Give My Love to Rose Read Online Free PDF Page B

unpleasant, but
it held no tenderness or true concern. Why was there an unfamiliar
man speaking to her? Rose’s eyes flew open and she saw the owner of
the voice crouched down in front of her. His face was mere inches
from her own and Rose found herself both captivated and
terrified.
    His eyes stole her attention. They were a
gold color unlike any she’d ever seen in her life. The skin around
them was dark and tanned, his nose was long and sharp and his face
was covered in a thick, heavy brown beard.
    “ Ma’am, are you gonna get
up?” he growled with irritation lacing his deep, gruff
voice.
    Rose reached back into her memory, wondering
who he was and where he’d come from. Suddenly the truth came
crashing back down on her.
    She remembered him riding down the hill,
letting her know her husband had sent him. Letting her know that
her husband was dead and would never be coming back to her or to
Langley. Speaking of her son…
    “ Langley!” she cried out
as she sat up suddenly and her head collided with the
stranger’s.
    “ Son of a... God! You
stupid…!” The man’s voice was a low roar as he rose up and rubbed
roughly at his head with his skillet sized hand. Rose could barely
breathe. The man was massive. He had to be close to seven feet tall
and his body was broad and thick—though judging by those muscles
currently working in his bare forearm, none of his body was
fat.
    “ Where is my son?” Rose
demanded, glancing around her for anything she could use to defend
herself. What weapon could one use against a man who was roughly
the size of an ox?
    “ I’m right over here,”
Langley’s voice came from the kitchen table. “Marston cooked me
some potatoes—I mean taters. They taste real good, mama, especially
with those peppers we had in the cellar.”
    Rose looked behind her and saw Langley
sitting at the table, his feet swinging and his plate full of
potatoes and peppers. She turned her attention back to the
stranger. “You cooked my son something eat?”
    “ Someone had to,” he
grumbled without meeting her gaze. “You were sleeping.”
    “ I wasn’t sleeping. I was
unconscious,” Rose argued as she got to her feet. Surprisingly she
did feel well rested—more rested than she had felt in years.
Unfortunately, the stranger was probably right and she probably had
been sleeping. Sleep was something she hadn’t had much time for
since Langston had been taken away. Between the work, the worry and
the nightmares sleep was a stranger.
    Thoughts of Langston had Rose’s legs
disappearing beneath her once again and she sat down hard on the
couch.
    “ I thought you were
unconscious too,” the stranger admitted as he began scooping
buttery potatoes onto a plate. “But then you started to
snore.”
    “ It was funny, mama. You
sounded like a big old bear.”
    “ What am I going to do…?”
Rose whispered to no one in particular as she remained lost in her
own thoughts. Langston was dead. How? She had just received a
letter from him just a couple weeks before saying that he had been
released and he would be coming home to her and Langley. What was
she going to do without him? She couldn’t go on supporting her and
her son alone.. she was barely hanging on as it was.
    Rose knew it was cold-hearted to be thinking
of money at a time like this, but it seemed money was all she’d
been able to think of for a long time. It was all that mattered
when your cupboards were empty, your son’s clothes were falling
apart and there were debtors breathing down your neck.
    Rose and Langston had never been in love,
but she had had tremendous fondness and respect for the man who had
saved her life and given her son a name by marrying her eleven
years ago. This was not how their life had been supposed to go!
Langston had had to go get himself tossed into prison and then get
himself shot. Now she was alone with her son and she was fresh out
of hope.
    “ What am I going to do?”
she whispered again, desperate for an