Once a Rebel by Mary Jo Putney

Author:Mary Jo Putney [Putney, Mary Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2017-08-28T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Arranging their defenses was a good distraction for Callie, Molly, and Sarah. Sarah’s energy was still low, but she assured the younger women that she was quite capable of rolling a tobacco barrel into invaders.

Molly’s tanned leather was easily fashioned into a pair of thigh sheaths that would safely conceal the two smallest kitchen knives. Callie felt like a dashing lady pirate when she tied the sheath to her left thigh and practiced swiftly pulling it out from under her skirts.

Sarah dryly asked her not to kill anyone with the knife because she wouldn’t want to use it in the kitchen after that. Despite the heat, Sarah was making a beef, barley, and vegetable soup that Trey liked, saying it would be strengthening. Even more strengthening would be the grandmotherly love Sarah put into it.

It was hard to ignore the noise of artillery and gunfire sounding in the east, but Callie became somewhat used to it. People really could become accustomed to anything.

Their preparations were complete by dusk. Callie and Molly settled on opposite sides of a lamp, Molly working on her rag rug and Callie altering another secondhand gown. As Callie unpicked a seam, it occurred to her that the two of them were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Being a sister seemed to carry less responsibility than being a mother.

Molly wasn’t much younger than Callie’s smallest sister back in England. Annie had been in leading strings when Callie went to Jamaica. What would she be like now?

She felt a stab of longing for her childhood home. Her father was a bully and probably her next younger sister had betrayed Callie to their father when she’d tried to elope with Richard. But by and large, she got along well with her sisters and little brother. Had they missed her? Would they even remember her after all these years?

CRASH! A thunderous blow on the door yanked Callie from her thoughts. She leaped to her feet as fear lanced through her. Another blow smashed into the door, wrenching it halfway off its hinges. This was it, the menace she’d felt approaching!

After a paralyzed moment, she remembered the pistol. But before she could even leap from her chair, a third blow shattered the door into jagged fragments and three men surged into the sitting room.

And in the lead was her brutal stepson, Henry Newell.

A triumphant sneer twisting his features, he hissed, “I’ve got you now, you bitch!”

Sarah was in the kitchen stirring her soup. She and Molly both froze, staring at Henry like rabbits hypnotized by a snake. They knew all too well what he was capable of.

Callie had thought it absurdly unlikely that her stepson would come all the way to America to find her. Yet now that he was here, there was a ghastly inevitability to this meeting. According to Matthew’s servants, Henry had been a beastly little boy, never able to admit when he was wrong or able to bear losing. He’d go to any lengths to claim that he’d won, which meant that he must hunt her down and destroy her.

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