The Deepest Sigh Read online

  Echoes of the Heart

  Book One

  The

  Deepest Sigh

  By

  Naomi Musch

  Echoes of the Heart

  Book One: The Deepest Sigh

  Book Two: The Softest Breath

  Book Three: The Brightest Hope (2019)

  Other Books by Naomi Musch

  Mist O’er the Voyageur

  Empire in Pine Series:

  Book One: The Green Veil

  Book Two: The Red Fury

  Book Three: The Black Rose

  Treveylan ~ A Tale of Beauty & The Beast

  Paint Me Althena

  The Love Coward

  Long Lake Books

  South Range, WI 54874

  https://naomimusch.com/

  Copyright © 2017 by Naomi Musch

  Published in the United States of America

  Publication Date: October 2018

  Editor: Brandy T. Vickery

  Cover Design: Gwen Phifer

  Cover Art Copyright by Long Lake Books, Inc © 2018

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval and storage system without permission of the publisher.

  Ebooks are not transferrable, either in whole or in part. As the purchaser or otherwise lawful recipient of this ebook, you have the right to enjoy the novel on your own computer or other device. Further distribution, copying, sharing, gifting or uploading is illegal and violates United States Copyright laws.

  Pirating of ebooks is illegal. Criminal Copyright Infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, may be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  Contents

  Dedication and Acknowledgment

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Book Two: The Softest Breath (About)

  About Naomi Musch

  Mist O’er the Voyageur Cover

  Chapter One Preview

  Dedication and Acknowledgment

  Dedicated to the Lord Jesus, who hears our hearts' deepest sighs and heals our angriest wounds.

  He pours blessings in the narrowest spaces.

  To Him be praised.

  Chapter One

  July 1915

  Fairies danced on the beams of light cast between slats of barn board. Long years had passed since Marilla Eckert last thought of dust motes as such. Long months since she last wiled away a summer afternoon in the hayloft, dreaming of soft and pleasant things, inhaling clover's sweetness, and ignoring the scent of cow manure from below that clung to her after chores. She pressed against a crack in the wall and peered into the distance where the sun hung like a tangy orange above the hillock, to the place where her father and their hired farm hand Langdon Prescott studied the field in the glow of the dusty afternoon. Even from this distance, she could see Lang's sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, and she could call upon the memorized shape of his muscled forearms. She watched until he and her father disappeared over the hill.

  Then she stepped across the cushion of old, loose hay strewn six inches deep on the loft floor. She padded to the other side of the loft where she climbed a ladder to one of two windows at the top that looked out across the world. On this side of the barn, Marilla could see the entire east end of the farm, all the way from the fallow northeast field, to the road, and beyond to the southeast clearing where the pioneer cabin settled into abandon. She couldn't see the cabin itself, the place her parents had first called home when they married twenty-five years before.

  The light had shifted its slant, barely creeping into the cracks of the loft anymore, when she heard her sister Delia's voice, calling her name. "Be right there!" She hollered back. She hiked up her skirt and climbed down the ladder to pick up the egg basket she had left sitting in the hay. Holding both the basket and her skirts in one hand, she grasped the second set of ladder rungs with the other hand and scooted down to the ground floor. She closed the barn door, secured the latch, and tossed one lovelorn glance over her shoulder at the far off field to no avail. He was no longer to be seen. She started up the path with a sigh.

  How long had she secretly loved Lang? Three years now, almost four? Since that day he had first knocked on her father's door when she was fourteen? He was twenty then. It hadn't taken long to discover his age. He was older than Delia too.

  "What took you so long?"

  Marilla lifted her eyes and caught Delia's frown as her sister waited at the screen door of the front porch. She hurried on, a little breathless. "I was just resting for a spell in the loft. Thinking about tomorrow." She shot Delia a smile.

  "If you want to be ready for tomorrow, you'd best not lollygag around with those eggs. We've got to get them boiled for sandwiches for the picnic, and Ma wants us to help get supper fixed. She's wrung the neck on that old barred rock rooster and is singeing off his pinfeathers now."

  "You sound like an old hen yourself."

  "Like a young hen, you mean." Delia's frown swept away, and she gave Marilla a sidelong grin.

  Delia was almost three years older than Marilla's seventeen. She could run the house as well as their mother could, all preparation for running her own home someday, a day they both dreamed would come soon. Theodore Strom had been courting Delia unofficially since she was still in school. Their relationship had turned quite serious after she graduated. Though they had spoken about marriage, he had still not formally proposed. Marilla asked him once what was taking him so long to ask her sister to marry him. His chest had swollen with pride at his maturity while he told her a man needed to have something to offer his wife, and he assured her, he was definitely a man. He'd waggled his eyebrows at Marilla, making her laugh out loud.

