Where The Heart Is (Choices of the Heart, book 1) by Jennie Marsland

and sat beside her, Trey’s letter in his hand. “Come, lass, it’s not as bad as all that.”
    Chelle sat up and leaned against him. He folded his arms around her and rocked her as he used to when she was a little girl waking from a nightmare, but she didn’t think she’d ever wake from this one.
    “How could Trey do this? I understood that he couldn’t fight for the Confederacy, but how could he fight for the other side?”
    Her father held her closer. “He’s told us why, Chelle.”
    He sat back and handed her the letter. Fighting tears, Chelle read it.
     
    We talked it all over at home, and you know I felt the same way you did—that even if her cause was right, which it isn’t, the Confederacy was too badly outgunned and outmanned to win this war. But she will fight to the bitter end, and the longer it takes, the worse it will be. But what if the Confederacy is so badly outnumbered that the end comes sooner rather than later? With less destruction and bloodshed? Isn’t that worth fighting for? If I’d joined the Morgan County troop, I’d have been fighting for our home, but with little or no chance of winning. This way, even though I’ll never be able to go back, I’ll be fighting to help end the war quickly, before it ever reaches home. I only hope you and Chelle can understand…
     
    Chelle set the letter on her nightstand and tried to imagine how her brother must be feeling now, with his family far away, as he prepared to go to war against the friends he’d grown up with. Feelings had run strong enough at home before she left, but now Trey had cut himself off from the old life for good. Could it possibly be worth it?
    “I suppose I understand, in a way. He thinks he’s doing the best thing he can do to protect home, but… it’s just so hard to believe. If he’d even hinted that he might do this, I’d have—”
    Her father laid a hand on her knee. “What would you have said to him, lass? He knew you were in love with Rory.”
    Chelle couldn’t answer. No quarrel she’d had with Trey had ever seriously strained their closeness, but if she’d any idea he would consider fighting against their friends, it might have come between them permanently.
    And, for the time being at least, he was safer than he would have been traveling west. Chelle clung to that thought, for her father’s sake as well as her own. “At least he’s relatively safe until next spring.”
    Her father gave her a quick hug. “Aye, and it could all be over by then. He might never see battle at all. Let’s not worry until we have to.”
     

Chapter Six
     
    “Then there’s Mrs. Fred Connell. Mabel, her name is. Mam says there’s lots of folk clever enough to mind everyone else’s business if they neglect their own, but Mrs. Connell’s capable enough to mind her own affairs and others’ too.”
    Chelle giggled. “She sounds like Mrs. Hetty Palmer at home.”
    “Aye.” Kendra leaned over her small son and adjusted the bonnet that protected him from the warm August sun. “There’s plenty like that the world over, I’ll warrant. And then there’s Hiram Brantley. He goes by contraries. Whenever his wife wants him to do a thing, she nags him to do the opposite. They’ve been married twenty years and he still hasn’t caught on.”
    Laughing, Chelle inched forward on her knees, holding Leah’s chubby hands as she took a few steps over the rough grass. “My mother used to do that to Dad sometimes, but he knew it, and she knew he knew it.” She looked down at the smiling little girl. “Leah, you’ll be running me off my feet in no time.”
    They sat in a secluded spot on the hill outside the village, reached by a side path that wound off in the opposite direction from Mr. Rainnie’s sheep pasture. In the two weeks she’d been bringing little Davy out for fresh air, Kendra had shown Chelle a few worthwhile new spots and told her the quirks of some of Mallonby’s people in the process.
    Kendra clapped, cheering