Pocketful of Pearls by Shelley Bates

Author:Shelley Bates [BATES, SHELLEY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446562140
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2009-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

AT ONE IN the morning Dinah finally admitted that trying to sleep was pointless. A glance out the hall window, which looked out over the barn, told her she wasn’t the only one—the lights in the hired man’s suite were on, too. In fact, the only person getting any sleep was Tamsen, for which Dinah was pathetically grateful.

After scaring the baby earlier, it had taken an hour to calm her down enough to distract her with a bottle. Tamsen knew perfectly well Dinah wasn’t her mother, so even when Dinah tried to hold and comfort her, she wasn’t having any of it. Or maybe it was because Dinah couldn’t relax—maybe the child felt the stiffness in her muscles, the rage in every fiber.

Dinah was convinced sheer exhaustion had finally sent Tamsen into dreamland, and she’d tucked her into the old white crib they’d brought down from the attic with a sigh of relief. Who had told her that little babies were easy to take care of? It must have been Linda Bell, who looked after other people’s kids for a living. If this was the easy part, she didn’t envy Tamara the later stages of motherhood one bit.

But it wasn’t stress over the baby that was keeping her awake now. It was the war going on inside her and the pictures her mind played on the darkened ceiling of her room.

How could he spoil their friendship by calling her beautiful? In just the same way Phinehas had rooked her in, had shown her love and attention, and then—when she was addicted and couldn’t live without it—had begun the unspeakable.

Now she was going to have to ask Matthew to leave. She couldn’t bear the sight of him, knowing that he was thinking of her that way. Knowing what was in his mind the moment she let her guard down. She was alone out here, and he could begin his campaign of misery at any time he chose.

Well, she’d handled worse things than firing a hired man. She could do this, too, much as it hurt. She’d actually begun to think of him as a person, not a man, which was new in her experience. She’d even smiled at his gentle jokes and admired his skill with a computer, even if he was sort of useless at practical things like managing a walking tour on his own.

He’d protected her and even saved her life, but that was probably just part of the buttering-up process. If she saw him as her protector, she’d be more likely to let him get close, wouldn’t she? Well, fool me once and it’s your fault, she thought. Fool me twice and it’s mine.

He’d gone and spoiled it and proven himself to be a wolf in men’s clothing, seeking to devour. In the morning she’d hand him his wages and he could just go buy a bus ticket and devour somewhere else.

With a decision made, and control asserted somewhere, even if it was only in her mind, Dinah turned over and tried once again to go to sleep.

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