Whispers from Yesterday by Robin Lee Hatcher Read Free Book Online

mere glance from his piercing blue eyes. Eyes like Maggie’s.
    If Mikkel had married Sophia instead of Esther, it would have been Sophia’s child who looked like Mikkel. It would have been her child who had glorious blond hair and beautiful blue eyes.
    “Sophie?” Bradley said softly from the doorway. “Is she all right?”
    Guiltily, she glanced over her shoulder at her husband. “She’s asleep.”
    “Poor little tyke.” He came to stand beside Sophia. “She must wonder what’s become of her world.”
    “We’re Maggie’s family now. We’ll make a better world for her.”
    “Maggie? But I thought—”
    “It’s what I want to call her. It fits her better than Rose. It’s short for Margaret. That’s her first name. That’s what she should be called. And as you said, it’s a new family and a new world.”
    Bradley was silent a moment. Then his arm went around her shoulders, and he kissed her cheek. “If that’s what you want.”
    “It’s what Mikkel would have called her, I think, if it had been up to him instead of Esther. Esther was never very practical.”
    Her husband didn’t respond.
    She turned toward him. Bradley had lost his right eye while serving in the Pacific, and that side of his face was scarred. But she thought it a wonderful face all the same.
    Bradley loved her, and she loved him. Truly, she did. Theirs was a good marriage. He was going to make a wonderful father. Someday, she would give him a son. She hoped it would be soon.
    In the meantime, there was Mikkel’s little girl for her to tend to.
    Mikkel’s …
    And Esther’s.

    Karen leaned her shoulder against the window frame.
    She’d heard her grandmother singing. That’s what had brought her fully awake, then had drawn her from her bed to the window. Once there, she’d heard the elderly woman talking softly to herself, too softly for Karen to make out what she said. Now Sophia appeared to be asleep in the chair, her eyes closed, her head resting against the tree trunk at her back, her arms clutching a book to her chest.
    Sophia Taylor was a bit peculiar, in Karen’s opinion. For one thing, she didn’t seem to mind her bleak existence. She didn’t seem to miss having lots of people around, places to go, things to do. And there was the way she talked to herself … and to God! Now that was the strangest of all.
    Outside of a formal church setting, Karen had never before seen nor heard anyone do such a thing. As if the Almighty were really listening to an old woman in this desolate place. But then, maybe this place was why Sophia was a little odd.
    “It would drive anyone mad,” she whispered. Then she gave a humorless laugh. “It’s already happened. Listen to me. I’m talking to myself.”
    She turned from the window. She should go back to bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d awakened from a full night’s sleep to see the sun rise. Maybe because it had never happened before.
    Yes, she could crawl back into bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. She was wide awake now.
    With a sigh of resignation, she grabbed some clean clothes and headed for the bathroom. She took a quick shower, then used the blow dryer on her shoulder-length hair, scrunching the natural curl to give it body. She applied her usual makeup, paying particular attention to her eyes—her best feature, she’d been told by her mother.
    “If you know how to use those eyes,” Margaret Butler had said, “you’ll have any man you want at your beck and call.”
    The memory caused Karen to pause.
    Any man I want, she thought as she stared at her reflection. Except Alan Ivie.
    Suddenly chilled, she stepped back from the sink, turning from the mirror. She didn’t want to remember Alan’s rejection … or the reasons for it.
    She left the bathroom in a hurry. It wasn’t until she was out the front door and standing on the porch that she realized she had nowhere to run. She couldn’t escape this ranch, her circumstances, or her thoughts. She