The River Widow(72)

He looked slapped. “Or you don’t want me to know.”

Adah gazed down at her feet and then up to the sky, searching for someone, something. If only the ghost of Betsy Branch would appear and help her or bless her.

“It’s better if you don’t.” Her eyes back on Jack, she said, “If by chance the Branches decide to report what I do to the police, they’ll question everyone I talked to. You’re a customer of mine. They’ll try to find out if you know anything.”

He looked pained. “And you think I’d talk?”

“No.”

His gaze leveled on hers. “So you don’t want me to know where you’re heading. You want to make sure I can’t find you.” In his eyes, a plea, even as he spoke of her leaving. Did he think the strength of his love could hold her here? If only it could!

She bit her lip. “I need to try to make sure no one can find me.”

She watched him swallow hard. “Even me,” he said.

Her chest began to ache. She had to make sure Jack didn’t offer to run off with her and give up this land he’d saved for and loved so much. He’d found a real home here, and with her, he’d have to live with shallow roots, holding on to a terrible secret, always looking over his shoulder. She was choosing that life, but it wouldn’t be right for him. “I’m so sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean for anything to happen between us. What can I do? How can I make it better?”

His face was molded with agony, his eyes shimmering in the sunlight, and he spoke like a defeated man, a broken man. “There’s no help for this.”

And then he simply kept his eyes on hers. She saw pure adoration in them. And she hated to admit it, even to herself, but his face had become the first thing to swim into her consciousness when she awoke in the morning. It had also become the last thing that followed her in dreams as she fell asleep at night.

He said again, “There’s no help for this. I’m sick with longing . . .”

With the prismed light and soft hum of nature around them, it was as if they were submerged and alone, in a world all their own.

But then there was Daisy.





Chapter Twenty-Three

Adah, emboldened by her successful trip to town to see Kate Johnson, took the next step in enacting her plan for diversion. She caught a ride into the city, and then another to Les’s and her old house on the river. Even though she had been gone from the house longer than usual when she’d visited Kate, no one had mentioned it to her. And today, if the Branches did find out she’d come to the old farmhouse, it would work to her benefit.

The farmer who picked Adah up dropped her off at the entrance to the property. After thanking him, she walked toward the house, which was partly obscured by tall weeds growing along the dirt drive. It would be the first time Adah had to face alone the place where she had killed a walking, breathing man, one she had once loved. A sense of self-preservation slowed her steps. The only time she’d been here before had been in the company of Jesse and Buck, and she had been on a mission to find Lester’s money. She simply hadn’t been able to let down her guard. But this time she would have no such distractions.

What would it feel like to walk across the same ground where she had dragged Lester’s lifeless body to the river? Would she be forced to relive what she’d done? She’d heard that time healed all wounds, but as each day passed, she found that the shame over Lester never left her completely. Other wounds could be treated and healed, but guilt never goes.

A bright-red cardinal flew across her path, and the sweet smell of rolled hay tickled her nose. In a roadside tree, she spotted a bird’s nest up high. All good signs, she said to herself and pushed on.

At her side, she carried a pail full of cleaning supplies. She planned to remove as many of the ruined furnishings as she could and then start washing down walls and floors. As she drew closer and the house came into view, however, she paused. A pickup truck was parked in front of the house, but it wasn’t Lester’s old one. Lester’s was nowhere to be seen, and a man was walking through the front door.

Adah didn’t recognize him.

Continuing forward, she tried to imagine who would have any business here and what their business could be. The house looked the same; a grimy watermark still ringed the structure up high near the roof, and below that was dirt left behind from the sludge after the flood. When she reached the house, she climbed the steps to the open front door, and the same moldy smell wafted out from it.

“Hello,” she called out.

The man she’d seen go into the house came to the door and stepped out on the porch while saying hello back at her. He appeared to be in his late twenties, redheaded with a ginger beard, rail thin, and he wore a long-sleeved shirt, work pants, and boots—the garb of a farmer. He also had the quiet, sober demeanor of most farmers she’d known. His hands were lean, with ragged but clean nails. He probably worked the soil but made sure to wash his hands at the end of each day.

When he gazed at Adah, his gray eyes held curiosity but not one ounce of anything negative. “Can I help you?” he asked.

Not sensing anything amiss but overcome with curiosity, she said to him, “I was about to ask you the same thing. May I help you ?”

He looked confused. Now a woman holding an infant came to the door and gazed out at Adah with a question on her face.