Nan Ryan Read Online Free PDF Page A

her head and whirled away. Kurt sat back on his heels and watched her storm out the open door. He shook his dark head. The lovely widow’s aversion to him was intense. His young son’s hostility was almost as acute. It was going to be one hell of a long, uncomfortable summer.
    Kurt shrugged and went back to work.
    Inside the house, Helen stood at the cedar-lined chest of drawers where the linens were kept. She crouched down on her heels, pulled out the bottom drawer—the drawer containing discarded linens which had been mended or were permanently stained or torn. She snatched up a yellowing pair of unbleached domestic sheets and a couple of mismatched pillowcases.
    She closed the drawer, rose, and stood there with the less-than-exquisite bed linens in the crook of her arm, telling herself they were plenty good enough for a Yankee’s bed. She gave a quick, affirming nod of her head for emphasis.
    But what about the innocent little boy, a nagging inner voice asked. Should he have to sleep on such coarse linens? Should he be made to lay that small blond head on rough, ragged pillowcases because his father fought on the wrong side in the war?
    Sighing, Helen put the unbleached sheets back where she got them. From a top drawer of the chest she took out snowy-white, silky-soft sheets and a pair of matching cases with delicate lace trim. Muttering to herself, she returned to the quarters and Kurt Northway.
    Together they made up the bed with clean white sheets which smelled faintly of fragrant cedar. Carefully avoiding his forest-green eyes, Helen ran a hand over the downy soft bedding, then tucked a pillow underneath her chin and drew a lace-edged case up over it.
    She placed the pillow at the head of the bed, plumped it up, felt Kurt Northway’s eyes on her, and stiffened.
    “What is it?” she demanded, looking up in time to catch an intensely wistful expression in the depths of his green eyes. It vanished instantly and he smiled. She didn’t. She said, “Why are you staring at me, Captain?”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am.” His voice was very soft, very low. “The last woman I saw tuck a pillow under her chin to put a lace-edged case on it was my wife.” His wide shoulders lowered and lifted. “I’d forgotten it … until now … until you did it just the same way.”
    “I’m sorry if it brought back painful memories, Captain”—she picked up the second pillow, tucked it under her chin, and began pulling the freshly laundered case up it—“but this is the way I’ve always done it. The way my grandmother taught me.”
    She tossed the cased pillow to him and turned away. He caught it, lifted it to his face, inhaled deeply of the clean, fresh scent, then carefully placed it at the head of the bed beside its twin.
    Helen looked around and saw Charlie standing in the doorway, yawning, rubbing his knuckles into this eyes. She smiled at him, but her smile wasn’t returned. In a warm, soft voice she asked if he’d like to help. Charlie said nothing. Finally he turned away, sat down on the stoop, and put his chin in his hands.
    Concerned, Helen shot a questioning look at Kurt. He shook his head as if to say he didn’t know what to do about the silent Charlie.
    They themselves talked very little, an economy of words being all that was necessary to complete their tasks. When they finished in the late afternoon, the place was hardly recognizable as the same dusty, ill-kept room they’d first entered.
    New blue-and-white-checked curtains graced the many windows. The battered furniture gleamed with polish and smelled pleasantly of lemon oil. A scarf lovingly crocheted by Helen’s grandmother covered the scarred top of the highboy and a blue-and-white-checked cloth spread atop the small square table reached the clean wooden floor.
    One straight-backed chair was pulled up to the table. The others, unusable since their cane bottoms had long since worn through, were neatly stacked out of the way at the back of the room. A