The Outcast by Rosalyn West Read Free Book Online

thank your mama kindly for the invite.” He wiped one sweaty forearm across his brow, and, as her gaze followed the movement, her mouth went totally dry. Had she been crazy to think she could ever be unaffected by him?
    “Trice, what happened to my mama?”
    The last thing she wanted to do was discuss something so intimate with him. She balked. “You should ask the squire.”
    “He’s not the one who tended my mama’s grave. You are. Guess that makes you about the only one who gave a damn. How did she die?”
    Patrice swallowed hard against a tide of sorrow, her tone husky with it when she spoke at last.
    “I guess you could say she was a casualty of war. A band of soldiers came for the horses. They had the squire at gunpoint. I don’t think they expected any other resistance. Abbie stood in the door of the stable with a pitchfork and told them they’d have to go through her. They did.”
    Reeve’s eyes closed briefly, the muscles of his face spasming. “Union soldiers?”
    “No. Our boys. It wasn’t intentional. One of the men got behind her and knocked her down with the butt of his rifle. She never got up. They all felt real bad about it.”
    “But that didn’t stop ’em from taking the horses, did it?”
    She didn’t back down from the crack of bitterness in his words. “No.”
    She watched his shoulders slump, just a fleetingshow of grief too overwhelming to contain. In that instant, she fought the need to go to him, the need to put her arms about his broad shoulders to share a common bond of mourning. But to do so would compromise her promise not to give him comfort—one didn’t provide comfort to one’s enemies.
    To her relief, the weakness lasted only a second or two. Then Reeve straightened and his taut posture made it easier for her to control sympathies he would most likely reject.
    “I’ve got work to do,” he said gruffly, turning his back on her.
    “I’m sorry, Reeve.” It came out unintentionally, but she was glad she’d told him when he paused and looked back through a gaze stripped down to naked emotion. In a blink, the look was gone, and his reply was carefully phrased to reveal as little as possible.
    “I’m sorry, too, Patrice. About your father, about a lot of things. But I can’t change ’em.”
    She pleated and repleated the folds of her plain skirt within the clutch of her hands. She had to know.
    “Would you, Reeve, if you could?”
    “No.”
    That one word, two little letters, drove a wedge between them, hammering it deep with the strength of his contention, burying it with the sweeping force of her resentment.
    What else was there to say?
    She’d gotten as far as dragging out her big trunk and was stuffing her sensible gowns inside. Why had she thought he’d changed? That she could change the way she felt about him?
    Once again, she’d given him every chance to win her over … and he hadn’t. Purposefully or foolishly, did it matter? He wouldn’t admit he’d been mistaken, not about the path he followed, not about the result of choice, not about letting her go.
    And what made her mad, truly, lividly, hopping mad, was that she wasn’t sure which failing bothered her the most.
    She caught her ring in the lace cuff of one of her gowns. The setting snagged, tearing the delicate tracery, ruining the elaborate pattern. She stared at it in dismay, knowing there was no way to repair it, no money to replace it. Her carelessness cost her dearly. Then she forgot about the dress, and touched the ring, thinking about other careless losses. She swallowed down the burn of tears at the back of her throat and took a deep, cleansing breath.
    What was she doing? Running away wasn’t going to solve things. There was no sanctuary away from the Glade. Fright trembled within her breast. What was she going to do? Stay here where she’d be constantly reminded of her ruined hopes and traitorous dreams? Where her days would be filled with the probability of running into him? Where her