Elisabeth suppressed a shudder.
“Sister,” Roberta interceded somewhat sharply. “You’re upsetting Elisabeth.”
“I’m fine,” Elisabeth lied. “Just fine.”
“Maybe we’d better be going,” said Cecily, patting Elisabeth’s arm. “And don’t worry about poor little Trista. She’s quite harmless, you know.”
The moment the two women were gone, Elisabeth hurried to the old-fashioned black telephone on the entryway table and dialed Rue’s number in Chicago.
An answering machine picked up on the third ring. “Hi, there, whoever you are,” Rue’s voice said energetically. “I’m away on a special project, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone this time. If you’re planning to rob my condo, please be sure to take the couch. If not, leave your name and number and I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I can. Ciao, and don’t forget to wait for the beep.”
Elisabeth’s throat was tight; even though she’d known Rue was probably away, she’d hoped, by some miraculous accident, to catch her cousin between assignments. “Hi, Rue,” she said. “It’s Beth. I’ve moved into the house and—well—I’d just like to talk, that’s all. Could you call as soon as you get in?” Elisabeth recited the number and hung up.
She pushed up the sleeves of her shirt and started for the kitchen. Earlier, she’d seen cleaning supplies in the broom closet, and heaven knew, the place needed some attention.
Jonathan Fortner rubbed the aching muscles at his nape with one hand as he walked wearily through the darkness toward the lighted house. His medical bag seemed heavier than usual as he mounted the back steps and opened the door.
The spacious kitchen was empty, though a lantern glowed in the center of the red-and-white-checked tablecloth.
Jonathan set his bag on a shelf beside the door, hung up his hat, shrugged out of his suitcoat and loosened his string tie. Sheer loneliness ached in his middle as he crossed the room to the stove with its highly polished chrome.
His dinner was congealing in the warming oven, as usual. Jonathan unfastened his cuff links, dropped them into the pocket of his trousers and rolled up his sleeves. Then, taking a kettle from the stove, he poured hot water into a basin, added two dippers of cold from the bucket beside the sink and began scrubbing his hands with strong yellow soap.
“Papa?”
He turned with a weary smile to see Trista standing at the bottom of the rear stairway, wearing her nightgown. “Hello, Punkin,” he said. A frown furrowed his brow. “Ellen’s here, isn’t she? You haven’t been home alone all this time?”
Trista resembled him instead of Barbara, with her dark hair and gray eyes, and it was a mercy not to be reminded of his wife every time he looked at his daughter.
“Ellen had to go home after supper,” Trista said, drawing back a chair and joining Jonathan at the table as he sat down to eat. “Her brother Billy came to get her. Said the cows got out.”
Jonathan’s jawline tightened momentarily. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told that girl…”
Trista laughed and reached out to cover his hand with her own. “I’m big enough to be alone for a few hours, Papa,” she said.
Jonathan dragged his fork through the lumpy mashed potatoes on his plate and sighed. “You’re eight years old,” he reminded her.
“Maggie Simpkins is eight, too, and she cooks for her father and all her brothers.”
“And she’s more like an old woman than a child,” Jonathan said quietly. It seemed he saw elderly children every day, though God knew things were better here in Pine River than in the cities. “You just leave the housekeeping to Ellen and concentrate on being a little girl. You’ll be a woman soon enough.”
Trista looked pointedly at the scorched, shriveled food on her father’s plate. “If you want to go on eating that awful stuff, it’s your choice.” She sighed, set her elbows on the table’s edge and cupped her chin in her palms. “Maybe you should get married again, Papa.”
Jonathan gave up on his dinner and pushed the plate away. Just the suggestion filled him with loneliness—and fear. “And maybe you should get back to bed,” he said brusquely, avoiding Trista’s eyes while he took his watch from his vest pocket and frowned at the time. “It’s late.”
His daughter sighed again, collected his plate and scraped the contents into the scrap pan for the neighbor’s pigs. “Is it because you still love Mama that you don’t want to get another wife?” Trista inquired.
Jonathan went to the stove for a mug of Ellen’s coffee, which had all the pungency of paint solvent. There were a lot of things he hadn’t told Trista about her mother, and one of them was that there had never really been any love between the two of them. Another was that Barbara hadn’t died in a distant accident, she’d deliberately abandoned her husband and child. Jonathan had gone quietly to Olympia and petitioned the state legislature for a divorce. “Wives aren’t like wheelbarrows and soap flakes, Trista,” he said hoarsely. “You can’t just go to the mercantile and buy one.”
“There are plenty of ladies in Pine River who are sweet on you,” Trista insisted. Maybe she was only eight, but at times she had the forceful nature of a dowager duchess. “Miss Jinnie Potts, for one.”
Jonathan turned to face his daughter, his cup halfway to his lips, his gaze stern. “To bed, Trista,” he said firmly.
She scampered across the kitchen in a flurry of dark hair and flannel and threw her arms around his middle. “Good night, Papa,” she said, squeezing him, totally disarming him in that way that no other female could. “I love you.”
He bent to kiss the top of her head. “I love you, too,” he said, his voice gruff.
Trista gave him one last hug, then turned and hurried up the stairs. Without her, the kitchen was cold and empty again.
Jonathan poured his coffee into the iron sink and reached out to turn down the wick on the kerosene lantern standing in the center of the table. Instantly, the kitchen was black with gloom, but Jonathan’s steps didn’t falter as he crossed the room and started up the stairs.
He’d been finding his way in the dark for a long time.
Chapter Two
Apple-blossom petals blew against the dark sky like snow as Elisabeth pulled into her driveway early that evening, after making a brief trip to Pine River. Her khaki skirt clung to her legs as she hurried to carry in four paper bags full of groceries.
She had just completed the second trip when a crash of thunder shook the windows in their sturdy sills and lightning lit the kitchen.
Methodically, Elisabeth put her food away in the cupboards and the refrigerator, trying to ignore the sounds of the storm. Although she wasn’t exactly afraid of noisy weather, it always left her feeling unnerved.
She had just put a portion of the Buzbee sisters’ casserole in the oven and was preparing to make a green salad when the telephone rang. “Hello,” she said, balancing the receiver between her ear and shoulder so that she could go on with her work.
“Hello, darling,” her father said in his deep and always slightly distracted voice. “How’s my baby?”
Elisabeth smiled and scooped chopped tomatoes into the salad bowl. “I’m fine, Daddy. Where are you?”
He chuckled ruefully. “You know what they say—if it’s Wednesday, this must be Cleveland. I’m on another business trip.”
That was certainly nothing new. Marcus Claridge had been on the road ever since he had started his consulting business when Elisabeth was little. “How are Traci and the baby?” she asked. Just eighteen months before