Sweet Everlasting by Patricia Gaffney Read Free Book Online

of the grave in farewell; a last caress. He wanted to comfort her, as he would try to comfort any griefstricken survivor of a lost patient. The fact that she mourned for a scruffy mongrel dog made no difference. Grief took many forms, he knew now, its objects innumerable and unaccountable. Only a fool disparaged another person’s heartache, and it didn’t matter if the mourned were a man, an animal, or an insect.
    At length Carrie stood up and looked at him across the grave. Dry-eyed, she tried to smile, but her quivering lips gave her away. “Come inside,” he invited, realizing she was shivering. She hesitated. “Where’s your wagon?”
    She shook her head, frowning.
    “You walked?”
    A matter-of-fact nod.
    “Come inside,” he repeated, stern this time. “You’re freezing—come in and get warm. Come on.” He started walking toward the house, watching her over his shoulder. Stoneman’s words came back to him: Sometimes she’s like a wild creature herself. She looked alert, wary, every sense tuned to the possibility of danger. Tyler stored the shovel in the shed under his porch steps, walked back, and put a foot on the first stair, moving loosely, casually—the way he’d learned to move when trying to calm a growling, distrustful dog on guard at a patient’s front door. “Come on,” he said once more, mildly. “I’ll make us a pot of tea. You can help me.”
    That worked. She paused for two more seconds, then followed him across the yard and up the stairs to his kitchen.
    He hung up his coat, a black, ankle-length wool duster that kept his legs warm on long trips in his rented buggy, and turned to Carrie to take hers. She backed up a step, smiling, giving a mock shiver to indicate she was still too cold to relinquish it. But he suspected the real reason was because she wanted its extra insulating layer of protection between herself and him. She slid her hat off, indifferently ruffling her hair where the hat had flattened it. He thought again that she had pretty hair despite the haphazard style; and yet she seemed unaware of it, or indeed, of any other aspect of her own femininity.
    He put the kettle on the stove and got down cups and saucers. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked over his shoulder. When she hesitated again, weighing God knew what nameless fears, he folded his arms and leaned back against the sink, telling her with his posture that if she sat she would be safe, because he meant to stand.
    She sat.
    “How long a trip is it up the mountain to your house? “he wondered conversationally.
    She pointed to her legs and held up one finger.
    “An hour by foot,” he guessed. “But faster with the mule?” That made her smile, and give a little rueful shake of the head. “No?” He laughed, and her smile broadened. She had a generous mouth, sensitive and self-conscious, with lips that curved up daintily at the corners. Her nose was on the long side, and sharp, almost pointed at the tip; it gave her a sober aspect in keeping with the serious gray eyes but not the wide, sensuous mouth, which seemed to Ty to hint, in an artless way, at any number of possibilities. Because of her coloring, he wondered if there was Irish in her ancestry. What sort of name was Wiggins? But no—that was her stepfather’s name, not hers. She flushed and looked down at her hands, and he realized he was staring.
    The kettle began to steam. “I can do it,” he told her when she started to get up to help. She lapsed back into her chair, and he could feel her eyes on him as he poured water into the teapot and milk into the pitcher, loaded a tray with everything, and carried it over to the table. He took the chair opposite her. Before he could do it, she reached for the teapot and poured out a cup for him. “Two,” he said, answering her silent question about sugar, and “Yes, a lot,” to the one about milk.
    She poured her own next. Her long-fingered, rather bony hands were strong and work-rough, but also