Twice Loved (copy2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Clapping each other’s backs, they separated, smiling—blue eyes gazing into bluer—quite unable to speak just yet.
    An old yellow dog with graying muzzle filled the breach by shambling to her feet and lurching forward, her tail wagging in joyful welcome.
    “Ship!” Rye exclaimed, going down on one knee to scratch the dog’s face affectionately. “What’re y’ doing here?”
    Ah, what a sight, his father thought, to see the lad’s head bent over that dog again. “Beast seemed t’ think y’d come here if y’ ever made it back. Left the house on the hill and wasn’t anybody gettin’ ’er t’ stay up there without y’. Been waitin’ here these five years.”
    Rye lowered his face, one hand on either side of the dog’s head, and the old Labrador squirmed as best she could, swiping her pink tongue at the man’s chin as Rye laughed and backed away, then changed his mind and leaned forward for a pair of wet slashes from the tongue.
    He’d had the dog since he was a boy, when the yellow Labrador was found swimming ashore from a shipwreck off the shoals. Put up for grabs, the pup had immediately been appropriated by young Rye Dalton and named Shipwreck.
    Finding old Ship waiting, whining a loyal welcome, Rye thought: Here at last is something the same as it used to be.
    The old man clamped his teeth around his pipestem, watching Rye and the dog, joyful at the boy’s return, but sorrowed that Martha wasn’t here to share the moment.
    “So the old harpy didn’t get y’ after all,” Josiah noted caustically, chuckling deep in his throat to cover emotions too deep to be conveyed any other way.
    “Nay.” Rye raised his eyes, still scratching the dog’s ears. “She tried her best, but I was put off ship just before the wreck, with a case of smallpox.”
    The pipestem was pointed at Rye’s face. “So I see. How bad was it?”
    “Just bad enough to save my life.”
    “Ayup,” Josiah grunted, scrutinizing with his squint-eye.
    Rye stood up, rested his hands on his hips, and scanned the cooperage. “Been some changes around here,” he noted solemnly.
    “Aye, and aplenty.”
    Their eyes met, each of them saddened by the tricks five years had played on them.
    “Seems we’ve each lost a woman,” the younger man said gravely. The dog nudged his knee, but he hardly noticed as he gazed into his father’s eyes, noting the new lines etched about them, the threatening tears glistening there.
    “So y’ve already heard.” Josiah studied his pipe, rubbing its warm bowl with his thumb as if it were a woman’s jaw.
    “Aye,” came the quiet reply.
    The dog reared up and leaned against Rye’s hip, pushing him slightly off balance. Again he seemed not to notice. His hand unconsciously sought the golden head, moving on it absently as he watched his father rub the bowl of the brier-wood pipe. “It won’t seem the same, goin’ upstairs without her there.”
    “Well, she had a good life, though she died sad to think y’d been drowned at sea. Seemed she never quite got over the news. Reckon she knew you was safe long before I did, though,” Josiah said with a sad smile for his son.
    “How’d she die?”
    “The damps got her ... the cold and damps. She got lung fever and was gone in three short days, burnin’ up and shiverin’ both at once. Wasn’t a thing that could be done. It was March, and you know how gray the Gray Lady can be in March,” he said. But he spoke without rancor, for anyone born to the island knew its foggy temperament and accepted it as part of life ... and of death as well.
    “Aye, she can be a wicked bitch then,” Rye agreed.
    The old man sighed and clapped Rye on the shoulder. “Ah well, I’ve got used t’ life without y’r mother, as used t’ it as I’ll ever get. But you—” Josiah left the thought dangling as he studied his son quizzically.
    Rye’s glance went to the window.
    “Y’ve been up the hill, then?” Josiah asked.
    “Aye.” A muscle tightened and hardened