Dorothy Garlock by Annie Lash

Author:Annie Lash
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Callie stood hesitantly in the doorway of her room.

“Where’s Annie Lash?” Her voice trembled as she asked the question.

“She went out a minute ago.” Will lifted Amos off his chest and got to his feet. He could hardly bear to see the look of panic on her face.

“It’s bedtime for you, Amos.” She spoke to the child more sharply than she intended.

“Ah, Ma . . .”

“Don’t give me any back talk. It’s your bedtime.”

“Will was goin’ to show me how to fight. I don’t want to go to bed!”

“You’re goin’. You almost fell asleep over your supper.”

“That was afore Will—”

“That’s enough!”

“But I gotta pee first.”

“Amos!” Callie was sure she was going to cry.

“Now what’d I do?” The boy’s chin quivered, but he lifted it stubbornly.

“You know what you did, and you know what you’ll get for it!”

Big tears filled the green eyes staring defiantly up at her. “You’re mean! You said not to say poot, you didn’t say not to say pee!”

Callie groaned inwardly and tried to ignore her son’s pleading eyes and quivering lips. Color came slowly up her neck and turned her cheeks crimson. Her eyes went to Will as if drawn there. The candlelight showed his face clearly. His mouth, so grim of late, was slightly parted and tilted at the corners, his eyes were warm and bright and watching her intently.

“I’ll take him out.” Will’s big hand rested on the top of the cotton-white head.

“I ain’t got to poot, Will. Just pee. Ma lets me do it by the house at night. If’n I got to poot, I got to go—”

“Amos!” Callie felt the hot blood pounding in her face and was sure that she was going to melt and run all over the floor.

“C’mon, cottontop. We’d better get outta here afore yore ma takes a stick a wood to us.” With his hand on the child’s back, Will urged him toward the door.

“Will my hair be brown like yours when I get big, Will? I’m gonna have me a mustache like yours. Ma said if I eat lots I’d grow up to be big like you, but she said I’d better not swear like you or I’d get a hidin’. She said . . .”

Will looked back over his shoulder at Callie. She was staring straight ahead, her cheeks red, her hands buried in her apron pockets. He carried the image of her anguished expression with him out into the darkness.

Callie sank down on the bench beside the table. She sat there, feeling an aching torment, suddenly tired and bewildered, depleted of all her strength. She had been so nervous and strung out she could hardly think since the day, in his half-finished cabin, Will had grasped her hand and whispered to her. All she had ever yearned for was there in that gentle man. She felt a tiny thrill at the thought of that cabin being her cabin, that man being her man, but it faded quickly in the face of logic. She had a man, sorry as he was.

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