LITMIR.BIZ

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his shoulder, a triumphant look on her face.

      Clara hated to admit it, but it was time she reined in her younger daughter.

      They turned into a neat yard bordered by trees. She spied a pathway that led to the river. To their right lay the store and other buildings of town that she’d seen upon her arrival and where she’d asked if they had need of someone to help.

      A woman waited at the tiny shack at the back of the yard. Wooden walls rose to shoulder height, then gave way to canvas nailed to slats. Blue was right about one thing. It was no castle.

      He introduced Bonnie Morton to them.

      “Blue told me you needed a place to stay.” The blonde woman greeted them. “This is nothing fancy but you’re welcome to it.” She glanced at the girls, seeming somewhat taken back by the sight of Libby in Blue’s arms. “You’re more than welcome to share our house.”

      “I’m sure this will be fine.” Clara was weary to the point of falling over again. All she wanted was to rest.

      “If you’re sure.” Bonnie opened the door and indicated Clara should step into the building. Clara pushed past a stack of wooden crates and into a space barely big enough for herself, Eleanor and Blue, who had followed still holding Libby. There was a table with a lamp on it, two chairs and a tiny stove by way of furniture. A trunk stood in one corner, and on it were stacked more boxes.

      “It’s fine.”

      “I like it,” Libby announced from her perch in Blue’s arms.

      “Me, too,” Eleanor added. “Can we light the stove?”

      “Of course,” Bonnie said. “There’s plenty of firewood stacked outside. Help yourself. The well is out there, too. Water’s free to anyone who needs it.”

      Blue put Libby on her feet and went to the stove. “Let me check the pipes first and make sure they aren’t plugged. Wouldn’t want a fire.”

      “But we do want a fire,” Libby protested.

      “Only in the stove, little one. Only in the stove.”

      Clara’s throat closed off at the tenderness in his voice. No one but herself had ever shown anything but disinterest in her girls unless they had something to gain. Her dead husband, Rolland—a much older man her father had arranged for her to marry—had only spoken to them if he had to and always in a brusque tone. Father had ignored them except to tell them to smile pretty or sit nicely.

      “I’ll leave you to it,” Bonnie said. She stopped in the doorway. “I see you don’t have supplies to make meals, so please join us. I feed people. That’s what I do.”

      “Thank you.” Clara meant for the use of the shack. She wouldn’t be taking any free meals. Surely in all this array of stuff she could find a pot and make her own meals.

      Out of what? Could she snare a rabbit, catch a turkey?

      Never before in her life had she felt such resentment at the upbringing that had left her unprepared to take care of herself. No, that wasn’t completely true. She’d proven she could manage without a man. Could look after her girls, too. They’d escaped her father’s domain in Toronto and had traveled the many miles to Edendale. She’d run out of money days ago except for the amount she hoarded to secure passage to her destination. She’d washed dishes in a dining room, hung laundry at a boardinghouse and dusted shelves in a store. Until they headed north from Fort Macleod. Since then she’d been unable to find anything but dust and icy snow.

      “I’ll check the pipes outside.” Blue stepped past Clara.

      In a minute the stovepipes rattled and soot puffed into the room; then he returned with wood in his arms. When he started to build the fire in the stove, she sprang into action.

      “I can do that.”

      “I expect you can.” He continued anyway.

      She could hardly elbow him out of the way, so she stood aside, all of three feet away, which was as far as the room allowed.

      He closed the lid and turned around. “There you go. You’ll be crowded but warm.”

      “It’s fine. Thank you.”

      He nodded, went to the door and stopped. Slowly, as if reluctant to do so, he turned around to face them. “I don’t know what your story really is, or who you think is coming to get you, but you’re safe here for as long as you need.” And then he was gone.

       What a strange man.

      “He’s nice,” Eleanor said. Then as if her mother’s words had finally resonated, she asked, “Mama, who are we waiting for?”

      Clara hadn’t told the girls her plans. If they didn’t know, they couldn’t tell anyone. And that’s how she wanted it.

      “Someone we haven’t met yet.”

      “If we haven’t met him, how do you know it isn’t Mr. Blue?”

      Why were the girls so ready to accept Blue as their friend and helper? So ready to trust him?

      “I know it isn’t him because this isn’t where we’re going.”

      Libby crossed her arms over her chest. “Then where are we going?”

      “You’ll have to wait and see. Now let’s get ourselves organized.”

      They pushed the table and chairs into one corner and shifted some boxes so they could put their bags on them. There was room enough for them to stretch out on the floor at night. She thought of poking through the boxes for a pot, but it seemed intrusive and she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

      “Do you want me to read to you?” she asked the girls when they grew restless.

      She pulled her Bible from her bag, trailed her fingers over the cover. This book had been her comfort for many years. A kindly servant girl had given it to her just prior to her marriage. “Let’s read Exodus.”

      She explained that it was the story of the Israelites fleeing Egypt.

      “Just like we’re fleeing Grandfather,” Eleanor said with more insight than Clara expected.

      She read about how the pharaoh wanted to kill the boy babies but let the girl babies live.

      “Good thing we’re girls,” Libby said. “Pharaoh would have let us live.”

      “Mama?”

      Clara turned to Eleanor.

      “Did our father wish we were boys?”

      “Of course not. He thought you were precious.” Though he gave them barely a passing glance, she admitted to herself. He seemed to share her father’s opinion that girls were useless objects.

      She returned to the story, her daughters listening intently.

      After a bit, Libby interrupted her. “Mama, are we going to a land flowing with milk and honey?”

      Eleanor sighed. “I miss having milk.”

      “Remember the sweet cakes the cook made? Mmm.” Libby rubbed her tummy. “Wouldn’t I like one right now.”

      Eleanor licked her lips. “I’d like a dozen of them.”

      “Girls, we aren’t going back to your grandfather’s.” She should have never gone back in the first place, but after Rolland had died a year ago, she had been too shocked to resist her father’s insistence that she must move home. For a year she’d turned a blind eye to how her father treated her like a brainless, helpless female. But when she’d heard him telling the girls they didn’t need to attend their lessons because all they needed was to learn how to smile and be pretty, she’d confronted Father. He administered the money left to her by Rolland, and when she’d asked for funds to get her own place, Father had flatly refused. He’d made it clear that she couldn’t manage

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