Prairie Fever by Michael Parker

Prairie fever took their two brothers and their mother was never the same after that.  She spent her life mourning them.   Their father followed all his money making ideas so he was never home.  The two girls grew close and took care of each other.  They went to school with a blanket pinned around them for warmth on the horse.  All was going well until they got a young male teacher.  He's courting the older one and it looks as if they will be married.  She goes off to college with a school debt to pay.  The teacher guaranteed it.

Algonquin Books and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published today so you can grab a copy now.

Then the younger sister asks him if he has a room in his new lodging that she could use for piano lessons.  She lives too far away for the town folk to come to her.  Here she would be on the way home from school.  He gives her a room, she teaches lessons.  Soon he's having fun talking to her.  Her mind travels in a different path than most and he finds it fascinating.  He goes to visit the older sister with a ring in his pocket but when he stops and stares at nothing, she realizes he doesn't love her anymore, he's fallen in love with her sister.  That begins a better than twenty year estrangement between the sisters.  They each go on with their lives, the young one sends odd letters but her older sister doesn't reply.

It seems the two will never resolve problems but a death in the family brings them back together again.  It will take a lot of bridge building to get close but it looks like it just might happen...