Heartland Giving

He’s dating one sister and falling for the other.

Originally diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease, Esther MacCartney is frustrated because she’s been bedridden for months and doctors can’t tell her if she’ll ever be well again. The only person who’s visited her regularly is her sister’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Monroe.

He makes her laugh and treats her like he enjoys her company. But her sister has a job offer off the farm and Esther is afraid Monroe will propose to get her to stay.

Monroe Hutchison is spending the winter in Prairie Rose, Iowa, and thinking about settling there permanently. The MacCartney sister that’s he’s been kind of dating would make an excellent farmer’s wife, but it’s her younger sister, Esther, who makes him laugh. He enjoys her company and sometimes forgets that she never gets up from the couch and could never handle the rigorous life of a farmer’s wife.

If he kisses one, can he forget about the other? But which sister does he want to kiss?

Will Esther ever get better? Could Monroe sacrifice the dream he’s had since childhood to be able to care for the sister who captivates him? Or will he be like everyone else and overlook her charm because of her sickness?

They’re all wrong for each other, but why does being together feel so right?

Chapter 1

Esther McCartney pushed the grocery store cart in front of her, trying not to lean too
heavily on it.

Grocery shopping had always been one of her least favorite chores, but not today. Today,
she was celebrating the fact that she was actually in a grocery store.

It was the first time she’d been shopping in more than a year.

It felt like a huge victory, but she was already exhausted, and she hadn’t even
made it to the checkout line yet.

Checking her phone, making sure she’d gotten everything on the short list that her sisters had put together with her, she took a deep breath and started toward the self-checkout, wondering how she was going to get everything checked out and loaded in the car when all she felt like doing was lying down with her face on the floor and resting for several hours at least.

For her first outing in months, she should have been content to drive to Prairie Rose and take a letter to the post office or something.

But no, she had felt so well today she volunteered to go shopping.

After her sisters had gotten over their shock and Candace had voiced her disapproval, they had helped her figure out what they needed.

As the eldest, Candace felt like she was in charge most of the time.

Mostly they were happy for her—even if they were a little worried too.

For the last month, Esther had started on a new diet and a natural supplement regimen,
and it had helped.

To the point where she felt like she could leave the farm and run an errand like
grocery shopping.

She had been overly optimistic and probably should have listened to Candace, who
had suggested she not do something quite so ambitious for her first excursion
to town in close to a year.

She hated it when her elder sister was right.

Especially when that made her wrong.

Panting like she’d run a marathon instead of walked halfway around the grocery store putting
less than 20 items in her cart, she leaned heavily on the handle as she turned the corner to go left toward the self-checkout. At least at the self-checkout,
she could take as much time as she needed.

But her judgment was off, and she cut the corner too closely, clipping the edge of a carefully stacked pyramid of chocolate sandwich cookies, and the entire thing
came tumbling down around her and her cart.

It was bad enough to destroy someone’s hard work, but the noise reverberated so that
everyone in the store was craning their necks to see what had happened.

Prairie Rose was a small town, and she’d already been stopped at least fifteen times by
pretty much every shopper she passed, asking about her health.

It was one of her pet peeves of being sick, people asking her how she was. If she was well, she’d be doing a regular routine. Since she wasn’t, she obviously didn’t feel great, and she hated continually having to come up with words that didn’t sound too negative. Like yeah, I feel rotten, but I’m up anyway.
Or yeah, I feel terrible, that’s why I’m on the couch.

Bending down to begin to pick up the containers of cookies that had fallen everywhere, she fought the fatigue and the nausea that weakened her knees even while her cheeks heated and embarrassment made her want to sink into the floor.

She wasn’t so desperate for attention that she needed to knock down a display so everyone in the store would stop and look at her.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll get it.” Tara, the teenage cashier that Esther had known since birth, panted as she hurried over, hot and sweaty, and knelt down to help.

“You can go back to your register. I’ll help. You guys are already shorthanded
because of everyone having off to get ready for the Christmas parade tonight.”
A deep voice, familiar, spoke just over Esther’s head.

It wasn’t one she particularly wanted to hear. Not when she was feeling like she could barely lift her hands and was kneeling in front of a huge mess that
needed to be cleaned up.

“Are you sure, Monroe?” Tara said, relief in her tone but also a question.

“Yeah. I think we can stack these back the way they were without too much trouble, and
that way the folks waiting in line won’t be mad at us.”

Tara nodded, giving Esther a smile and a wave before she hurried back to her register.

“Us?” Esther asked, the exhaustion in her voice making her want to cringe. “I don’t recall seeing you around when I knocked it down.”

“No one can ever tell the difference between you and your sister anyway. They’ll just think we were together.”

That was probably true. Candace, who had been casually dating Monroe for a while,
looked almost exactly like Esther. Their personalities were completely
different, but people often confused them, and when they were together, people
asked if they were twins.

It really wasn’t what she wanted people to think, though.

But she did appreciate the help.

“What are you doing out anyway? Are you and your sisters so desperate for groceries that you’ll starve to death if you don’t show up at the store?” Monroe asked, his tone low, as they knelt together picking up the packages. She doing it much
slower than he.

“You know I’ve been feeling better since I started on those new supplements. But I
think I might have bitten off more than I could chew.”

