Keeping Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

room and down the wide, oak-lined hallway to Richard Caldwell’s study. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she knocked softly and cringed when she heard that ear-splitting, “Come on in!”
    She pushed the heavy, oak door timidly and was relieved to see her boss relaxed. He was tilting back in his great, leather chair. His feet, encased in heavy boots, were propped on his desk. His teeth flashed white in his tanned face as he smiled at her.
    “Sadie!”
    “Yes. Hello, again. I’m sorry to interrupt your…”
    Her voice was drowned out by the shrill ringing of his desk phone. Richard Caldwell motioned for her to sit down, then picked up the receiver and yelled, “Richard Caldwell speaking!”
    Sadie grimaced inwardly and imagined the person at the opposite end of the line holding the receiver away from his ear.
    She tried not to listen, her eyes roaming the bookshelves and the expensive objects of art. She noticed dust on the wooden blinds and made a mental note to take time to wipe them tomorrow when she cleaned the study.
    “Mike? No? Mark? Yeah, got it. What did you say? Paint? Pate? Can you spell that?”
    His feet clattered to the oak floor. Tipping his chair forward, he grabbed a notebook and scribbled, yelling the letters as he wrote.
    “P…ei… Huh?”
    There was a pause before he finished with the “G… H…T.”
    “Got it.”
    Then, “Yeah, come on down. I’ll talk to you. Never enough farriers to go around.”
    Another pause, then a chuckle.
    “All right. See you this afternoon.”
    Sadie’s eyes were two large pools of agitation when Richard Caldwell turned to her.
    “He sure doesn’t have a lot to say. A new farmer. Weird name. Hey, what’s wrong with you, Sadie? You look like you just swallowed your grandma.”
    “N … nothing. I mean … yes, there is. I… The children?”
    Richard Caldwell nodded.
    “They… After they had their bath and got cleaned up, they… I found a bag of … of … I think diamonds or at least jewels of some kind—in a leather … purse. It was upstairs in the bathroom. I thought you needed to know about it.”
    “What? Now come on, Sadie. Kids that dirty and tattered-looking don’t carry around bags of jewels.”
    Sadie’s eyes flashed.
    “Would I make this stuff up?” she asked.
    “No,” Richard Caldwell shook his massive head, laughing, “Not you, Sadie, not you.”
    He rose and asked her to take him to this leather satchel.
    Sadie walked down the hallway and up the wide staircase, acutely conscious of Richard Caldwell’s heavy footsteps following her. She paused at the bathroom door before walking to the well-lit counter and handing the leather bag to her employer. She watched closely as his thick fingers tried to undo the flap and then the drawstring. Muttering, he handed it to Sadie.
    “You do it.”
    Her small fingers opened the drawstring efficiently. She held the opened bag out to him, her eyes searching his. Taking the bag, he spilled the contents onto the marble countertop, bent low, and whistled.
    “What the…?”
    He looked at Sadie, then bent to examine the small mound of glittering jewels, his heavy fingers raking through them.
    “Earrings. Necklaces. Rings,” he murmured, holding each one up to the light coming from the bathroom mirror.
    There was a whisper of movement at the door, and they both turned to see the tall form of Richard Caldwell’s wife, Barbara, enter the room.
    There was a time when Barbara would have been suspicious, hateful even, of this Amish girl with the unusually beautiful face, her hair as dark as a raven’s wing, her great blue eyes fringed with naturally dark lashes.
    Sadie’s presence had been a threat until Richard Caldwell helped her nurture the sick, broken horse, Nevaeh, back to health. During that time, Barbara’s husband came to grips with his past and, as each day unfolded, he grew more loving and tender, especially toward his wife.
    Now, seeing them both in the intimacy of the upstairs