Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) by Judy Griffith Gill Read Free Book Online Page B

from her face. The mindless sobbing went on and on and when he dropped her hands, they fell to her sides. She made no attempt to cover her face again.
    “Oh brother! Delayed shock?” He flipped Gypsy onto a vacant bunk, covered her first with the fur side of the cape, then with his heavy sleeping bag. He tucked it in all tightly around her and said, “Go ahead, howl it all out. I guess you need it.” He noticed the child again and spoke roughly. “Outside and play. The lady’s sick and needs to be alone. Now scram. I’ll call you when I want you to come back.”
    And Kevin went outside, more alone than before, wondering why Daddy called his mother ‘the lady’. Didn’t he know? If not, he, Kevin wasn’t going to tell him. If he knew who she was, he might make her go away.
    ~ * ~
    When Gypsy woke up a strange glow surrounded her, dim and golden, while a hissing noise filled the silence. The sound of pages being turned drew her attention and she sat up, swinging her feet to the floor. Her knees bumped into something and it took her a moment to realize she was surrounded by canvas. That accounted for the glow, and slowly she became aware that she had been taken out of her bikini and dressed in a long tailed shirt.
    Pushing the canvas aside, she stepped away from the bunk. Lance Saunders sat half turned from her, one ankle crossed over his leg, a book perched on his bent knee, a gently hissing Coleman lantern hanging from a nail in a beam over his head. He looked weary… And sad.
    Gypsy must’ve made some sound, for the man started, lifted his head and said, “Oh you’re awake. Come. Sit down. I saved some stew for you. It’s not good… Out of a can. But it’s filling.” As he made his staccato speech he was drawing her to the sturdy wooden table, pushing her into a chair, spooning warm stew from a pot on the back of the stove into a bowl and placing it before her. “Eat that,” he said, and in spite of herself, Gypsy giggled.
    He shot her a quick, apprehensive glance and she shook her head, shaking her hair off her face. “No,” she said, “I’m not getting hysterical. It’s just that every time you speak to me, it’s to tell me to eat or drink. Like the witch… With Hansel and Gretel.”
    “No,” he said coolly, “I’m not trying to fatten you up for the kill.” Obviously he was going to reject any attempt she might make toward friendliness, but Gypsy decided to try again. “This is really quite good,” she said, gesturing toward her nearly empty bowl. “For canned stew, that is. It was kind of you to take me in and look after me—”
    “Kindness has no bearing in this case. I had—have—no choice.” He fixed her with a steady gaze. The lantern light off to one side cast interesting shadows on his face.
    “But now,” he went on, “comes the time of reckoning. You owe me an explanation, so give it and then if there’s anything I don’t understand I’ll ask questions.”
    Again she had the feeling that she was being bossed around, and that there would undoubtedly be many questions when she was finished, but she put both thoughts aside and began a more lucid account of herself, than she’d managed before.
    He was silently thoughtful for some minutes after she finished and then a look of angry disbelief darkened his eyes. “Why, in God’s name, were you left behind?”
    Dumbly, Gypsy stared at him while the full impact of his words barraged her senses. “You mean… Why wasn’t I in it?” she asked in horror of what she had taken his words to imply.
    “Exactly. Why?”
    “What a rotten thing to say!” Outrage sharpened her tone as she leapt to her feet knocking the chair to the floor. “Do you mean you honestly wish I had been killed just so you wouldn’t have the temporary inconvenience of my presence? You’ve got to be the most self-centered person I’ve ever met. Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Saunders, but I am alive and no matter how difficult it is for you to accept, it’s