Twilight's Serenade Read Online Free Page A

its resting place. Below was a stack of envelopes that bore barely legible writing but were carefully tied together. How strange. It seemed odd that anyone should have saved these things so carefully in a house that was such an abomination.
    “ ‘Marsha Belikov,’ ” Britta read. “ ‘Sitka, Alaska.’ ” She felt an odd sensation as she opened the first of the letters. She told herself it was necessary to look inside in order to ascertain whether Marsha might have had family that no one knew about. Perhaps the children had grandparents who would want to care for them.
    As she read the letter, she felt her heart skip a beat. “ ‘Here is money for you and Laura. Yuri.’ ” There was nothing more.
    Opening the other envelopes, Britta found the same brief statement in each. So he hadn’t deserted them entirely, she thought. It touched her to know that despite his leaving, Yuri had managed to continue sending money back to his family.
    “This is all I can find,” Gordon said, returning with one small dress in hand. “There’s nothing else I can see that would be useful.”
    Britta put the letters back and placed the satin gown on top before closing the trunk. “Nothing here, either. I suppose I shall simply buy Laura and the baby what they need. Mother will no doubt want to help.” She got to her feet. “I suppose the kindest thing that could happen to this place would be a good fire.”
    Gordon nodded. “I wouldn’t want to have to clean it up.”
    “Neither would I,” she said, but her thoughts went to Yuri.
    They walked back to the house, not even bothering to bring the tattered dress that Gordon had found. Britta had deemed the piece too hopeless to be of any use to them. She was pondering what all she would need to purchase from the store as they rounded the bend and headed up the drive toward the house. These thoughts quickly fled, however, as she heard Laura crying at the top of her lungs.
    Britta picked up her pace and all but ran the last hundred yards to the house. She burst through the door to find her mother trying unsuccessfully to soothe the child.
    “What’s wrong? Is she sick?”
    Mother looked up in frustration. “She keeps asking for her mama.”
    Laura broke free from Lydia and rushed to Britta. “Mama,” she cried and wrapped her arms around Britta’s legs.
    Lifting Laura in her arms, Britta pushed back the child’s clean blond hair. “Your mama had to go away.” She didn’t know how else to speak of Marsha’s death to the young girl.
    “You my mama,” Laura said, placing her tiny hands upon Britta’s face. With tears still dampening her cheeks, Laura smiled. “You Mama.”
    Britta looked at her mother and Kay, trying to convey her need for help. No one said a word, however. “No, Laura. I’m Britta,” she finally told the child.
    “No,” the little girl said in an insistent tone. “Mama.”
    She wrapped her arms around Britta’s neck and settled down. Britta didn’t know what to do or say. “Has she been crying for long?”
    “Ever since you left,” Kay said. “We didn’t know she wanted you ’cause she kept asking for her mother.”
    “Apparently she has adopted you,” Britta’s mother said.
    Britta wanted to say something to protest such thinking, but at the same time, she couldn’t deny that she rather liked the way that Laura made her feel. She was needed and wanted in a way that she’d never experienced before.
    “I suppose it’s because I let her sleep with me last night,” Britta began, “and with the shock of losing her real mother, maybe she is just pretending for now.”
    “Perhaps,” Lydia replied. She seemed to sense Britta’s discomfort. “Did you find any clothes for her or the baby?”
    “No. Not a thing.”
    “You know, Mother probably has some of Connie’s old things that would work,” Gordon offered. “She saves everything. There are whole crates of old clothes in the shed.”
    “That’s a wonderful idea, Gordon,”