Free The Inheritance by Tamera Alexander

what’s really happened.”
    Robert didn’t say anything. The darkness obscured his expression, so McKenna couldn’t read his mood—which seemed to change with little notice these days.
    “I guarantee you she doesn’t understand,” he finally whispered, his tone surprisingly tender. “Not yet.” He bowed his head. “But she will, soon enough.”
    McKenna stared, unaccustomed to the emotion in her younger brother’s voice.
    After a long silence, he looked up. “But I wouldn’t push it with her. She’ll have the rest of her life to try to make sense of it all.” He took the porch stairs in twos and walked past her into the cabin.

    The next morning, a knock sounded on Emma’s bedroom door, and McKenna looked up from buttoning the child’s dress. “Yes?”
    “Miss Ashford,” Dr. Foster spoke softly through the closed door. “The pastor has arrived.”
    “Thank you, Dr. Foster. We’re almost ready.”
    As she straightened the ribbon in Emma’s hair, McKenna caught the reflection in the mirror that hung askew on the wall. What she saw tugged at overfrayed emotions. With their best frocks pressed and their hair combed and arranged, she and Emma were dressed for the funeral, but McKenna knew that neither one of them was ready for what lay ahead.
    She turned the child to face her, not surprised at the ill-tempered expression she received. Since telling Emma about Janie’s passing, the child hadn’t looked at her without displeasure. McKenna reached out to smooth a piece of lace on the child’s dress—a dress Janie had sewn for Easter—but Emma pulled away.
    McKenna formed a smile. “Emma, do you remember what I told you last night before you went to bed?”
    Uncertainty penetrated Emma’s scowl, and the child shook her head. But McKenna knew she wasn’t telling the truth.
    What she’d planned on telling Emma about the funeral and what would be happening in the next few hours suddenly seemed unfitting, and she decided to tell her what was in her heart. “I know this is hard for you to understand, Emma. And I know you’re not happy with me right now, so I hope you’ll listen.”
    The dainty furrows in Emma’s brow deepened.
    “I want you to remember, above anything else, that your mama and papa love you, very much. As do I, and Uncle Robert. And that no matter what happens, nothing can take away that love.”
    A second knock sounded, and through the closed door McKenna heard what she assumed was the pastor’s voice, as well as Dr. Foster’s. People would be arriving soon. It was nearly time.
    Movement from outside the window drew her attention. She spotted a blurred figure cresting the hill behind the cabin. The person made his way down the path toward the homestead. At first she thought it was Robert, who had let her know earlier that morning that he refused to attend the funeral. She’d told him he didn’t have a choice and then hadn’t seen him since breakfast.
    She stepped closer to the window and squinted. It wasn’t Robert . . .
    It was Marshal Caradon, and he was walking back toward the cabin, cradling something in his arms.

NINE
    W yatt looked down at the tiny bundle he held. The infant hardly weighed anything at all. He couldn’t help but wonder what this child was doing now, in the hereafter. He hoped he was running and playing, doing all the things he hadn’t a chance to do here on earth. And with his papa and mama beside him, no less.
    Dr. Foster had swathed the boy snug in a thin quilt before burial, presumably one Janie had made. Wyatt hadn’t removed it, nor had he pulled the edge back to peer into the infant’s face. He already had an idea in his mind of what the baby looked like, and he preferred to commit that visage to memory instead of the other.
    He’d purchased a baby’s blanket from the mercantile yesterday and had wrapped the babe in it, layering the new over the old, and hoping to diminish the effects of the body being in the earth for several days. Seemed to