The Bargain

Clare Hobb is plagued by the strict boundaries her iron-handed uncles impose at Hobbs’ Mills, the family conclave. She’s in love with Larkin Wade, a handsome farmer the uncles disdain. During a tryst between Clare and Larkin, they find her beloved, brain-damaged father, Frank, vainly attempting to aid his brother, Samuel, in a wagon runaway accident. It is a festering sore with her uncles that the mentally deficient brother they could do without survives, while Samuel, strong family leader, is fatally injured. Guilt that she might have helped prevent the accident brings Clare to painfully end her romance with Larkin and pledge full attention to her family. She’ll be the buffer between her father and her extended family’s continuing ill-treatment of him. But nothing seems to be enough and when her uncles will have her father committed to an institution, Clare knows it’s time to take her parents and siblings from Hobbs Mills for good. Would a new life in Kansas where Larkin has gone ahead be the answer? Will he wait? Is it possible, ever, to bargain true love away?