Come Spring Read Online Free PDF

sun and let its warmth vie with the chilly air that touched her skin, she tried to remember what she could of the years her family had lived on the Dakota plains. From the time she was two years old until she was seven, Caleb had been stationed at the Sioux reservation at Pine Ridge. She knew they had a small wooden house, that she had been jealous of Kase because he had been allowed to learn to ride and later to shoot a revolver, and that her mother had kept her close to her side. She thought she remembered the same endless stretch of sky that she saw now, and the wind that never seemed to rest, but that was all.
    She rubbed her hands together, cupped one around the other, and blew on them to bring some warmth to her numb fingers. Then she folded her arms, hoping to keep the cold at bay a little while longer as she enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine. When she heard footsteps behind her, Annika slowed her pace, hoping to strike up a conversation with one of the other passengers. A young couple walked past her, nodded, and moved on. She heard them speaking a language that sounded Germanic, but it was not Dutch, which she had learned from her mother. She watched as they moved on down the tracks together.
    For a moment she felt a fleeting loneliness as she watched the young lovers walk away hand in hand. If she had not called off her wedding, she and Richard would have been married for two months now. They would have shared their first Christmas together and perhaps, she thought with a shiver, she might even be carrying his child. Her loneliness gradually ebbed when she silently admitted to herself that she did not think she was ready to face motherhood and all of its inherent restrictions yet.
    Richard had been shocked, but kind and understanding when she broke their engagement. During the holidays and all of January while she corresponded with Rose and Kase and prepared to go to Wyoming, Richard had continued to call on her. He had even accompanied Caleb, Analisa, and Ruth to the station to see her off. Willing to give her time to find herself, he told her to see some of the world on her own, to take as long as she needed. On that last day in Boston as the train was about to pull out of the station, he held her hands and promised to be waiting for her in six months when she returned. When she tried to return his ring, he refused to accept it. She left it in her mother’s care.
    His acceptance of her decision was smoothly acknowledged without shouting or tears. But then, Richard had always done the right thing, the acceptable thing, throughout their courtship. Following the strict rules set down by society, he had never offered her his arm in the daytime until they were engaged, nor did he give her gifts until she had agreed to marry him. He refused to stand outside her door to bid her good night longer than the proper five minutes, and on those occasions when she asked him in, Richard politely left after the respectable time limit of a half hour had passed.
    He had been as predictable in his agreement to give her time to think things through as she had expected, and now that she could look back over their brief relationship, it was that very predictability that she was running from. Life with Richard would always be sane and safe, predictable and proper. Those were the qualities her parents had seen in him and admired. It was not necessarily the life she wanted.
    The wind whipped the edges of her cloak open, so she tugged them closed and held them, but her hands were freezing. When she stumbled, nearly turning her ankle on a loose rock, Annika decided that her brief sojourn outdoors should reach its end. She took a last, deep breath of the winter air and turned around. Farther down the line, passengers were huddled in small groups, talking idly, staring at the landscape around them as if, like Rip van Winkle, they had slept for years.
    As she approached the sleeper, she was forced to step aside to allow a passenger to descend