Beauty for Ashes by Dorothy Love Read Free Book Online Page B

sweetheart. Not if you’re going to let that sourpuss sister of yours force my children to sleep in a dark attic where they’re scared out of their wits and then beat them for playing a harmless joke.” She began to cry. “I thought you loved me. I thought we’d be happy, but now I feel like this was all a big mistake.”
    She set Joe on his feet and led him from the room. Caleb balled his fist and socked Carrie squarely in the stomach. “That’s fer hittin’ my little brother and makin’ Ma cry.”
    “Go upstairs, Caleb,” Henry said. “And do not come out until I tell you to.”
    “I ain’t going up to that old attic. No, sir. You can beat me till I’m dead and I won’t go.”
    “Then you can muck out the barn. Stay there until I come for you.”
    “You mean shovel horse apples?”
    “Somebody’s got to.”
    “Why me?” The boy folded his arms across his chest.
    “Because you live here now, and everyone has to pitch in.”
    “Carrie Daly don’t shovel horse—”
    “Carrie takes care of the house. Shoveling manure is a man’s job. Go on now.”
    “But I ain’t had my—”
    “You can eat after you finish.”
    Caleb stomped off.
    “I’m sorry he hit you, sister,” Henry said. “Are you all right?”
    He looked so defeated that Carrie’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have let Joe make me so angry.”
    “Joe had it coming. Mary says both the boys have been hard to handle all their lives. I thought it would make a difference, having a man around and living out here instead of that cramped rented room in town, but I don’t know. Maybe I bit off more than I can chew.”
    Mary came into the kitchen, her eyes red from crying. “Joe’s asleep. Poor child. He’s tuckered out from all this fussing and fighting. It can’t be good for him.”
    “It isn’t good for anybody.” Carrie poured herself a cup of coffee. “I’ve had quite enough of it myself. I’m going up to my room.”
    “Oh, I put Joe in there,” Mary said. “He’s getting so big I couldn’t carry him all the way up to the attic. He loves that room already. I promised it to him. I hope you won’t upset him again over it.”
    “You had no right to make such a promise.”
    “Carrie?” Henry looked at her with such a mixture of hope and resignation that she averted her eyes. Maybe she owed him this chance at happiness after all that he had done for her.
    “Fine. Take it. Take everything.”

    Griff flicked the reins and urged the old nag along the dirt road. This morning’s visit to the banker’s elegant house just outside town had put him in mind of his Charleston days and whetted his appetite for training Majestic. Once Gilman coaxed the horse from his stall, Majestic had seemed to remember Griff, and Griff had come prepared. He’d handed the horse a carrot and rubbed the big colt’s neck while Majestic chomped and swallowed his treat.
    Then Griff climbed the fence and entered the pasture, letting the horse get used to his presence and his scent. Majestic, nervous at the unknown, shied away when Griff approached too closely. It would take several more visits before he could actually begin the training. Only when he had gained Majestic’s trust would he attempt to saddle him. Too soon and the horse might go barn sour, making training all the more difficult.
    Griff breathed in the damp air and thought of home. In the old days, at this time of year, Sethe, the family’s cook, and Leah, his mother’s favorite servant, would pack up their plantation house on the river. The entire household would then begin the eleven-mile trip to the Rutledges’ cottage on Pawley’s Island, there to pass the summer until the danger of malarial fever was over.
    He still remembered those boyhood treks to the island, traveling by rowboat and by land. His mother complained of the heat and the discomfort of the journey, but to him summers on the island were a magnificent adventure. His first sight of the rolling waves,