Home by Nightfall by Alexis Harrington Read Free Book Online Page A

the bed was clean and whole. A colorful, oval braided rug covered part of the floor, and the furniture all matched. The creamy plaster on the walls wasn’t missing big patches from barrages of repeated shelling—it wasn’t even cracked. A framed print of a waterfall hung over the bed and a hairbrush, comb, and razor were neatly lined up on the top of the dresser. There was even a bedside table with a clock on it. But he saw no arrangement of perfume bottles or jewelry boxes or other feminine paraphernalia to indicate that Susannah slept here. There were no women’s clothes in the wardrobe. This was a man’s room.
    She was as beautiful in the flesh as in her photograph. But in person, her eyes were shadowed with worry and apprehension when she looked at him. He understood that—he felt the same.
    Guilt nudged him like a bony elbow. Leaving poor Véronique had been very difficult. They both had known she’d be left aloneto fend for herself with nothing but her unproductive farmland and a crumbling house, yet she’d urged him to go. She had practically insisted upon it. He had a wife who would welcome him with open arms, she’d said, and would weep with joy that her husband had been restored to her. She’d said this as tears streamed down her own face.
    But Susannah’s reaction to him had been somewhat different than Véronique predicted.
    Who could blame her?
    With the flat of his hand he grazed one of the pillows, smooth and cool to the touch. Would she—his wife—would she sleep here with him tonight? Probably not. He hoped not. He thought they needed the chance to get to know each other again. In his case, though, he would be starting from scratch if his memory did not return, as the doctors had suggested that it would.
    He hoped to God the doctors were right. If not, how would he learn to live in this alien place? And yet…when his memory did return, what might come with it?
    A sharp knock on the door startled him. Cole poked his head around the door and grinned at him. “Riley, come on. Supper’s on the table. If we don’t get down there, those kids will gobble up everything.”
    “Oh—yes.” He fumbled for his cane and struggled to his feet. Cole rushed forward to help him, but he held up a hand. “Not to worry. I’m not agile, but I manage.”
    He felt his brother’s speculative, baffled gaze resting on him as he passed him and limped out into the hallway.

“Thank you again for seeing me, Mr. Parmenter.” Susannah rose from the chair on the opposite side of his desk.
    The graying lawyer stood up as well, looking very formal in his dark suit. Behind him, the rows of bookshelves filled with large, leather-bound volumes seemed to add to the heavy solemnity of the situation. The low-slung clouds beyond his window weighed it down even more. She almost felt as if she were talking instead to Fred Hustad, Powell Springs’s undertaker, to arrange a funeral. “You are welcome, ma’am. I hope I’ve given you the information you were looking for.”
    She gave him a faint smile and stood aside as he opened the door for her. “Yes, well…as you said, I have a lot to think about. And I can count on your discretion?”
    “Absolutely. The attorney-client privilege guarantees confidentiality. If I can be of further help, just come by.”
    Susannah nodded and crossed the sidewalk to untie her horse. She’d always faced her responsibilities head-on without flinching. But now she wished she could climb into the saddle, give Sally her head, and gallop for miles with the brisk wind burning her face, across the open pastures away from the farm, away from the problems and obligations that waited for her there. Right now, knowing the identity of her legal husband made nothing easier.
    The law doesn’t have a say-so over what’s in a person’s heart. So Tanner had told her.
    He was right.
    Nor could the law change the yearning pulling at her with the strength of a mule team.
    Just as she turned Sally around for