Beside Still Waters Read Online Free PDF Page A

Patches. She patted his neck and slowly moved around to the leg. After a quick inspection, it was clear why Patches had sent her sailing from his back. He’d thrown a shoe.
    “I’m sorry, boy. You must have hit a rock and bruised your hoof. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
    Blowing out a breath, Eva glanced down the road, then back toward the direction in which she’d come, debating whether to walk the rest of the way to town or go back home. The distance would be about the same. But in town she’d be able to get the flour Ma needed for Pa’s birthday cake. And she could visit the livery stable and have Patches reshoed. She could rent another horse for the ride home and leave Patches there while he healed up from the bruise.
    Her mind made up, she took hold of Patches’s reins and led him toward town. The September day brought a mild breeze. As Eva walked along the road, she lifted her face to the wind, enjoying its soothing caress.
    Normally autumn was her favorite time of year, but dread had been her constant companion all summer. The closer harvesttime came, the more aware she was that Jonesy’s time in Oregon was almost over. She tried not to think about it, tried to just enjoy their time together. Taking long rides along the river’s edge, sitting in the gazebo while Jonesy read poetry to her. She was even learning to tolerate some of the wounded-heart cries from scorned loves.
    Jonesy had made a valiant attempt to read one of her dime-store novels, but he’d declared it to be the downfall of cultured literature.
    Eva smiled at the memory. She’d tried not to show how much she was beginning to love him. Of all the men who had courted her, professed love for her, sought to marry her, Jonesy was the one who had finally caused her to surrender to love. And her heart belonged to a man who loved his dream of owning a ranch in Texas more.
    Familiar daydreams began to filter through her mind….
    Her wearing a wedding gown. Jonesy reading poetry aloud at the end of a long day of working in the fields. But he had his own dream. And that dream didn’t include marrying a girl who would tie him down to a land he didn’t love.
    What Jonesy apparently didn’t realize was that Eva would follow him anywhere. To Texas or the ends of the earth. Besides, there was something exciting in the possibility of scratching a living in a new land. Building from the ground up. Starting with nothing and ending up prosperous, the way her parents had.
    Of course, her ma had been wealthy when she’d met Pa, but they still had to work together. Pa was a craftsman, not a farmer. His furniture sold widely, and now they were one of the most prosperous families in the state. He’d done that on his own, Ma’s money notwithstanding. And though Eva’s older half brother, Greg, and twin half brother and sister, Billy and Betsy, all had large inheritances from their own pa’s estate back in Chicago, Eva’s inheritance would be just as great. Her pa had seen to that.
    Caught up in her thoughts and the enjoyment of being outdoors in the cool fall day, Eva didn’t notice the sound of horses’ hooves until it was too late to duck into the woods and hide herself. She stopped and waited as three men approached.
    Please, Lord, let them go on past
.
    “Well, look at this, boys. What do we have here?”
    Eva’s stomach churned at the man’s gruff voice. He spat a stream of tobacco juice and narrowly missed the hem of her skirt. Her knees grew weak under the lecherous scrutiny of the three men.
    Still, if there was one thing Pa had taught her about dealing with precarious situations like this, it was to never show fear.
    “You fellas lost?” Her voice trembled only slightly. She prayed they hadn’t noticed.
    The second speaker, a younger, thinner man with a scraggly red beard and a mouthful of black or broken teeth, leaned forward in his saddle. “Well, now, what makes you ask a question like that? Don’t we look like we belong in these