A Lantern in the Window Read Online Free PDF Page A

house,”
she said shyly, and added, “Your dinner’s waiting.”
    She’d set a place for him
at the table, and now she filled a bowl with hot soup and put
sliced bread in front of him. “You want coffee?”
    "Yes, please.” He’d grown
accustomed to serving himself. It was pleasant to have her see to
his needs.
    She filled a cup from the
enamel pot on the back of the stove and set it before him along
with a pitcher of milk. When his needs were tended to, she poured
herself coffee as well and took the chair opposite him at the
table.
    "The storm’s stopped,” she
said in a conversational tone.
    "Yes, it’s died down.
Temperature’s dropping, though. It’ll be a cold night.”
    Obviously, she’d decided
to postpone serious discussion until after he’d eaten, and he was
grateful. He was as hungry as a wolf. He spooned in the delicious
soup, sopping up the juice with thick slabs of bread. She sipped
her coffee and refilled his soup bowl before he could ask, and once
she got up and restocked the heater. In spite of himself, he
noticed how quick she was, lithe and light on her feet.
    When at last he was
comfortably full, he sat back with a second mug of coffee,
wondering just where to begin, and while he pondered, she bested
him.
    "I made your father’s
acquaintance,” she said in a quiet tone. "He wanted water, and when
I brought it, he spilled it and threw the glass at me. I didn’t
clean up the splinters. I was afraid he might take it in his head
to hit me with that cane if I ventured back in there. He’s not very
easy to get on with.”
    So instead of accusing her
the way he’d planned, Noah somehow found himself on the defensive.
"My father had a stroke just before Christmas. Before that, he was
a strong and independent man.”
    He’d also been Noah’s best
friend. “He finds it hard to be bedridden and helpless.”
    She gave him a level look.
"I can understand that. It’s a terrible thing to depend on other
people for everything. But you didn’t tell me how sick he really
was, in your letters. You said he was in ill health, but I took
that to mean he’d get better. Is he going to?”
    He blew out his breath and
shook his head, holding her gaze. It was hard to put into words,
hard to believe even after all these months, that his father had
become the pitiful, angry man in the bed in the other room. The
agony in Noah's heart made it hard to speak. “No. This is pretty
much how it’s going to be, according to Doc
Witherspoon.”
    She nodded slowly, a frown
creasing her brow. "And he needs a whole lot of caring for.” It
wasn’t a question.
    A muscle in Noah’s jaw
twitched as he saw the direction this was taking. "Yes, he does.”
His voice was dangerously quiet. She wasn't about to have this her
own way. He took control again, his voice harsh. “And I don't
suppose you know any more about taking care of sick folks than you
do about farming,” he said.
    “Matter
of fact, I do.” She lifted her chin and looked him square in the
eye. "My mama was sick for two years before she died, and between
us Bets and I cared for her as well as we knew. The last few months, she couldn’t get out of bed
either.”
    “And where was your
father?” He watched her closely, wondering how he’d even know if
she was lying again.
    She met his eyes, honest
and forthright, and her full lips tightened. Her expression made
her look much older suddenly. "He was drunk, mostly. He wasn’t
mean, like some who drink, just sad and useless. He never could
keep a job very long.”
    Noah knew of men who
drank. He enjoyed a whisky now and then, but along with all the
other things Zach had taught him was a respect for spirits and what
they could do to a man.
    "How did you
live?”
    “My mama was a seamstress,
a good one. She managed to feed us and pay the rent until she got
sick,” Annie said. “Then I got the job in the factory, and that
helped. But after Mama died, I couldn’t manage any more to feed us
and pay the rent, so