Jane Bonander Read Online Free PDF

rented that room out in months, is all.”
    “We need the money, Mahalia, and the weather is cooling off. Also, the back stoop slopes so far down on one side, I’m afraid someone will take a tumble. The extra four dollars a week will help toward fixing it.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” she said in her most subservient voice. “If you say so.”
    Libby threw her a jaundiced look. “Say what’s on your mind, Mahalia. You will sooner or later, anyway.”
    Her assistant gave her a wide-eyed look of innocence. “What could be on my mind, Miss Liberty?”
    Libby squirmed. Mahalia used formality only when she was making fun of her.
    “Why, it don’t matter a whit that he’s the nicest piece of male flesh that’s passed through Thief River in months, now, does it?”
    Feigning indifference, Libby took a sip of her coffee. “I really hadn’t noticed.”
    Mahalia’s snort was anything but delicate. “Shore, and you didn’t notice them clear blue eyes, either, or them wide, hard shoulders. Did you notice his thumbs?”
    Libby gave her a puzzled glance. “His thumbs?”
    The schoolmistress entered the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of tea. Cyclops was pressed close to her ankles, purring loudly.
    She took a chair across from Libby, making room for the cat on her lap. Since her arrival in July, she’d bonded both with the battered one-eyed cat Libby had rescued from the dump, and with Dawn. Libby attempted to squelch the nip of jealousy she experienced each time Dawn and Chloe Ann went off together, searching the woods for injured birds or unusual berries. When she wasn’t in the schoolroom, Chloe Ann Parker was merely a young, curious, energetic girl. She and Dawn had much in common, despite the difference in their ages.
    “Did you notice the new boarder, Miz Chloe Ann?”
    Chloe Ann poured a dollop of cream into her cup and stirred with dainty strokes; then she dropped some cream onto her spoon and watched Cyclops lick it off.
    “I’ve just come from school, Mahalia.” She stroked Cyclops, who showed her gratitude by nuzzling Chloe Ann’s hand.
    Libby had always been intrigued by Chloe Ann. Although she appeared both prissy and vulnerable, she had a strength beneath the surface that Libby felt was waiting to erupt. She was an eighteen-year-old girl, teetering on the brink of full-fledged womanhood. She enjoyed doing girlish things with Dawn, yet when she taught school, .she commanded each child’s attention.
    Libby envied her ability to change roles. Libby never had such a chance. Ever since her childhood, she’d worked to put food on the table. She’d never learned to play. That was why she didn’t begrudge Dawn her wistfulness. Perhaps she should have expected her own daughter to be more helpful around the rooming house, but Libby didn’t want Dawn to miss out on her childhood, as she had.
    Chloe Ann’s youthful vigor included a romantic heart. She and Libby had shared a secret or two, and although Chloe Ann had suitors galore, Libby knew she was waiting for the man of her dreams. Libby had had to bite her tongue to keep from telling her that dream men simply didn’t exist, and the sooner poets stopped filling women’s heads with such nonsense, the better off everyone would be.
    Chloe Ann turned to Libby. “We have a new boarder?”
    Libby opened her mouth to speak, but Mahalia rushed right in.
    “Yes, ma’am. A big, tall, handsome son of a—”
    “Mahalia,” Libby warned, giving her a hard glare.
    Mahalia chuckled, her large frame jiggling beneath her loose dress. “I was just askin’ Libby if she’d noticed the man’s thumbs.”
    Libby and Chloe Ann exchanged looks.
    “His thumbs?”
    “Exactly my response, Chloe Ann.” Eyeing Mahalia, Libby asked, “What in the world can you tell about a man by studying his thumbs?”
    Mahalia continued to chuckle. “Same thing you can learn by studyin’ his ears or his nose, or maybe even his big toes or the size of his feet.”
    Libby hadn’t seen a