Once a Gambler by Carrie Hudson

Author:Carrie Hudson [Hudson, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Stolen From Time, Category
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2009-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

IT WAS NO GOOD starting a fire. Jake’s matches were as wet as everything else. They were both freezing with cold. Walking was a challenge as they made their way up the sumac-covered slope of the riverbank toward the woodlands beyond. They considered burrowing in last season’s fallen leaves for the night beneath the budding oaks and poplars, but Jake urged them on along the muddy track that cut through the woods, sure there would be some destination at the end of it.

He was right. Not thirty minutes later they came upon a small, rustic cabin of daubed mud and logs. Inside the home there was flickering candlelight, and a thin skein of fragrant gray smoke rose from the river-rock chimney. There were two outbuildings: a near empty corn crib and a weathered barn beside a corral housing a pair of oxen and a bay horse, who announced them with a whinny as they stumbled into the yard. The fields surrounding that haven carved out of the woods were plowed and freshly planted.Jake headed for the door.

She pulled on his arm, still shivering. “But we can’t just barge in on them. We’re total strangers. C-can’t we just…sneak into their b-barn?”

“I’d do as much for them,” he said, and knocked.

A young bearded man answered the door with a shotgun in his hands. It wasn’t pointed at them; instead, held loosely in warning. He was dressed in grayish long johns and threadbare trousers. He had a kind face, the sort you would ask directions from in the subway, Ellie thought. The man had clear blue eyes, a sandy thatch of hair and a gauntness that hollowed his cheeks. The thin young woman behind him held a fussing baby on her hip whose nose was snotty. Almost as if she and Jake had flipped a switch with their appearance, though, the baby stopped crying and eyed them with apparent astonishment, as if visitors here were as unlikely as talking cows falling from the sky.

“Good Lord,” the man murmured at the sodden sight of them.

Blue-lipped and quivering, Jake nodded at him. “My name is Jake Gannon, friend, and…this is my wife. We had an accident in the river,” he told them. “We are without fire and would greatly appreciate some place to warm ourselves.”

The young man glanced back at his wife, then reached for Jake’s hand. “I’m Boone Mayslip. This is my wife, Lindy. Our fire is warm and you’re welcome to it. If you’ve a mind to get out of those wet things, my wife will get you some blankets.”

With their clothes drying by the fire, Jake and Ellie sat huddled inside the scratchy wool blankets. As they curved their fingers around steaming mugs of hot turnip-greens soup, Lindy stood behind Boone with her hand on his shoulder. The baby just stared at them with wide blue eyes. “We don’t often see folks around these parts, wanderin’,” Lindy said. “You gave us a fright.”

Ellie tightened the blanket around herself, still chilled to the bone.

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