Stay With Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

all I got left is the one
on my back.”
    What had Sarah One done to put that chip on
John’s shoulder?
    Fred reached into his saddlebag, digging
deep. “Here,” he said. “I packed an extra shirt. You might as well
wear it.”
    Sarah unrolled the bundle he handed to her.
She held it up. “Perfect,” she said, and slipped it over her head.
She pushed her arms through and pulled the material down over her
hips. It came almost to her knees. She knew she looked like she’d
stepped into a brown sack. “I’m ready,” she said, looking from Fred
to John.
    “John?” Fred questioned, clearly not sure
what to do.
    “Take her,” John said. “Just don’t say I
didn’t warn you.” He turned on his heel and walked toward the
barn.
    That did it. She’d make him eat the damn
dirt.
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Fred smelled a bit like violets. She hadn’t
expected that. He’d waited until John had walked into the barn
before getting back on his horse. Then he’d offered her one of his
huge hands and literally swung her off the ground. His big frame
left little room in the saddle so she’d ended up with her bottom
just resting on a tiny bit of space in front of the saddle horn.
Fred held the reins, each strong arms extended, with her back
balanced against his right forearm and her legs, bent at the knees,
thrown over his left forearm.
    She’d simply closed her eyes, hoping that the
horse would have the good manners to step over her in the likely
event that Fred dropped her. But he hadn’t. And now fifteen minutes
later, all thoughts of violets gone, she stood in front of his
house and three red-haired children, all barefoot, all with dirty
faces, one with fresh blood on his knee, stared at her.
    “This is Helen, Thomas and Missy,” Fred
said.
    “Hello.” Sarah smiled at them. “I’m
Sarah.”
    “Mrs. Beckett is going to take care of you,”
Fred explained.
    The oldest girl put her hands on her narrow
hips. “We don’t need somebody else to take care of us. I can do
it.”
    “Helen,” Fred said, “don’t be rude.”
    “Miss Suzanne has prettier dresses,” Helen
said, her pointed chin stuck out in defiance.
    “Be quiet,” Fred admonished his daughter.
    “Who is Miss Suzanne?” Thomas asked.
    Neither Fred nor his oldest daughter seemed
inclined to answer. They simply stared at each other.
    “What did you do to your knee, Thomas?” Sarah
asked the boy, hoping to break the silence.
    “Fell off the roof of the privy,” he
said.
    “Great. You do that often?” she asked,
thinking it could be a long six days. She moved a step closer to
the children and squatted down in front of the youngest girl. “You
must be Missy. M. I. S. S. Y.” She signed the girl’s name as she
spoke each letter. Then did it a second time.
    Sarah reached for the little girl’s hand but
Missy jerked it back. Then slowly, with infinite care, the child
spelled her own name, fumbling a little on the Y. When she
finished, she looked absolutely triumphant. Her eyes were big and a
wide grin split her face.
    Sarah thought her own face probably matched.
“She signs! Do all of you?”
    “No,” Fred said, his voice more subdued than
before. “Franny had gotten a book and she was teaching her before
she…” He stopped and ran a big hand over the top of Thomas’s head.
“Anyway,” he said, his voice husky, “where’d you learn to talk to
the deaf, Sarah?”
    Her mother had been deaf. It had never
stopped them from having wonderful conversations. Even now, with
her parents both dead for more than five years, she missed them
terribly. “I picked it up a while back. Do you mind if I teach
Missy and the other children a few words while I’m here?”
    “I guess not. Does John know you can do
this?”
    “No. If you don’t mind,” she said, turning
back toward the big man, “let’s keep it our little secret.”
    Fred snorted. “Seems like all I do
lately.”
    “Pardon me?” Sarah said.
    “Never mind.” Fred waved off her