  Theo was a jokester that way. In truth, he did work hard. He not only helped his father and brothers with their family farm in his free time, but he had also gotten a good job as a switchman with the Omaha Road railroad in Spooner. He was saving all his money for him and Delia. When the time was right, he was going to build Delia a house such as she'd
never imagined.

  If it had been a confidence, Marilla hadn't been able to hold her tongue. She told Delia his plans.

  Delia sighed. "I just hope he hurries."

  Now Marilla smiled back at her sister. "You might be a young hen, but I'm faster. Tomorrow I'm going to run in the three-legged race with Lang. I bet we'll beat you and Theo."

  "I'm sure you'll take the prize, because I don't intend to embarrass myself in that race."

  "Not even if Theo holds you up?"

  "You go ahead and have your fun. I don't plan to end up on the ground with my dress full of dirt."

  "I suppose if you bat your eyes at him the way you do for everything else, he'll be content to sit with you and the grannies to watch." Marilla set the egg basket on the table. "I'm going to convince Lang to be my partner. You wait and see."

  "I wish you luck. I'd rather sit and watch with Theo anyway." Delia lifted the flour bag towel off the rising loaves of bread and opened the oven door. She picked up a bread pan in each hand, slid them inside, and eased the door closed on the cast iron stove. "It's too hot to be doing all this cooking and baking." She wiped a hand across her forehead. The heat of the wood-burning oven mingled with the July evening humidity.

  "What's your favorite part of the Independence Day festival, Delia? What are you looking forward to?"

  "I can't wait for the dance." Delia wiped her hands on her apron. "Theo's such a good dancer." Delia closed her eyes and twirled around the kitchen, causing Marilla to smile again. It was more than Theo's dancing abilities that made Delia and Theo a good match. They were the perfect couple. They suited one another in every way. Marilla doubted they had ever even had an argument, since they agreed on everything. Just watching them together filled Marilla with longing for a romance too. Now that she was old enough to catch a suitor of her own, the desire to have what her sister and Theo had tugged at her. She'd not had the courage to tell anyone, not even Delia, about the way she felt for Lang, but maybe Delia had guessed it. Still, afraid something would spoil it, she kept her secret close. When the time was right, Lang would know. That was all that really mattered.

  Marilla giggled. "Just don't let Daddy catch you doing the Grizzly Bear or the Turkey Trot."

  Delia rolled her eyes. "I'm certain the mayor will make a declaration of some sort meant to keep the dancers in check."

  Mother came into the kitchen carrying the butchered chicken, the acrid smell of its singed feathers following in her wake. She set it in the sink and cranked the water pump handle. "What can be so funny?"

  Marilla wrinkled her nose. "I was just teasing Delia about Theo."

  "Mind you get those potatoes peeled while you're joking, Rilla." Mama scrubbed away at the chicken. "Hand me that roasting pan in the pantry, will you?"

  Marilla did as she was bid.

  "I should have gotten this chicken started an hour ago. Supper's going to be late. All this extra work for a day's play… Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it."

  Marilla set the pan beside her mother on the sideboard. "Oh, it's worth it, Mama." So worth it. Lang was so used to the everyday Marilla. She needed special days like tomorrow to stand out, to make him see her in a new light.

  "We'll help you get everything ready, Mama, won't we, Rilla?" Delia gave her a nod.

  "Oh, yes, ma'am, we sure will." Her voice lifted with delight. "Independence Day is my second favorite holiday after Thanksgiving."

  "What about Christmas?" Her mother asked.

  "That's third."

