Free The Haunting of Autumn Lake by Marcia Lynn McClure Page A

given her. “And it is a pumpkin layin’ in a pumpkin field. Jethro is my mama’s favorite pumpkin this year…and the biggest pumpkin my daddy has ever grown.”
     
    Gentry smiled at the girl. Was she serious? The girl was planning on painting a portrait of a pumpkin for her mother for Christmas? The sketch was certainly the best rendering of a pumpkin he’d ever seen—not that he’d ever seen a sketch or painting of a pumpkin before—but it was obvious Autumn Lake was a very talented artist.
    Still, he couldn’t keep himself from asking, “You’re foolin’ with me, right?”
    “Nope,” she said, her smile broadening as she studied her own sketch. “Mama and I love pumpkins! Daddy does too, of course…but only because Mama does. It’s why he bought the pumpkin patch when Mr. Wimber passed on. He bought it for my mama…and every year he grows the most beautiful pumpkins anywhere.”
    Gentry grinned. Here she goes , he thought. In his ten days or so in the company of Autumn Lake, he’d learned one thing—that though she might be a beauty on the outside, the girl was even more beautiful on the inside. And one thing that made her so beautiful was the way she’d launch into a description of something or another that she loved. It may be her daddy or one of her brothers, but time and again Gentry had learned that it was mostly either something to do with nature (specifically harvest season or Christmastime) or some intriguing tale she’d heard somewhere along the way.
    The truth was Gentry adored the girl for it. She had a way of making life seem good—even filled with hope. Autumn Lake saw beauty in the world instead of ugliness, from the biggest oak tree adorned in crimson leaves to the tiniest little worm she’d found while shucking corn. He almost laughed out loud as he remembered the day she’d gone on and on and on about how she couldn’t wait for the harvest moon to appear. She told him all about how much she loved the harvest moon—about how, to her, it looked like a big orange and golden pumpkin sitting in the sky. She explained how sad she was that it only happened once a year—but then promptly turned tail and resolved that she guessed that’s what made it so very, very special. On and on she’d talked—her lovely songbird’s voice describing the feel in the air on the night of a harvest moon, how the breeze seemed happier and the grass felt cooler.
    Autumn’s nearly poetical description of the one night of the year when she loved the moon best had lulled Gentry to sleep that day. For a time, he’d forgotten his pain as he’d listened to her melodic voice and gently drifted off to unconsciousness. As he studied her a moment—as she continued to explain why she and her mother both favored pumpkins so—Gentry wondered for a moment if she truly loved the harvest moon as much as she’d professed to or if it were her way of soothing him that day. He wasn’t sure which it was because he’d been with her enough to know that it could’ve been either.
    “I’m hopin’ Daddy chooses Jethro to go to seed,” Autumn said, snapping Gentry’s attention away from a dreamy harvest moon to a large, ripening pumpkin sitting in a field. She shook her head. “Mama’s gonna be so sad to see him go. So…I thought I’d paint his portrait for her for Christmas. It’s the one thing I can do well sometimes…draw and paint.”
    With the sweet taste of apples and cinnamon candy lingering in his mouth, Gentry licked his fork and placed it on the now empty plate.
    “Those are the best kinds of gifts, if you ask me,” he said. He didn’t know why he’d said it. But he had.
    “Paintings?” Autumn asked.
    Gentry smiled. “Well…I meant the kind of gifts a person makes on his own…usin’ just his skills or talents or the feelin’s in his heart that he has for the person he’s makin’ it for.”
    “Me too,” Autumn agreed.
    Gentry looked up then—his gaze locking with the stormy gray-blue