Water and Stone Read Online Free Page A

she found herself attracted to his naiveté... how he touched her so reservedly and always only after asking permission to do so, or maybe the way he said her name rolling it off his tongue with just a trace of a Midwest accent... like he might have been a gangster from Chicago in a previous life.
    In the beginning he treated her like his own private princess always ready to ride to her rescue no matter how innocuous were her circumstances. Those actions served to mitigate the fact that she discovered how Rancher Ford was by nature a taciturn man who rarely smiled and was even less apt to laugh.
    Despite being over fifty years old Yani still retained both the appearance of youth and her virginity. Men, while they were initially drawn to her, were invariably repulsed by something hovering about her that she herself didn't fully understand.
    Though swarthy in appearance Rancher's complexion seemed more the result of all the days he spent in the sun and the wind rather than in possessing the same naturally brown skin as the island boys she remembered fawning over as a girl. Though he hid it under a façade of bravado the man seemed to carry the same hurt as she did... the pain in knowing those who should love them the most were in fact their sworn enemies.
    He walked with a bow-legged gait which at first Yani put off to all the time Rancher spent in the saddle. Later she learned that in actuality it was a birth defect—a club foot—that made him walk that way, something that could have been easily remedied when he was a boy if only his parents had cared enough.
    Though he rarely spoke of it, when he did it saddened her to think of all the years Rancher spent living in a loveless home and the sadder she became the more she loved him for it.
    He came to her each night for weeks and though she hated herself for it she looked forward to each visit with the same anticipation as their first moment together. When she missed her time of the month she said nothing hoping it was only an irregularity in her cycle. By the time Rancher Ford had quit visiting, she knew she was pregnant.
    Though she told herself to leave the Triple Six and the man who owned it behind, instead she stayed. On the first day she arrived on the Triple Six Rancher Ford showed Yani to a tiny cabin perched on the edge of the hardpan that went on as far as the eye could see.
    "This will be a better place for you to stay than that old barn where the men bunk, Yanielle. I used to live here years ago. Do you like it?"
    "Yes, Senor Ford... thank you for your generosity... and please call me Yani."
    "Yani... that's a pretty name... well, just make yourself at home and I'll be expecting you at the hacienda come morning."
    Though he'd hired the men and the other women in the group of migrants that she traveled with to work the fields for some unexplained reason Rancher Ford offered her a job working at the big hacienda where he lived with his wife and son.
    Yani, simply glad for the work, didn't question his motives and though she found herself unexpectedly attracted to the man she thought it better that she keep those feelings to herself.
    Leaving Cuba, Yani thought she had taken care to leave no trail to follow but she had been mistaken. Evalena, her sister, had appeared unlooked for out of the dark on the same cold and windy winter night Yani gave birth to Willem.
    She had all intentions of naming him William but the name was already taken by Rancher Ford's other son and the more she thought about it Yani didn't wish to offend the man's wife. Working at the hacienda as she did, Yani sometimes caught Lorraine Ford covertly staring her way as if the woman knew something was going on between Rancher and herself yet didn’t know exactly what to do about it.
    Willem seemed a good choice though she often wondered if the name had somehow angered Rancher Ford. After spending nearly every night with her for over a month, he simply quit appearing at the chabola. He even seemed to