Ted and Tilly Westerveld. This was the place.

She put the car in gear, took a calming breath, and turned down the driveway. The tall spruce trees lining the driveway could have been welcoming or sinister, depending on one’s mental state.

Right now, echoes of Hansel and Gretel were teasing her memories. Though Hannah was pretty sure no tempting gingerbread house complete with wicked witch lay at the end of the graveled driveway, a sense of foreboding still surrounded her as she drove.

The driveway gave one more turn and then opened up into a large open space, also surrounded by spruce trees. She