Pocketful of Pearls by Adina Senft

Author:Adina Senft
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-939087-39-3
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

Chapter 13

After rewarding their labors with a smile, Tamsen decided to be difficult for the rest of the morning. The dry diaper wasn’t right, Dinah’s attempts at entertainment weren’t right, and going down for a nap was out of the question. Finally Matthew did what any reasonable man would do—he got on the Internet to look for solutions.

“It says that at four months we might try solid foods,” he reported when he came back to the house. “We can buy those here, can’t we?”

“Smoke River isn’t that small.” Dinah raised her voice over the sound of Tamsen’s fussing, which didn’t help the situation. “It’s pretty nice outside. Why don’t I take her out while you go get baby food? You never know. It might work.”

Matthew took the truck, and Dinah wrapped Tamsen in the stained but clean aqua blanket and took her out into the front yard. March had gone out like a lamb, and the early April sunshine held the promise of relief from the cold, and of new life springing up from the unfriendly soil. The Traynell property sloped away to the road, and on the other side of it, down to the river, in a gentle roll of grass and scrub pines and weeds.

Half a dozen chickens, led by Schatzi, had found some dry ground close to the house and were busy giving themselves dust baths. Tamsen, who had fallen silent the minute Dinah had stepped out on the porch, made a sound Dinah translated as interest in what the birds were doing. She sat on a stump and told the baby all the birds’ names and why dirt was flying in every direction as each bird happily hollowed out its bath and sent swathes of dust over its back.

When she heard a car’s engine a few minutes later, she couldn’t believe Matthew had gone to town and back so fast. Maybe he’d forgotten something.

She swiveled on the stump and saw Chloe Montoya climb out of her discreet, compact sedan.

Chloe had never come out to the ranch for anything other than a young people’s meeting or Gathering. They’d bunk together at Summer Gathering, maybe, or share a booth at the café if they both happened to get the same lunch hour. But there their commonality ended. Chloe Montoya had normal parents who lived normal lives. Dinah ... well, Dinah put on an act that looked reasonably normal and kept her mouth shut.

Chloe picked her way across the wet grass in her neat black pumps. Her black suit was wool crepe and cut so nicely she probably hadn’t made it, but had ordered it from Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s. She worked at the bank; in fact, had taken the position Dinah had had to give up when Dad got so sick he couldn’t run the ranch. Her blouse was black but made of something like chiffon, a sensuous, worldly fabric that wouldn’t escape the old ladies’ hawk eyes.

From her expression, she’d already heard about the baby’s arrival. Was she

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