Finally a Family. Carolyne Aarsen
Читать онлайн книгу.
“This is easier.” Besides, the condition of the trailer was even sketchier. No one had cleaned the trailer since his nieces and nephews stayed in it last summer.
“Okay.” Hannah looked around again. “This is a nice place.”
“It needs some cleaning.” Ethan scratched his head, wishing he could as easily dispel the low-level headache pressing behind his eyes. “So you going to be okay? Got enough food?” he felt compelled to ask. After all, she was a city girl unaccustomed to living in the country.
“I’ve got enough for a couple weeks, I think.” Her tight smile belied her breezy confidence. “Thanks for showing me around.”
“Next time I go to town, I’ll let you know. Now that you don’t have a car.”
He’d had to pick her up from the dealership where she had rented a vehicle. He wondered why she returned it and how she was going to last without a car way out here. “Uncle Dan recommended I give you a small allowance from the farm. Just to keep you in groceries and whatever else you might need. We can settle up for that in…” He let the sentence trail off.
“In six months,” Hannah finished for him.
He wasn’t going to think that far or notice how she looked around the place—as if mentally figuring out what she could get for it.
He couldn’t think about losing this farm. He’d poured too much time and money into it. This farm had been his refuge; his second home as long as he could remember. Though his parents, Morris and Dot, lived and worked in town, Ethan had come to the farm whenever he could. His first vivid memory was of riding with his grandfather on the tractor, pulling the seed drill. First his grandfather and then his uncle had promised him this farm. His father had told him to get something in writing, but he had trusted Uncle Sam.
He should have been more hard-nosed. More businesslike.
Now he was facing the very real prospect of losing half of what he had spent most of his life working toward, and all because he hadn’t treated his own uncle like a business partner.
He put the brakes on his thoughts. She needed to stay there six months. She might not last. Concentrate only on today, he reminded himself. He thought he had learned that lesson by now, but obviously he needed reminding.
For now his focus was putting the crop in and getting the cows calved out. When that was done, he could move on to the next thing that needed his attention.
“So, I’m going to be heading out. I’ve got a few chores to do.”
“What kind of chores?”
“You wouldn’t be interested.” None of the girls he brought to the farm were; why should a city girl be?
She nodded, her expression growing hard. “You’re probably right.”
He left, carefully closing the door behind him. The sun was sinking below the horizon and he shivered a moment in the chill evening air.
Scout, his faithful dog, jumped up from his usual place by the back door and fell into step beside him, his tail wagging with the eternal optimism of dogs the world over.
“Hey, there,” he said, ruffling his dark fur. “Things are going to be different now. We’ve got someone else on the yard.” Ethan glanced back at the house.
Hannah stood in front of one of the windows. He couldn’t see her face, only her silhouette as she looked out.
“She’s probably wondering what she got herself into,” he murmured to his dog. “City girl, out in the middle of nowhere.”
The thought gave him some small measure of comfort. She wouldn’t last the six months.
He needed to call his lawyer first thing in the morning and get things going. He had no idea where he stood from a legal viewpoint, but he wasn’t going to simply roll over and watch years of hard work get siphoned off by Marla Kristoferson’s daughter.
Hannah lay in the bed, her hands folded on her stomach, her eyes focused on the ceiling, her thoughts spinning in her head.
What had she done? Was she crazy? What had made her think she could move from the middle of a city of millions out to the country with no one except one resentful man staying in a trailer nearby?
She angled her head to the side, trying to catch some noise, the tiniest note of familiarity.
But nothing. No cars. No trains. No music from rowdy neighbors. No voices outside the building.
A lot of heavy, quiet nothing in a lot of heavy, quiet darkness.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic, she reminded herself, rolling over onto her side. How could there not be any extra bit of light?
What if she had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Surely she would bump into something, fall and break her neck on her way to turn on the light, and who would be here to hear her? Who would even notice her? She’d be lying on the floor for weeks before anyone discovered her.
Hannah flopped onto her back again, pushing the fear to the side. She was crazy. Certifiable. She knew Ethan was hoping she wouldn’t last the full six months. And maybe he was right. Maybe she was too much of a city girl. Maybe she was overestimating her ability to last. She didn’t have to do this, did she?
But she did. She had no choice. The thought slithered like a snake in her belly. After moving out of her mother’s apartment, she had made a vow that she was going to be in charge of her own life, that she wasn’t going to have circumstances dictate her choices.
And here she was, pushed into a corner like some reluctant rabbit by a friend who wasn’t a friend at all. Snake was a better word.
She sighed and punched the pillow, taking out her anger at Lizzie on the pillow. Louse. Rotter. Betrayer. Her anger with Lizzie combined with her latent anger with Alex. Whatever happened to faithfulness? To working on relationships?
A high-pitched howl pierced the night and Hannah shot up, looking fearfully around as another howl joined the first. The second one was much closer. Then a third chimed in, their eerie notes slithering down the scale.
From another part of the yard the dog started barking. Ethan’s dog, she assumed. Did it know something she didn’t know? Was something crouching in the darkness, waiting, watching, its dark red eyes glowing with anticipation?
Suddenly she wished for the quiet.
She lay back on the bed, counting backward from one hundred, like Sam had taught her to do when she was little and afraid of the dark. And as she counted, lying in the house that Sam had lived in up until just a few short weeks ago, it was as if she could hear him talking to her. Telling her it would be okay.
The memory comforted her. She kept counting, out loud, her monotone voice filling the sudden silence.
Which was broken by the creaking sound of a door opening downstairs.
Her heart pitched into her throat. That something she had thought was waiting, was now trying to get into the house.
But she had locked the door.
What was she supposed to do? Call the police?
Right. And how far away were they? By the time they got here she could be buried in the back forty, the murderer laughing all the way to the border.
Hannah grabbed her housecoat and pulled it on over her pajamas, determined that she was not going to be murdered in her bed. Then she saw a broom leaning against the door.
Pretty flimsy protection, but it was better than going down empty-handed.
And where was that dog? Shouldn’t he have been barking up a storm? Or maybe the dog was already dead. Maybe the murderer had gotten to Ethan and the dog first.
Too many horror movies, Hannah reminded herself, trying to corral her runaway thoughts.