  Even Mama smiled. Who could not be jubilant? It would be a long, hot summer day, full of fun and mirth. By the end of it all, if everything went perfectly, perhaps Lang would realize Rilla wasn't fourteen anymore. She'd become a grown woman.

  ~~~~~

  Lang Prescott finished the last morsel of his chicken drumstick and set the bone on his plate. He wiped a cotton napkin sewn of Elma Eckert's fabric scraps across his mouth and fingers. "Thank you for the meal, Mrs. Eckert. It was delicious as always."

  She acknowledged him with a nod. "I guess that mean old rooster was good for something then. How about you Al? You about finished?"

  "I'll have another potato." Albert Eckert scooped the last boiled potato out of a bowl in the center of the table.

  Mrs. Eckert lifted the empty bowl and gestured with it at Rilla and her sister. "You girls scrape your plates and get started on the evening milking. I'll do the dishes tonight."

  "Yes, ma'am." Delia rose from her place at the table and carried her plate to clean off into the scrap bucket.

  Lang gave a discreet glance, entranced by Delia's graceful movements. He stood too and followed her lead. It gave him more time to watch her without anyone noticing. Some things he still couldn't help, even after three and a half years. The first time he had seen Delia was the day he had arrived at the Eckert farm and knocked on the front door looking for work. Delia answered. She was the most golden thing he had ever laid eyes on. She had skin like cream, no matter what season it was. In the summer, like now, it was a more buttery cream. That was the only difference. On the day her father hired him, he swore to himself he was done traveling. He'd go no further north like he had considered, nor west or back south or east either. Not unless she was with him.

  He stepped beside her to scrape his plate, almost daring to brush against her, but she moved away without noticing. She headed out to the screened-in porch, and he followed quickly.

  "Cows are bawling." She picked a pail off the bench and pushed out the screen door. He grabbed one too and hoofed it beside her. "Guess they don't appreciate us eating a late dinner and making them wait."

  "Maybe they'll be so happy to see us, old Fancy won't try swiping me with her tail," Lang joked.

  Delia tilted her head back and laughed, and the sound was as pleasant as the flutter of poplar leaves in a breeze. "She'll probably think it's your fault alone and hit you all the harder."

  He gave her a playful nudge. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  "Mm-hm!" She laughed again and nodded.

  They reached the barn, and he opened the door for her, allowing himself the pleasure of admiring her swish past. Both of them grabbed a three-legged stool hanging from a set of hooks on the wall and found their way between the cows' warm bodies.

  Lang settled on his stool and worked a pair of cow's teats, squeezing milk into the pail. With a dip of his head, he could see the slender curve of Delia's calves above her work shoes, where she sat beside the next animal with her skirts pulled close to her legs. "I suppose you're looking forward to tomorrow."

  "You better believe I am. I'll have a whole day on Theo's arm." The dreamy note in her voice felt like a rock cast at him.

  He wanted to turn that note elsewhere. "What will you do if some other fellow wants your attention? Like a dance maybe?"

  "It all depends."

  "On what?"

  "If he's a friend or not. I won't dally with Theo's heart."

  "Well, this friend might just ask to swing you around the floor."

  "Since you are a friend, I guess that would be all right."

  The barn door creaked open, and the sound of someone grabbing another stool off the wall carried toward them. "You got a head start." Rilla walked past them, glancing at Lang as she moved to the cow behind him.

  "You were still busy feeding your face," he teased.

  "Just making sure I have plenty of energy stored up for tomorrow."

  He reached for the other pair of cow's teats. "Feeding your pet tape worm, you mean?"

  "Hey!"

  Rilla had become like a younger sister in the three years he'd been at the farm. In fact, sometimes she reminded him of one of the sisters he had left behind out east. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It had been months since he'd even bothered to write to his mother.

  Rilla didn't take after Delia. She had been a pale, skinny thing when he'd first arrived, and now, even though she had grown some, she was still a faded shadow of Delia. She was taller and skinni
er, with a mere hint of Delia's luscious curves. Her straight hair was the color of dry corn husks, dull and flat compared to Delia's thick, golden flax, but Rilla was still a kid.

  The splat of milk hitting her milking pail told him she was attacking her task with the determination she always put toward everything. She could milk a cow without focusing. She might be looking at a fly on the wall across the barn stall. She tended to daydream while she worked, but it didn't seem to affect the outcome of what she did.

  Her eyes might be on something far away no one else could see. Then she would suddenly realize he noticed, and those same strange turquoise pools would widen and turn on him. She did have interesting, even beautiful eyes. A shade of blue-green like the ocean on a bright summer day, as he remembered it. Her eyes were the one thing about her more remarkable than any feature of Delia's, or maybe it seemed so because they made him think of his sister Bethia. She was closest to his age of all his six siblings. They had liked walking on the beach together. Last he'd heard, Bethia was planning to marry some fellow up from the Carolinas. She would probably have children right away and soon be as worn out as their mother.

  He didn't want to go there, to the life he'd left behind. So he pulled away from the direction of his thoughts and went back to teasing Rilla. They emptied their pails into a milk can and moved to the next group of cows. Mr. Eckert came into the barn then, and everyone stopped their chatter. Lang took the opportunity to glance at Delia's ankles as he dared.

  He followed her with his last pail of milk, poured it, settled the lid on the can, and heaved it toward the door. "I suppose you can't wait to get to sleep so tomorrow will come sooner."

  "I don't know if I'll be able to sleep at all."

  "You had better get your beauty sleep, or Theo won't have you. Then you really will be stuck dancing with me." He gave her a wink.