Fox River Read Online Free Page B

his shoulder. Blinken had joined her sister, and the two were investigating Jake’s latest project. “Work going well?”
    “Liz Schaeffer brought me a mantel clock that’s been in her family for three generations. Ticking fifty beats to the minute.”
    “Can you fix it?”
    “I’ll have to see if I can find a new part, but most likely.” He swallowed her in his arms, as if he knew she needed his warmth. “I made chili for dinner. And corn bread’s ready to go in the oven.”
    “You’re too good to me.” She relaxed against him, looking up at a face that was growing increasingly lined with age. Jake had never been a handsome man, but he had always been distinguished, well before the age the adjective usually applied. His hair was snow-white, but still as thick and curly as it had been the first time she saw him—and still, as then, a little too long. His eyes were the brown of chinquapins, eyes that promised patience but of late showed a certain fatigue, as well. Sometimes she was afraid that he was simply and finally growing tired of her.
    “Let me put things away and I’ll be in to finish the meal.”
    She moved away in a flurry of guilt. “Don’t be silly. I’ll put the corn bread in the oven and make a salad.” She paused. “Do we have lettuce?”
    He smiled a little. “Uh-huh. I shopped yesterday.”
    “Where was I?”
    “Holed up in your study.”
    “Oh…”
    “I like to shop, Maisy. I always see somebody I know. I do more business between the carrots and eggplant than I do on the telephone. Go make a salad.”
    She made it to the doorway before she turned. “Would you mind if Julia and Callie came to live with us?”
    He looked up from his workbench. “Was that Julia’s idea?”
    “I made the offer.” She paused. “I pushed a little.”
    “Like a steamroller on autopilot.”
    “She shouldn’t be there, Jake. You know that place. She’s miserable.”
    “You know Julia and Callie are welcome here.”
    “Was I wrong to push?”
    “You’re a good mother. You always do what you think is best.”
    She knew the dangers of acting on instinct, yet she was pleased at his support. “I’m going back tomorrow.”
    “Bard won’t be happy if you interfere.”
    She stepped outside and peered up at the sky, now a seamless stretch of polished pewter. The temperature was dropping, and she shivered. Autumn was exercising its muscle. Maisy decided that after dinner she would ask Jake to make a small fire in the living room, then she would tell him in detail everything that Julia had said.
    She wondered, as she did too often now, if he would find the recounting of her day too tedious to warrant his full attention.
     
    Julia knew Bard would visit after dinner, not because his schedule was predictable but because he needed to see for himself that everything at the clinic was under control. In the early days of their marriage, that quality had reassured her. She was married to a man who had answers for everything, and for a while, at least, she had been glad to let him have answers for her.
    She felt a vague twinge of guilt, as she always did when she had disloyal thoughts about Bard, the man who had stood beside her at the worst moment of her life. Bard could be overbearing, but he could also be strong and reassuring.
    In some ways Bard was the product of another era. He was older than she, almost twelve years older, but it was more outlook than age that separated them. Bard would have felt at home in King Arthur’s court, a knight happiest slaying dragons. But Bard would never be a Lancelot. He wasn’t motivated by religious fervor and rarely by romance. Dragons would fall simply because they stood in his path.
    At seven o’clock Julia found her way to the dresser where her comb and brush were kept. Her black hair was shoulder-length and straight, easy enough to manage, even when she couldn’t see it. She brushed it now, smoothing it straight back from the widow’s peak that made it difficult