Yesterday's Stardust Read Online Free Page B

from the milk separator out on a clean flour sack to dry. Mama smiled. “Good girl. I’ll be off now. Stay in the house tonight.”
    “I will.” Pretending to stretch, she slipped both hands behind her back.
    A lie doesn’t count if your fingers are crossed.
    Half an hour later, she lowered onto her belly in the hayloft, careful not to dislodge a single blade of straw. The open door framed an orange ball of sun, low and huge, melting into the pines above their valley. Through the spaces between the boards, she had a perfect view of Daddy’s “office.” Beyond the curtain that separated the office from the rest of the barn, Applejack nickered and Tess answered with a soft snort. Francie rested her chin on her hands and waited.
    Almost dark. And Friday. Something would happen tonight.
    Daddy lit kindling in the stove, poured water from a dented bucket into the iron kettle, then filled a small pan with sugar. He wiped off the old, scarred table and set a tin cup in the center. “Thirty-five cents a pint, gentlemen,” she’d hear him say. And then the stories would start. Stories of birthing calves and record rainfall, of life before the War. And the War.
    Mama spent Friday evenings reading to Mrs. Johnson. Francie was always invited, but there were too many things a fifteen-year-old girl would rather do than sip tea and read the Bible to an old lady. Things like listening in on Daddy’s “business.” And hoping for another good fight.
    Below her the door opened. She hadn’t heard a car. Daddy looked up. His eyes widened. “Signe? Is something wrong?”
    Mama never came into Daddy’s office. Francie couldn’t see her face, but she could hear her breathing like she’d been running. Her brown shift quivered over wide hips as she caught her breath. She held something out to Daddy. “Carina is ill. I came back to get slippery elm. She got a letter for us by mistake.” Mama thrust an envelope at him. “From your daughter.”
    Francie pressed her face into the boards. Suzette had left home going on three years ago. They hadn’t heard from her since.
    “My
daughter?” His eyes lit with a rare smile. “Well, what does she say?”
    “She says”—Mama hissed the words—“we have a grandchild.”
    Daddy’s jaw slackened. Tired eyes widened. “A baby?”
    “No, Henri. A child. A two-year-old boy.”
    “And she just tells us now? Is she—”
    “Married? Of course not.”
    His hands knotted into fists. “What does she want? She knows she won’t get money.”
    “She wants Francie.”
    Daddy gave a laugh that sent shivers down Francie’s back. “I will not lose another daughter.” He held his hand out for the letter. “Hide the envelope. We may want her address.” He tossed the letter into the raging flames in the stove. “Francie cannot hear of this.”

C HAPTER 3
    T he shadows disappeared. A slight breeze stirred through the open car window. Dani stretched and rubbed her eyes then pulled the front of her shirt away from her belly, letting the air dry her hot, sticky skin. Every pore in her body cried out for a shower, and her stomach growled. The smells coming from the restaurant called to her.
    She’d made a call and found out the police had taken China in for questioning and then released her. The woman at the police station who always gave Dani more information than she was supposed to had no idea who China had left with or where she’d gone.
    Three hours and still no sign of her. She’d come back for the rest of her things, wouldn’t she? Or send someone for the half-packed boxes? Or would she just walk away, leaving every reminder of life with Miguel behind?
    Doubts danced on the night breeze. “What am I doing here?”
    “This is your ‘What’s next.’”
    Mitch’s commission warred with Evan’s warning—
“You don’t have to do this.”
    “I can. I have to.”
China was out there somewhere, hating herself for what had happened, blaming Dani for starting the Domino chain that