Winter Rose by Rachel A. Marks Read Free Book Online

your fault if he dies out there .
    I stare at her, unable to speak.
    “What, in the name of Heaven, got into you? You know how he fusses over you. How could you do this to him?”
    Fusses over me? My heart beats faster, remembering his words, how his body felt near mine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do anything horrible. I just needed to get away.”
    “Away?” Her voice is different then. Like she knows something about what happened. “What’d he do?” She looks like Mamma when she asked me the same question about Pa.
    I rise to Luke’s defense. “Nothing! He didn’t do anything at all.”
    But Becca doesn’t seem convinced. “He should’ve known better. I warned him about what happened to you. I can’t believe he’d—what a fool. Men are such fools!”
    Her words send a chill up my spine. “What’re you talking about, Becca? He didn’t do anything. I swear.”
    “Oh, Rose.”
    And that’s all she says. Oh, Rose . But it’s enough to see she knows what I’m not saying. But why isn’t she more upset if that’s true? The man she loves tried to touch me, he said words men say to women they care about. Doesn’t she hate me for that?
    She shakes her head and walks back to the wood pile. “We best get a good size fire ready. You’ll both be needin’ a warm-up when he returns.” 
    I follow after her to take the wood out of her hands that she’s picking up from the pile.
    She shakes her head and grabs another two pieces.
    “Stop that, Becca!” I say. “You shouldn’t be carrying all that.” She’s so annoyingly helpful all the time now that she should be resting.
    “I’m not an invalid. Stop pestering me.”
    I’m relieved the conversation’s taken a turn away from Luke, so I go along, even though I’m worried about her doing too much. “Fine. You make the fire. I’ll wait and watch for Luke.”
    I carry in the wood I rescued from her, bring in a few more pieces, and then go back outside to wait.
    It’s odd sitting here again, at the wood pile. I haven’t sat in this spot for so long—not since the miners’ visits. So much has happened. I’m close to seventeen now. Becca’s going to have a child in only a month or so. And Luke. Everything’s changed with Luke here.
    Inside me.
    The words he said to me in the snow float back to me. “ You were so beautiful, so small and feminine ...”
    Am I really the Ice Witch the men say I am? Do I show them something they can never have and drive them mad with it?
    Pa.
    Hunt.
    Am I driving Luke mad?
    I can’t bear the thought.
    I know that I’m driving him away from Becca, and that in itself is horrible. I won’t hurt Becca anymore.
    I can’t stay if that’s what’s coming.
    Someone in this family deserves a life, a family, love. Becca’s been through so much. And I’m not made for happiness. All I ever do is hurt people.
    The image of Pa’s back disappearing into the flying snow burns at my eyes. What’ll they think of me, though, if I leave? That I’m like him ? I can’t be that to them. 
    I shake with the pain it gives me. Somehow I need to make Becca and Luke see…
     …that I love them.
     
    *
     
    Luke returns but he doesn’t say a word to me about what happened. He comes up the rise and only pauses a second before passing me by. “Are you okay?” he asks, his jaw tight.
    I nod. Too many words surface to choose, so I keep silent.
    He goes inside and I follow. Becca starts to bustle around us, immediately, getting us warm. She soon had us both in our skivvies, wrapped up in wool blankets. Then she begins baking oatcakes and making tea, humming to the baby in her belly as she moves back and forth from the flames.
    I peek at Luke several times over the blanket, but his gaze stays locked on the fire. I need so badly to let him see what I’m struggling with, to show what I can’t seem to say. The words are lodged in my throat, words that might break us all if I’m not careful.
    Becca sets the hot tea cups in our hands,