Free Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 by Patricia Hagan Page A

job.
    The nurse was awed. “You have such a way with the patients, Mrs. Coltrane. It’s a touch the rest of us just don’t have, I’m afraid.”
    Kitty wearily got to her feet. “It isn’t a touch. It’s simply a matter of letting them know that someone else cares.” With a gesture to the soiled sheet, she said, “Please change that. It won’t help him any to wake up and see all that blood.”
    By the time she left the building and went to the shed in back where the mare was kept, darkness had descended. Slipping on the mare’s bridle and saddle, she mounted and moved out toward the street.
    Riding through town was not too bad. There were street lamps to show the way, and, as always, passing the stores and houses conjured up memories, some good, some bad. Danton’s Dry Goods Store made Kitty frown. She passed the darkened windows. Jerome Danton owned half of Goldsboro and most of the land surrounding, but Kitty felt no envy. She only wished she never had to see him or his shrewish wife ever again.
    There was no moon, for the storm clouds had gathered in the night sky to make the world seem even darker. Now and then a zigzag flash of lightning would streak across the sky, showing the road ahead only briefly as the mare moved into the countryside. A warm wind blew briskly, rattling the leaves overhead, creating an eerie sound. Kitty gave the mare her lead, allowing her to set her own pace lest she stumble and fall in haste, though Lord, she wanted to get home.
    Kitty’s head began to nod. How wonderful it would be to climb into bed right then. She admonished herself for being so late. John would be asleep by the time she reached Mattie’s, and Mattie would insist that he stay overnight, pointing out the foolishness of taking him home only to return early the next morning. But Kitty had to be with him, if only for a short while.
    Travis. How she missed him, and prayed he missed her just as much. If only things had turned out differently.
    A drop of rain splashed her nose, and that was the only warning before the sky opened, unleashing a downpour. In only moments she was drenched to the skin, and there was no shelter in sight. The rain, the increasing bolts of lightning, and the rolls of thunder were all making the mare skittish.
    The sky exploded with a yellow-white flash, and suddenly the bridge was visible. Soon the sound of the mare’s hooves striking the wooden planks was barely audible above the sound of the angry, rushing waters of the Neuse River. They moved into the deep, swampy area on the other side of the bridge. Kitty’s nerves were taut. She knew the mare could be mired in water in this lowland at any time.
    Then lightning lit the sky once more, and she saw what she had been looking for, the old log cabin that had once belonged to the Orville Shaw family. It had never been much of a place, rotting even when it was lived in. Now, abandoned, it was all but falling apart, but it would give them shelter.
    “This way, girl.” Kitty reined the mare to the right slowly, hoping the horse could make her way around the decaying stumps littering the yard without much trouble. “We’ll be out of all this in just a few more minutes. I’m going to take you right inside with me, and we’ll wait this out if it takes all night.”
    The mare reached the porch and Kitty dismounted, leading her inside slowly, fearful that the roof might come crashing down around them at any moment. The storm made what was left of the cabin tremble and quake, but mercifully, the inside was dry.
    Finding a nail in the wall, Kitty looped the reins around it, then sank down gratefully on the rough wood floor.
    Being there brought back memories of Andy Shaw. Of all Ruth and Orville’s children, Andy had been her favorite. His hair was a fiery red, and despite the family’s poverty and his father’s drunkenness, Andy’s freckled face was always smiling.
    Pain stabbed her as it all came flooding back again. Andy had gone off to fight