Just One Kiss (The Dream Catcher Series-Book Two) Read Online Free Page B

Alabama, like a horse gone loco. Towns burned, homes destroyed, people displaced, gloom echoed on shoulders not strong enough to bear the brunt, the blacks were freed and walked in an uncertain path to an unknown future. Others were dazed and slowly began the job of rebuilding with a pride that no longer existed.
    Watching the carriages come and go, some from wealthy neighbors that managed to survive the cutthroat war, others worn and mistreated through desperate times. The cotton wagons passed like an endless sea of white. He heard the blacksmith pounding out a new horseshoe, the familiar sound harkening a brief welcome. Businesses had gone on as normal since the war ended. Merchants advertised, the saloons filled, as soft piano played in the distance. A mongrel dog ran after a wagon, barking playfully at the kids in the back hanging their bare feet over the edge of the wagon. The dog nipped at them and they laughed.
    Pleasure seemed in odd places these days. Before the war he wouldn’t have paid a bit of attention to those kids.
    Reconstruction resounded with loud hammers and nails.
    Ex-confederates leaned against hitching posts and walls, some missing arms, legs, or even eyes, watching the day unfold, with tight lips and furrowed brows, still wearing their dingy, holey uniforms, none wearing the pride or dignity of victory.
    An unremarkable day unfolded until Lee rounded the corner and saw a Negro woman with three little girls, loading a wagon with supplies. Nothing strange about her or her girls except the serious expression she wore, her shoulders sagged, her mouth turned downward, her hair was tied into a knot at her nape. She filled out her dress and then some, handsome wide hips, and ample breasts to pillow a man with. Stout and strong and beautiful as he’d ever seen. She wasn’t some scrawny little girl, this was a fully grown woman, ripe for the pickin’. Lee felt himself react. That hadn’t happened in a long time. But for some strange reason, his hand itched to hold her in his embrace. And despite the fact that he only had one arm now, she brought out the man in him.
    Her helpers were a short staircase of little girls.
    The youngest staircase stopped, bent over to retrieve their mutt of a puppy under the wagon, and displayed a rather wet pair of pantaloons to Lee’s curious glance. The corners of Lee’s mouth tugged. Still too little to climb up the wagon, the others helped her up and scoffed that she was wet.
    They quickly pulled her pantaloons down and laid them to dry on the side of the wagon, waving like a proud flag in the gentle breeze. The puppy barked and wagged its tail, the youngest stuck her tongue out at the mutt, and he licked her right on the mouth. She giggled.
    Then a boy about thirteen jumped on the back of the wagon, hanging his bare feet over the edge. He had a small sack and was pulling candy out of it. He turned and looked at the oldest girl who frowned mightily at him.
    “What’s that you got?” she asked him.
    “Peppermint, that’s what. Want some?” he offered her a stick of candy with a grin.
    The girl looked for a long minute then huffed and sat down beside him. “Where did you get candy?”
    “I polished a man’s boots, and he gave me a nickel to buy candy. So I did.” He handed some to the others now, then turned to look at the oldest.
    “You worked for it?”
    “Shore did.”
    “Oh…well, then that’s different.” She smiled and licked the candy.
    Lee couldn’t help but admire the girl’s attitude.
    But he was looking at the boy. He knew him. It had to be Sam, and if that was Sam, then the woman was Hattie. He mentally figured in his head, yes, Hattie would be twenty-four by now, that was about right. Good grief, she’d grown up and into a beauty. Of course he’d never tell her that, but she was as pretty as he’d ever seen.
    Lee felt a little sunshine leak into his heart, melting away the cold thoughts of war and killing. It’d been a long time since he