Fallen Hearts

Chapter 1:Promises of Spring I sat on the long front porch of the cabin, reading and rereading my letter to Pa. It was a warm May morning, spring alread -- 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, Bitting 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 where the hot bathed them. Ile 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 candy cotton puffs of clouds stretched and curled delicious shapes, like babies stretching in sleep.Logan had been them from the clay I returned to Winnerow. He had been there through the terrible after Tom's death, while Pa was in the hospital. He had been them after Pa had returned with Stacie and little Drake to his own home in Georgia. He had been there when Grandpa died, leaving we 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, finally giving up and running off in a sulk when she saw that he wouldn't divert his attention from me. I could almost hear my brothers, and sisters' voices ahead. Despite how hard our lives were then, the memories brought tears to my eyes."Hey, hey," Logan said, seeing my eyes begin to fill with tears, "this is a happy day. I want a big smile and I want to hear your laughter echo through the Willies, just the way it used to.""Oh, Logan, thank you. Thank you for being here, for caring."He stopped and turned me toward him; his eyes were serious and full of love."No, Heaven. It's I who should thank you for bein as beautiful and as lovely as I remember you. Its as if" -- he looked around, searching for the words -- "as if time stood still for us and everything that we thought happened since was only a dream. Now we are waking tip and once again you: are here I am here with you, and I have your hand in mine. I'll never let it so again," he vowed.A tingle traveled through my fingers laced through his, a tingle of happiness that reached my heart and set it pounding the way it had that first day we kissed, when I was only twelve years old. I wanted him to kiss me again, I wanted to be that same innocent girl again, but I wasn't. And he wasn't, eitherAndrews, V. C. is the author of 'Fallen Hearts' with ISBN 9780671729400 and ISBN 0671729403.