Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel Read Online Free

other, thinking. “My mother must have taken the quilts to the cabin and left them there. But I don’t understand—” Suddenly Rosa grew very still, and all at once, she knew. “She wanted me to have them. And she could not bring them to me here.”
    “Why not?”
    “My husband would not allow my parents on his property, not even to visit their grandchildren. When I wanted to see my mother, we had to meet on the mesa. Once a week, when John went to pick up the mail from the train station, I would take the children to see her. You know the place.” Everyone knew the story; everyone knew the place her mother had dearly loved, the place where she had slipped and fallen to her death. The authorities had declared it a suicide, but Rosa knew it must have been a terrible accident. Isabel never would have desecrated the place where they and the children had enjoyed brief moments of happiness.
    “Rosa,” said Elizabeth warily. “The day your mother died—were you supposed to meet her on the mesa?”
    “I was, but she didn’t know that I could not come. A few days before, John had returned home with the mail and found me and the children gone. I—I had to tell him where we had been.” Involuntarily, Rosa touched her left shoulder, the one he had dislocated when he forced the truth from her. “After that, he varied his schedule so I never knew when he would be gone or how soon he would return. I was never able to meet my mother again.” Her hands tightened around the quilt, her mother’s last gift to a penitent and sorrowful daughter. “I can’t help but think of her waiting for me, waiting and waiting, every week without fail, hoping I would come. I can’t help but imagine her despair when I never appeared. Perhaps she thought she would never see her grandchildren again. Perhaps—perhaps I’ve been fooling myself all these years, telling myself her death was an accident.”
    Elizabeth’s eyes were wide and apprehensive. “Perhaps you were.”
    Rosa looked up sharply and read the fear written on Elizabeth’s face. “No. No. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t believe it.”
    It was unimaginable—but was it any more likely that her mother had accidentally fallen from a place she knew so well or that she had taken her own life? John had known that Isabel had waited faithfully for Rosa and the children on the mesa on the days he drove to the train station for the mail. He had known that she waited alone.
    “Mamá?” said Lupita in a small, high voice full of fear.
    With a start, Rosa remembered her daughters. “Marta, go and see if Miguel and Ana are still sleeping, would you, please?” she said. “Take Lupita with you.”
    Reluctantly, Marta did as she was told. The girls had beengone only a moment when Rosa heard the familiar, dreaded roar of John’s roadster as it sped up the gravel road and braked hard in front of the adobe. Elizabeth looked out the window in alarm, but Rosa, strangely calm, folded her mother’s quilt, set it aside, and stood. She was on her feet when the door burst open and John stormed in.
    “Where is that son of a bitch?” John’s sharp gaze scanned the room, alighting on Elizabeth for a moment before moving on. “I know he’s here.”
    “No one else is here,” said Rosa. “Only Elizabeth.”
    John shoved Rosa aside and strode into the kitchen. Rosa heard the table overturn and glass shatter, and then he appeared in the doorway again, his eyes ablaze with fury. “I saw his car.”
    “I drove it,” said Elizabeth. “I work for the Jorgensens.”
    “Did you come to help my dear wife plan the birthday party?” The glare John shot Rosa over his shoulder was full of anger, betrayal, and pain—a deep, deep hurt that must be avenged. “Lupita turns five next week, did you know that?”
    Rosa could not breathe. Marta’s birth only seven months after their marriage had raised John’s suspicions, but he had drowned out Rosa’s confession with his demands that they