Be Mine Read Online Free

on Center Street. It’s on the left, between two brick houses.”
    Resting her head on the back of the seat, Sabina visualized a huge, claw-footed bathtub and a thick layer of jasmine-scented bubbles. She wondered what time her hostess served dinner. She opened the car door, wrestled her luggage from the trunk and trudged up the crazy-paving walk. The front door opened before she could pull the burnished brass bell handle.
    “My, it’s getting cold again. You look tuckered out. What you need is a hot bath before dinner. There’s plenty of time.” Kindly hands pulled Sabina over the doorstep. “Sit down and take off those muddy boots.” The thin, graying woman pointed to a gleaming deacon’s bench as she closed the door.
    Sabina automatically obeyed the brisk command while she attempted to break into the flow of words filling the cozy foyer.
    “I was real glad Jonas called about you. Haven’t seen a new face around here since Christmas, when my nephew brought a young lady who didn’t fit at all! He said he was thinkin’ of her reputation. Bullfeathers! It was plain as the nose on your face she wasn’t worrying none.”
    Clara Kincaid stopped for breath, dark eyes snapping, and Sabina seized the opening, although she swallowed laughter at the aspersion cast on the unknown nephew’s friend. “This is really very kind of you, Mrs. Kincaid. I’m sorry to be so late.” She shrugged out of her bulky coat, hanging it on the wooden hanger her hostess produced.
    “No problem. I gave up tryin’ to eat early like other folk a long time ago. Daniel fiddles around after basketball practice and Erica’s out takin’ care of everybody’s business but her own.” Her capable hands set the boots aside before Sabina could protest. “Don’t worry about these none. I’ll just clean ‘em up for you when they’re dry. Let me show you your room. You’re real private in back. You can come and go as you please.”
    The “room” was actually a small, beautifully designed suite. Sabina glanced around the compact sitting room reached through a discreet door set in the dining room paneling. Mrs. Kincaid’s voice flowed around her. Was her dazed condition the result of exhaustion or the unending chatter of her friendly hostess?
    “There’s the bedroom.” She said, pointing at a louvered door. “The bath’s just off it. There’s a no ‘count kitchen, so’s you can fix yourself somethin’ late at night, and I put soft drinks and snacks in that little refrigerator, but you don’t have to cook anythin’. I’ll have meals for you.” She paused, casting a severe glance around the room as if to be sure it was spotless.
    Sabina seized the opening. “This is so modern. Did you build this addition so you could take in guests?”
    A shadow crossed the older woman’s face. “This was for me, so’s I could be near my son’s family and still come and go like I want to. Zack and Marie died on the Ohio River five years ago come spring. Their boat exploded.”
    The remembrance stilled the torrent of speech only momentarily, then she brightened, “Someone had to keep a home for the children, so I just moved upstairs. Seems a shame to let this go to waste, so when there’s a need, I take people in. I like to see new faces now and again, and that motel down the road is downright common.”
    Sabina congratulated herself for having landed on her feet. Grinning conspiratorily at her hostess, Sabina answered, “I know. I drove past on the way in. Remind me to thank Jonas.”
    “Hmph! Him. He’s gen’rally dumber than most, but at least he had the sense to send you to me. Supper won’t be for an hour or so. The twins aren’t home yet, and my nephew’s goin’ to be late. He always is. He’ll burn himself out tryin’ to do two things at once, but there’s no way out of it.” She turned abruptly and disappeared through the paneled door.
    Sabina swooped up her small case and clothing bag and headed for the bathroom. If she