The River Widow(49)

“Fine by me,” Mabel answered.

Something hooklike lodged in Adah’s windpipe, but she cocked her head and her words slipped out as if they had minds of their own. “Isn’t Miss Socks the horse Lester’s first wife was riding when she was killed?”

Mabel’s face registered shock. The skin was hanging off her cheekbones, and her pupils became pinpoints as she blanched. “I can’t remember.” She wiped her hands on her apron, and Adah noticed a slight tremor in her fingers. She appeared to have to force herself to meet Adah’s eyes. “Who told you that?”

“Someone at church mentioned it.” Funny, Adah thought, how these days she could walk in and out of the truth as though through an open door. “Said she was surprised you’d have kept a horse that killed someone.”

Mabel fixed a pained but angry stare on Adah. “Like I said, I don’t remember.”

“How many horses did you have back then?”

“We had several.”

“But still . . .”

“What are you saying?” Mabel demanded as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Adah’s gaze never fell. “Only that it seems strange you’d let your granddaughter ride a horse that killed someone—her mother, in fact.”

Visibly shaken, Mabel darted her eyes away, and a line etched between her brows. “I changed my mind,” she said fiercely, her hands clasping her apron. “I don’t want Daisy on no horse.”

Adah smiled; she couldn’t help it. Then she spun around and walked calmly to the back of the house and out the back door, filled with satisfaction at being able to challenge any of the Branches, especially Mabel or Buck. But Buck was too terrifying to face head-on, and he was sure to hear anything Adah said to Mabel anyway.

On the heels of her satisfaction, pure dread. Why was she making things harder for herself? She hadn’t been thinking straight. Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? She remembered one of the first things she’d learned while out on the streets of New York City. If you spot someone’s weakness, avoid touching upon it at all costs, unless you want a confrontation.

Adah was running late that day, and by the time she returned home from making her laundry rounds, supper was over. But Mabel, Jesse, and Buck were still sitting around the dining table, apparently in rapt conversation that stopped as soon as Adah entered. Buck was spinning quarters on the tabletop.

“Mama,” Daisy cried and ran to Adah, wrapping her arms around Adah’s legs. “You were gone so long.”

“Not long enough,” Mabel said.

Buck shushed her. His nostrils visibly flared, and he gave Adah a look that felt like the tips of a hundred sharp knives were pressing into her flesh. He caught the quarter he’d been spinning and slammed it on the tabletop, his eyes still boring through her.

She supposed they had been discussing the earlier talk of Miss Socks and Betsy, and she figured they were none too happy about it.

So why were they keeping her around? Did they still want her part of Lester’s farm? Or was there more? Were they planning to rid themselves of her, too, just to make it easier? Even though Adah had once believed the Branches wouldn’t dare stage another accidental death on their property, that night she told herself to be extra careful around farm machinery and make sure that the Branches kept their distance when she was around fire or in any other vulnerable situations. She decided to always prepare her own plate of food and pour her own coffee.

One never knew.





Chapter Seventeen

On the day Ben Harper came to retrieve the tractor that had been heavily used for tilling and planting, his face had been transformed from one full of energy, optimism, and enthusiasm to one that looked as though it had experienced a grave disappointment for the first time. He wore casual slacks and a plaid shirt, and together with his trailer driver, they loaded the dirt-encrusted tractor onto the flatbed without saying a word, their faces blank. Buck and Jesse hadn’t even washed it.

After the trailer started lumbering off the farm, Adah ran to catch up.

The driver must have seen her in the mirror and stopped. Ben Harper looked out of the window at her and then stepped out of the truck as she approached; he was wearing a curious but wary expression.

When she reached him, she was heaving dry breaths. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I just had to . . . to ask . . . are you going to be okay?”

First, he seemed to pass through the surprise that she had come after him; then he plastered on a smile and forced a carefree tone of voice. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

Adah caught her breath. “I know you paid for the tractor and expected Buck to pay you back.”

His face fell. She could see how much his innocence had suffered, how many years he had aged over this affair. He asked, “Who else knows about this?”

Adah shrugged. “Don’t worry. As far as I know, only this family.”

He regarded her warily, but finally asked in a low voice, “Do me a favor, then. Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t. I’m so sorry.” She tried unsuccessfully to stifle her questions. “How are you going to handle this?”

Ben Harper laughed. “Why would I tell you?”

She supposed she deserved that. Ben Harper knew nothing about her. Hands on her hips, she shook her head. “I hate what they did to you.”