"Andrews, V C - The Casteels 03 - Fallen Hearts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andrews V.C)

hot summer. It seemed my Willies world had awakened along with me -
from the cold dark winter of death and mourning, gradually warming with
the promise of spring, finally bursting into warm, burgeoning summer.
The sparrows and robins were singing, flitting from branch to branch,
gently shaking the leaves. Sunlight wove its way through the woods,
threading strands of gold from birch to hickory to maple, turning the
leaves transparent where the light bathed them. The world looked
glorious and alive.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet, fresh perfume of blossoming
flowers and rich green leaves.

Above me, the sky was deep cerulean blue and the little candy cotton
puffs of clouds stretched and curled in delicious shapes, like babies
stretching in sleep.

Logan had been there from the day I returned" to Winnerow. He had been
there through the terrible days after Tom's death, while Pa was in the
hospital. He had been there after Pa had returned with Stacie and
little Drake to his own home in Georgia. He had been there when Grandpa
died, leaving me alone in the cabin of my childhood, now rebuilt and
refurbished into a cozy home. He had been there on the first day I
began teaching my dear students at the Winnerow Grammar School. I
laughed to myself now, recalling that first day, getting ready to test
my competence, to see if I really could be the teacher I'd always
dreamed of being.

I had come out of the cabin, just as I had this morning, intending, as I
did most every day, to take a moment's pause to sit in Granny's old
rocker and look out through the Willies before starting my journey down
to the school. Only on this first morning, when I opened the door,
there was Logan standing by the steps, a wide, happy smile on his face,
his dark sapphire eyes brightening in the morning sun.

"Good morning, Miss Casteel." He performed a grand bow. "I have been
sent here to escort you to your classroom. It's a fringe benefit of the
Winnerow School System."

"Oh, Logan!" I cried. "you got up so early to walk up here."

"It wasn't so early. I get up this early to open the drugstore. It's
three times the size it was when we were high school students," he said
proudly, "and demands a lot more work, Miss Casteel," he added, holding
out his hand. I walked down the steps to take it and we started down
the mountain path, just the way we had when we were high school
sweethearts.

It seemed so much like the old days - when Logan and I trailed behind
Tom and Keith and Our Jane, with Fanny taunting us, trying to provoke
and tease Logan away from me with her lewd and lascivious behavior,