Free Fletcher's Woman by Linda Lael Miller Page A

impressive shoulders moved in a sigh. “How?” he asked, reasonably.
    Rachel had no answer for that, and though she wanted nothing more than to turn and run, she permitted the doctor to lead her up the stairs and into a long, dim hallway.
    He tapped lightly at the last door on the left, turning the doorknob with resolution when a thin voice commanded, “Come in.”
    Rachel would have remained behind, in the hallway if he hadn’t dragged her inside with an effectively disguised show of force.
    After a long moment, he released her and moved across the shadowy room to stand beside a disheveled bed. “Hello, Becky.”
    Rachel could barely make out the thin frame resting beneath the tangled bedclothes, but she knew that this wraith, with its mussed hair and waxen face, was her mother. She recoiled—from the sickness, from all she had learned in the past few minutes.
    The ghost-woman’s voice was a vicious rasp, and her eyes were fierce on the doctor’s face. “You bastard, Griffin—you brought her here!”
    The doctor seemed unruffled by the challenge. “I’m fond of you, too, Becky. And yes—this is Rachel.”
    The comforter moved with a rustling sound as the woman raised herself from her prone position and snapped, “Light a lamp, for God’s sake! What’s done is done. Let’s have a look at her.”
    The lamp light was bravely inadequate against the sullen glower of the day, but it was bright enough to reveal one woman to the other.
    Griffin Fletcher scanned Rebecca’s face once, with detached interest, and then quietly left the room.
    â€œCome over here,” Rebecca said, and the words constituted both an order and a plea.
    Knees weak, Rachel drew closer to the bed. In spite of the ravages of the illness, the beauty and grace she remembered were still there in that wondrous face, in those compelling violet eyes.
    A sudden and disconcerting laugh tore itself from Rebecca’s gaunt, hollow throat. “If that isn’t the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen!”
    Rachel could not stand up any longer, could not bother with matters so mundane as her brown woolen dress. She dropped to her knees beside the bed and cried out, “Why?”
    Rebecca sighed and relaxed against the pillows propped behind her. “Why what? Why did I leave? Why do I live in this place? I left because I wasn’t happy, Rachel.”
    Rachel’s anger and hurt were combining forces to choke her, but she managed a terse, “This makes you happy? Happier than living with Pa and me?”
    â€œNo,” replied Rebecca with wounding honesty. “No, but once I’d found that out, it was too late. I wouldn’t leave you, Rachel, if I had it to do over again.”
    â€œWhy did you?”
    â€œBecause I couldn’t be sure there would be food, among other things. I knew your father could provide the necessities, knew he would see that you had schooling. And he did, didn’t he?”
    Rachel lowered her head. She had been wrenched from one miserable schoolhouse to another, but she was educated. She could write a neat hand and read any book written in the English language. “Yes,” she said, after a long time.
    Rebecca changed the subject rapidly. “You’ve got to leave Providence, Rachel. And leave it now.”
    â€œWhere would I go?” Rachel asked, and she was surprised by the reason in her voice, for she did not feel at all reasonable.
    â€œAnywhere. San Francisco, Denver—even New York. Rachel, just go away.”
    Slowly, cautiously, Rachel raised herself to her feet. “If you’re worried that I’ll disrupt your life here—”
    Pain shadowed the sunken amethyst eyes. “My life doesn’t matter anymore, but yours does. I’ll give you the money I’ve saved, and you can start again somewhere else. My friends will sell the business when the time comes, settle my debts, and