Free Heaven Sent by Alice Duncan Page B

wrote
them to her.”
    Good heavens. Callie wasn’t at all
sure she wanted to delve into love letters, if these were indeed
love letters, written by the bereaved Mr. Aubrey Lockhart to his
dead wife. It seemed so . . . intrusive. Snoopy. Sly,
even.
    “ They made me feel better,
so I put them in my closet and I read them after you tuck me in
bed. Only I don’t read as good as you do.”
    Becky handed Callie a couple of the
letters. Callie took them, feeling more uncertain than usual. It
wasn’t proper to read someone’s private correspondence. It was
interfering and meddlesome. She turned the letters over on her lap
so that the penmanship wasn’t visible.
    “ They make me happy,” Becky
said simply.
    Callie was lost. Although she knew she
shouldn’t, and that she would hate herself for what she was about
to do, she took up the first letter and opened it. Becky climbed
back into bed, snuggled against a pillow, folded her hands on the
counterpane, and said, “He called her Annie.”
    There was wonder in the
small voice. Callie swallowed hard. Oh,
dear. Oh, dear .
    Carefully unfolding the paper, she saw
the firm, crisp, bold hand of a man. She cleared her throat. She
read. “ ‘My Darling Annie . . .’ ”
     
     

Chapter Five
     
     
    Callie lay in her own bed for hours
that night after reading Becky two of Aubrey Lockhart’s letters to
his late wife. Becky had been wide-eyed and sparkling with joy to
have all of the words pronounced for her. Callie herself had been
fascinated, but not awfully joyful.
    And now here she lay unable to sleep,
tossing and turning, pondering the nature of love and loss. Every
now and then she had to wipe a tear from her cheek.
    She felt stupid. She also felt as if
she’d done something inexcusably wrong.
    But when Becky had told her
that reading from the letters made her feel better, Callie couldn’t
have resisted if she’d tried. Actually, she had tried. A little. But not
much.
    Lines from the first letter echoed in
her head: “Knowing that our love has created another life gives me
a sense of awe, darling Annie. A child of ours. It is a blessing
and a miracle.”
    Another letter left her in
awe:
     
    My Darling
Annie,
    When I hold you, the world
falls away. Suddenly, miraculously, everything vanishes—my fears,
my worries, my sorrows—and I know only you. Your lips. Your eyes.
Your tender, trusting love. I hope that you will never leave my
arms. I know that you will never leave my heart.
     
    He’d called his wife darling . Darling Annie.
Aubrey Lockhart, who appeared to be as cold and distant as the moon
and the stars, had once cherished a woman and called her
darling.
    Callie had never been as emotionally
moved as she had been when she’d read those letters. She’d been
unable to read more than the first two, because she didn’t want to
cry in front of Becky. If she’d continued reading them, she’d have
been running like the Mississippi River in flood.
    It amazed her that two people could
adore each other as Aubrey and Anne Lockhart had. They’d seemed in
perfect harmony, a sublime match made in heaven. Callie didn’t
imagine that such genuine, deep, and abiding love, complete with
passion, respect, honor, admiration, and happiness occurred very
often in the world. She wondered if her brother, George, and his
wife, Marie, shared that same kind of love. She supposed they did;
the way they looked at each other when they believed no one else
was watching was definitely a clue.
    My darling
Callie . She rolled the words around on her
tongue, but they didn’t feel right, and the not-right feeling
depressed her. She couldn’t imagine a man cherishing her or ever
calling her his darling Callie. And it wasn’t only because she
thought Anne a name with more harmonious potential than Callie,
either. The fact of the matter was that she’d believed for some
time now that she wasn’t the sort of woman a man could cherish, as
she was far too independent and opinionated.
    Anne