She wouldn’t have admitted that to just anyone, but Monroe had been at their house a good bit because of Candace. Often, while he was waiting for Candace to get ready,
he sat and talked to Esther.

Sometimes he’d come to visit her, just because.

He was pretty much the only one; Esther had been confined to the house for so long
that people seemed to have forgotten about her.

“Moxie,” he said, using the nickname he’d started calling her after all the time they’d
spent together while waiting for Candace to get ready.

She didn’t look at him, focusing on getting the mess cleaned up with her last bit
of energy. If she had to let her cart sit in the store, she would.

His
hand settled on hers, and he said, “Moxie,” more forcefully this time, and her
hand stilled. She looked up.

“I’ve
got this. You look like you’re about ready to fall over. Go on and sit down on
the bench on the other side of the cash registers. I’ll get this, then I’ll get
your groceries, and then I’ll help you out.”

“No.
Really. I can do this.”

“Of
course, you can. Eventually. But this is your first time out of the house in almost
a year. You’ve already done enough. You’re going to hurt yourself or hurt
someone else.”

She
glared at him. Not wanting to hear the truth. But knowing he was right.

“All
right, fine. You sit there. Let me do this. Then we’ll check out together,
okay?”

She
didn’t want her eyes to fill with tears. They weren’t sad tears or weak tears;
they were frustrated tears. She had been healthy and energetic and active all of
her life. Why was she so weak and tired now?

Trust
me. Every trial is for a reason.

She
closed her eyes and said a quick prayer—Help me, Lord—before she relaxed
her hands, putting them in her lap while she knelt on the floor. Resting. While
Monroe picked up everything.

She’d
fought her diagnosis, fought the exhaustion, fought everything that had been
laid on her, and she wouldn’t quit fighting, but at the same time, she could
also accept that this whole trial was from the Lord. He wanted her to grow.
Maybe to gain some compassion. She’d been trying.

“I
would argue with you, but even if you give in, I can’t really help you,” she
said, pushing the sour thoughts away, allowing her face to relax into a smile.

“That’s
my Moxie,” Monroe said casually as his eyes lifted to hers and they shared a
smile.

“When
I feel better, I’m going to win an argument with you,” she said, but her words
lacked the force that she wanted to have behind them.

“You
keep telling yourself that,” he said, taking four packages in his hand and
twisting them around, setting them down on the perfect pyramid he was building.

“You
probably ought to slow down a little. You’ll have the manager here wanting to
hire you.”

Monroe
laughed. “Sometimes I think it would be better to work in a grocery store. I
wouldn’t be gone so much anyway.”

Esther’s
eyes popped open. She hadn’t realized being gone for long stretches of time
bothered him. “I thought you liked touring the country?”

“I
do. If I hadn’t gotten to work on my dad’s harvest crew, I wouldn’t have been
able to see nearly as much of it as what I have. But I guess it’s always nice
to come home to Iowa, and sometimes I do wish for regular hours and a regular
schedule. Even though I love what I do.”

He
slapped another four packages carefully on the pyramid, then lifted his eyes to
look at her.

They
had talked enough that she knew exactly what he was saying. He had always
spoken in glowing terms about his job, about how much he loved the wide-open
skies, the feeling of friendship and pulling together he felt on the harvest
crew. How he loved working for American farmers, and what a sense of pride it
gave him to see the beauty of the country and knowing he was helping to feed
it.

She
had always been proud in the same way of the jobs she had. Of the hog barns
they had that produced meat to supply to the country. When she wasn’t being
bitter and angry at her circumstances, she loved listening to Monroe talk about
his experiences. Because she could relate—even if she did her part
by just staying on their farm.

But
she’d always been active and involved, and if she hadn’t been laid up, she might
have fiddled with the idea of hiring on to a harvest crew and seeing what it
was all about.

Her
sisters had managed the farm for the last year, almost completely without her
help, so it was pretty obvious to her that although three people made the work
lighter, they weren’t necessary in order to run the farm.

A
wave of dizziness made her sway, and her hand came up, grabbing Monroe’s wide
shoulder.

His
head turned immediately. His brows lifted.

“You
look like you’re going to pass out.” He put the packages down that he held in his
hand and turned to her, taking both of her hands in his and standing. “Come on.
Can you walk to the bench?”

His
words were gentle. There was no censure or impatience. His touch was almost
tender, and she found herself standing without protest.

“I
know it would embarrass you if I carried you, but that’s really what I want to
do,” Monroe murmured, putting his arm around her waist and allowing her to lean
into his strength.

“I
can do it,” she said, hating the breathless gasps around the words and the
empty feeling in her chest like she just didn’t have any strength or air while
her heart felt weak and anemic.

Monroe
didn’t say anything more but walked beside her as they passed the registers
toward the bench.

Esther
concentrated on putting one foot in front of another, but she didn’t miss Tara’s
concerned glance as she looked up from where she was checking an elderly lady
out.

“I’ll
get the rest of those in a minute. I wanted Esther to sit down for a bit,” Monroe
said, and Esther assumed Tara had given him a questioning glance.

She
hated to be the center of attention in such a terrible way, but she also felt
grateful that he was helping her over. He was right. She was on the verge of
passing out. It would be worse to be flat out on the floor in the middle of the
grocery store than it was to be helped to a bench.