The Innocent Read Online Free

rights to shoot any trespassers on my porch.” Her eyes slid to the gun propped by the door.
    “Yes, ma’am. I’ll tell him.”
    Mitchell didn’t look back as he went out the door and down off the porch. He wanted to, but he didn’t.

3

    Saturday dawned with enough chill in the air to warn of summer’s end. Carlyn stirred the fire awake in the stove to fry eggs for her and Asher. Asher didn’t care if his egg was cooked, but the skillet was hot. She did set his dish on the floor. She hadn’t gone quite so crazy that she expected the dog to sit at the table. Not quite.
    “But if you could, it would be company,” she told Asher as she dumped half the eggs in his bowl. She put the other half on her plate on the table. She wasn’t sure why she bothered with a plate for herself instead of eating out of the skillet, but it seemed she should.
    She looked longingly at the teakettle beginning to sing, but it sang for naught. She had no tea and had never cared for the sassafras root her mother used to steep when her tea ran out. She scooted the teakettle to the back of the stove to keep it from taunting her and sat down at the table to bow her head over the egg on her plate. No bread or meat accompanied it. She had hoped to trade apples from hertree for some flour from her neighbor today. Now it hardly seemed worth the trek over to Mrs. Smith’s house.
    It was best to be grateful for what she had instead of wishing for what she didn’t have. “Thank you, Lord, for the food you have supplied. Let it be used for the nourishment of my body and forgive me my sins. Amen.”
    From the time Carlyn could remember, her mother had spoken a prayer like that over their meals, no matter how scant those meals were. Always asking forgiveness when Carlyn saw no need for that request. Her mother was ever working, ever shouldering her load without complaint, ever thanking the Lord for whatever came her way.
    Carlyn didn’t feel thankful this morning. She looked out the back door left open to the morning air and resented the warmth the sun spread across the yard to offer a perfect workday. Carlyn had thought to drag fallen limbs in from the woods behind the house to add to her woodpile before the freezing winds began to blow. The late beans in the garden were ready to pick, and she needed to beat the varmints to the windfall under the apple tree. She wasn’t afraid of work. Since Ambrose went off to war, she had diligently used every gift of the land to keep the wolf from the door.
    But now the sunshine mocked her just as the teakettle had. The wolf had knocked down her door and claimed her house. She took a couple bites of her egg and then dumped the rest in Asher’s dish. The dog looked at her for permission.
    “Go ahead. I’m not hungry.”
    He tilted his head, but didn’t put his nose to the bowl until she turned away. The bowl scooted on the floor as the dog emptied it with his tongue.
    Carlyn wandered from the kitchen to the front room,sliding her fingers across the wooden tables and chairs while memories assaulted her. Tears blurred her eyes as she touched the front door facing and heard the echo of Ambrose’s laugh on that first day here when he carried her across the threshold. She’d felt almost as if she were floating on his love as they shut the door to the world outside and began their life together. A life interrupted by war.
    A life ended by the war. Ambrose Kearney is never coming home. He’s dead. Curt Whitlow’s words slammed through her mind. Dead.
    Curt had been telling her that for months, and while nobody else said it to her face, they thought it. The people at church. Mrs. Smith on the farm over the hill who was continually mentioning this or that unattached man. As if Carlyn could just declare Ambrose dead and pick a new man. Carlyn didn’t want a new man. She wanted Ambrose striding up the lane, home. She had clung to that hope through two long winters.
    When she was a girl, her mother often cautioned