Whippoorwill Read Online Free PDF Page A

soft, fleshy parts of her face and bit her lips to the point of pain. When she looked in the mirror again, the pink pout on her mouth and the rose flush on her cheeks sent the frown on her face into hiding. She reminded herself that all was not lost. For the past six months, small gifts of wildflower bouquets and pretty rocks—even a delicate little bird’s nest with three tiny blue feathers interwoven within the grass and twigs had been appearing on her doorstep. Then the letters began, sometimes just a message relating how fetching she had looked that day, or a bit of poetry that leaned toward love and romance while maintaining decorum. She’d been shocked, excited, and then downright curious to know who had become her secret admirer.
    But six months had passed and the idea of being adored from afar wasn’t as enticing as it had once been. Sophie was tired of the secrets. She wanted a flesh and blood companion to grow old with—someone with whom she could share her fears, as well as her desires. But as hard as she’d tried, she couldn’t figure out who, of the unattached men in Lizard Flats, was eloquent enough to have penned the sweet missives.
    She moved to the desk and opened a drawer, taking out a packet of envelopes then lifting the top one from the stack. She knew what was inside, but she wanted to read it again. Maybe this time she would see a hint of the writer’s identity in the lines.
    You passed me on the street today and my poor heart went aflutter.
    I wanted to tell you how your smile delights me, but all I could do was mutter.
    The brief hello I managed to say was pitiful and small,
    Dear lady of my heart please know that you’re the best of all.
    Your ardent admirer
    Sophie laid the poem back on top of the stack and then closed the drawer.
    Dear lady of my heart. He always calls me dear lady of my heart.
    “I might be a bit more impressed if he had the guts to say it to my face,” she stated, then tucked her shopping list into her purse, picked up her parasol, and headed for the front door.
    Once outside, she paused long enough to open the parasol against the blistering heat of the day. Holding it at a stylish tilt, she stepped off the porch and started down the walk, then stopped at the gate to look back at all that was hers.
    The two-story clapboard house gleamed white in the sunshine, while the gingerbread decorating the eaves, porch, and posts had been painted a robin’s egg blue. Well-kept flower beds burgeoning with hollyhock, sweet peas, and asters circled the house from front to back, broken only by the cobblestone walk that Nardin had carefully laid to keep Sophie’s feet dry during the rains.
    In Savannah, where Sophie had been raised, the small white house would have been nothing to talk about. In Lizard Flats, where she and Nardin had settled, it was elegance at its finest.
    Sighing with satisfaction that all was well in her world, she gave her parasol a quick spin and walked out the gate. Nardin Hollis might have died and left Sophie in heat, but he had not left her penniless. She owned half of Lizard Flats and the connecting stage lines to seven other towns in the territory. But while Sophie owned one thing, she wanted another. All the way to the store, she kept thinking of what she’d lost when Nardin had died.
    Moments later, with the territory dust swirling around her head and the parasol threatening to take flight, she turned the corner toward Main Street and stepped onto the uneven planks of the sidewalk. The bell-like skirt of her new yellow dress swayed vigorously with each step that she took. She was a bright flower of womanhood on the verge of shedding.
    Inside the Territorial Bank of Lizard Flats, Alfonso Worthy kicked back in his chair, contemplating his worldly goods. It was true that he had accomplished more in his forty-two years than he would ever have believed. As the seventh and last child of a widowed Kentucky dirt farmer, his future had been uncertain until the