Redeeming Grace. Emma Miller

offer. I see no reason, because she’d be working for you and your grandfather and Albert, that Bishop Atlee should disapprove. Charley’s sister Mary still cleans house for you, doesn’t she?”

      “Yes,” John replied.

      “You’ll give me a chance?” Grace asked eagerly. “I have kennel experience. My foster mother bred all kinds of dogs and sold the puppies. I cleaned cages, fed and groomed dogs, delivered puppies and did basic medical care for five years.”

      “How many dogs did she have?” John asked.

      Grace shrugged. “It depended. Sometimes more than a hundred.” She met his gaze. “I suppose it was a puppy mill, but Mrs. Klinger took good care of her dogs. She had a vet that came out to the house regularly. She fed her dogs well, and their cages were always clean and dry.” I should know, she thought. I spent enough hours on my hands and knees scrubbing them.

      “Five years.” Hannah was watching Grace. Making her self-conscious. “How old were you?”

      Grace lowered her gaze to her cup of coffee, then looked up again. “Twelve when I went to live with Mrs. Klinger.”

      There were three other foster mothers and a group home before Mrs. Klinger, in the year after her mother died. After that, Sunny Acres Kennel didn’t seem so bad. Grace had had to work hard seven days a week, but as long as she kept up with her chores, behaved herself in church and didn’t fight with the other foster kids, Mrs. Klinger was nice enough to her.

      At least she’d gotten to stay in the same school longer than she ever had before. It wasn’t like when she lived with Trudie. With her mother, she missed a lot of school. Once, when Grace was eight, she’d gotten off the school bus to find their trailer empty and all their stuff gone. She’d sat on the step crying until long after dark before her mother came back for her.

      “It sounds as if you have the experience we need,” John said.

      Maybe more experience than I care to share or you’d want to hear about, Grace thought as she clasped her hands together under the table where no one would see. Her stomach clenched. She didn’t like deceiving good people, but if they knew her for what she really was, they’d show her and Dakota the door.

      John nodded. “Let me see what Uncle Albert thinks while Hannah checks with Bishop Atlee.”

      It was all Grace could do to not let out a sigh of relief that no one had asked why she’d ended her stint at Sunny Acres at age sixteen. What would they think of her if they knew she’d run away from the foster home? She’d had her reasons, good reasons, but quitting high school and living on her own hadn’t been easy. Many a night she’d slept in someone’s barn or went to sleep hungry. She’d never stolen anything and she’d never begged. Somehow, with God’s help, she’d survived. And she’d never quit going to church wherever and whenever she could. Somehow, sitting in the back of a church, no matter which denomination, had helped to fill the emptiness inside her.