After the Frost Read Online Free PDF Page A

about," or "what did you say?" Belle was there in the room with them even though she'd been gone for an entire day. "She's always been willful."
    "Willful." Rand laughed shortly. "That's diplomatic."
    "What would you have me say?" Lillian was achingly calm as she rose from the rocker and put aside the periodical. She went to the stove as if she had a purpose, as if there was something for her to do, but she just stood there, her callused fingers playing over the jars of pears still resting on the sideboard, her hand casting shadows over the glass glinting in the lamplight. She didn't look at him. "I didn't expect to see her again."
    There was something in her voice, something he didn't recognize, but it didn't sound like the sorrow or distress he expected. It was more like—fear. Rand frowned. "Neither did I."
    "What will you do?"
    He took a deep breath, buried his face in his hands. He had no idea what to do. The last hours it was all he'd thought about, even through the distraction of dinner and cutting Sarah's hair. Belle never left his mind, as much as he tried to force her out. Jesus, he wished he could just tell her to stay away and trust her to do it, wished he could put physical space between them—so much of it, and so hard to cross, that she wouldn't even attempt getting near him or Sarah. God, how he wished.
    But he couldn't do those things, and he knew it.
    "I don't know," he said wearily, looking up. Lillian was watching him impassively, and he wondered what she was thinking. "I can tell her to get off the farm, but I don't guess that will work for long."
    "No." The word came out on a whoosh of breath. Lillian picked up the coffeepot, made to pour herself a cup, and then set the heavy tin pot back on the stove without taking any. "Belle does what she wants."
    The fear was in her voice again. It surprised him. Not because she struggled to hide it but because it was there at all. He tried to remember if he'd heard it from her before, but he couldn't. They'd made it a point never to talk about Belle. He'd assumed it was because Lillian knew how much the subject pained him.
    But now he wondered if she had other reasons as well, reasons that had nothing to do with him.
    He had never bothered to wonder how Lillian felt after Belle left. The truth was he'd been too twisted up by his own emotions to care. Now when he thought about that time, his memories were clouded by fear and guilt. He could no longer see it clearly, and there were days when he wondered if he ever had. In his memories Lillian was only a formless blur. He remembered coming home from Cleveland and her telling him Belle was gone, remembered her saying Belle was pregnant but that was all. If she had been angry or condemning then, he had forgotten. He'd never even had a hint that she might be afraid.
    Now Rand thought about asking her about it, but he thought better of it. The two of them had a courteous, careful relationship. He'd been almost grown—nearly eighteen—when she married his father, and Lillian had never been a mother to him. But after Henry died, she just kept on taking care of the farmhouse—and Rand— as if nothing had changed.
    And he liked it that way, liked the way the days had led one into the other, always the same, sunrise to sunset; requiring no thought, nothing more than daily routines that only changed with the seasons.
    Damn Belle for coming back, for trying to change things. Damn her for making him have to decide on a course of action when all he really wanted to do was go on, day after day, without having to think or act or do anything more than grow corn and oats and hogs.
    Rand closed his eyes, feeling anger well up inside him, struggling to force it away. From upstairs came the sound of footsteps. Rand glanced at the ceiling. "She'll try to take Sarah. We'll have to watch her," he said finally, slowly. "Every moment."
    "You think watching her will be enough?"
    "There's no other choice," he said, hearing the faint edge of