The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True by Eileen Goudge Read Free Book Online Page B

asleep.
    Laura covered her with the quilted afghan Maude had crocheted and tiptoed out into the hall, easing the door shut.
    “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Maude whispered. “I know you’re just itching to get out of that dress.”
    Laura thought longingly of a horseback ride. There was just enough daylight left. “I should turn the horses out.” She hadn’t seen them in the corral; Hector must not have gotten around to it.
    “Take your time.” Maude said. “From the looks of it she’ll sleep straight through till morning.”
    The old woman slipped out of her satin pumps with a sigh of relief—all that dancing, no doubt; Laura had never seen old Uncle Pernell so red-faced—holding them out in front of her like a pair of naughty puppies by the scruffs of their necks.
    Laura gave her a quick squeeze. “Thanks. You read my mind.”
    In her sun-splashed bedroom at the other end of the house, a rectangular patch stood out on the wall over the bureau, darker than the faded blue wallpaper around it, where a photo of Peter and her, taken six years ago at their own wedding, had been removed. She gazed at it as if through a window onto a bleak, wintry landscape.
    Oh, Peter, was it just the baby I couldn’t give you…or would we have drifted apart anyway?
    What hurt even more was that his new wife was expecting. Six months along and reportedly big as a house. The only good thing was that they’d moved to Santa Barbara, so at least she didn’t have to worry about bumping into them on the street. If only she could find a way to move on, too. Not from this house, but from all its memories. A tear slipped down her cheek. Laura brushed it away angrily. No more wallowing in self-pity. She’d done enough of that to last a lifetime.
    She peeled her dress off and tossed it onto the bed. No sense hanging it up; it was going straight into the box of old clothes destined for Lupe’s relatives in Ecuador. Pulling on worn Levi’s and an equally worn chambray shirt, she padded barefoot into the living room to retrieve her boots from the hearth. The room’s scuffed floorboards and nicked walls, its chairs liberally sprinkled with pet hairs, seemed to leap out at her as she plopped onto the ottoman. An old chenille bedspread had been thrown over the sofa, clawed to bare wood in places, and the cattails in the painted milk can by the fireplace ought to have been replaced long ago. No place her sister would ever deign to live in, for sure, but it suited Laura like the well-worn boots she was tugging on.
    In the kitchen, the dogs climbed from their boxes by the stove, yawning and stretching: Pearl, the golden Lab she’d had since she was a teenager, arthritic and blind in one eye, and the scruffy little black mutt named Rocky from Lost Paws. He trotted over to lick Laura’s hand, his stub of tail flickering furiously, while Pearl’s thumped like a kangaroo’s against the cabinet behind her. Laura tossed them each a milk bone from the cookie jar.
    “Behave yourselves, guys. We have company.”
    On the screened porch in back, a path had been carved through the jumble of mud-caked Wellingtons, old bicycles, folded lawn chairs, and chewed Frisbees. As she stepped down into the yard, she noticed yesterday’s laundry still pinned to the clothesline. She smiled and shook her head in fond exasperation. The dryer worked just fine, but Maude insisted on doing things the old-fashioned way…even if it meant sleeping on sheets stiff as tarp.
    Laura ambled toward the barn, thumbs hooked through the belt loops of her jeans. The sun hung low in the sky, winking through the outstretched arms of the white oak ahead, and sending shadows trickling like runoff across the yard. In the far-off distance the mountains rose, dusky purple with paler stripes along their highest peaks. At sunset there’d be a brief spell, known as the pink moment, when the mountains to the east would glow with reflected light. If she hurried, she could make it to the top