Guarding the Soldier's Secret by Kathleen Creighton Read Free Book Online Page A

heart was beating very, very fast. It was more like the way she remembered feeling on her first day in the new school after Yancy became her new mother, because she knew something big and exciting was going to happen and she wasn’t sure whether it would be good or bad.
    “It’s okay, honey,” her mother whispered, and Laila nodded and reached for her hand. She felt like she might throw up or wet her pants, but that was so babyish she didn’t want to say so.
    Just inside the door, she stopped suddenly and couldn’t keep from making a sound. It wasn’t very loud, but her mother and Akaa Hunt both heard. They stopped and looked at her.
    “What is it, sweetie?” her mother asked.
    Laila frowned and wrinkled her nose. “I smell something.”
    “That would be supper,” Akaa Hunt said. “I hope.”
    “It smells delicious,” Laila’s mother said and squeezed her hand in a way that meant remember your manners! “Doesn’t it?”
    “It smells like...something I remember,” Laila said and added with a shrug, “but I don’t know exactly what.” She took a deep breath, let go of her mother’s hand and walked into the room. “I remember this, too. We used to sit on pillows when I lived with Ammi , when I was little.”
    Behind her she heard her mother let out a breath and laugh a little bit. “Yes, I guess you did,” she said.
    But her voice sounded quivery, and Laila wondered if maybe her mother’s stomach had butterflies, too.
    * * *
    “I think,” Yancy said, taking a deep breath, “Laila and I both could use a bathroom, if you—”
    “Of course.” Hunt’s voice and manner were crisply formal. “Just go through there, into the courtyard. Second door down on the left is the women’s quarters. You should find everything you need. If not, let me know and I’ll have Mehri get it for you.”
    “Mehri?”
    “My housekeeper.”
    “Oh—of course. Laila? Shall we wash up before supper?”
    Laila looked up at her, then reached for her hand in a way that felt oddly as though she were offering reassurance and guidance to Yancy, rather than the other way around.
    In the magnificently tiled bathroom, Yancy watched her daughter slowly and methodically wash her hands, arms and face, carefully rubbing the soap into foam, squishing the foam between her fingers, rubbing it over her forearms...
    How silent she is. She should be chattering away, nonstop, asking one question after another, chirping like a little bird...
    She cleared her throat. “Honey, how are you doing? Are you okay?”
    Laila watched her hands, washing, washing. “Yes,” she said, but it lacked conviction.
    “We had a pretty exciting day, didn’t we?” Yancy said carefully, wanting to go to her, wanting to touch her, though something held her back. “When those men...um. When they tried to...” When they tried to...do what? What did they want with us? I still don’t know. She caught another breath. “I was a little scared. Were you scared?”
    “Well, I was...” Laila clasped her hands together and appeared to be fascinated by the foam squishing between her interlaced fingers. “But then I saw Akaa Hunt and I wasn’t scared anymore.”
    Yancy felt a chill shiver through her. Breathless, she said, “Really? Why not?”
    Laila’s shoulders lifted...fell. “Because I knew he would keep us safe. Like always.”
    * * *
    It was evening, which in recent times had become one of Hunt’s favorite times of the day. In his experience, most bad things seemed to happen at dawn. By nightfall, whatever was going to happen had happened, for better or worse. The world was shutting down, taking a breather. Even the wind stopped for dusk.
    There was that, and the fact that lately it had begun to remind him of evenings when he was growing up, when the chores had all been done and the animals were quiet, well fed and bedding themselves down for the night. Dad would be out on the front porch having a smoke and surveying his kingdom while he waited to be