Free Night Winds by Gwyneth Atlee Page A

girls and then sank to the sofa, sure that as she saw it, Lydia must be telling him the truth.
    “Perhaps you should go and talk to Rachel,” Justine suggested, her voice soft as the breeze now ruffling Mother’s roses just outside the window .
    The flowers’ sweet scent grew overwhelming, reminding Phillip of their father’s funeral, reminding him of rotting meat .
    He nodded at her and shifted his gaze toward Lydia . Since Father had died, she’d doted on him, always hungry for approval. Too often he withheld it, for at times her immaturity nearly drove him mad. He paused, trying to remember that she was just eighteen years old. Despite his confusion over his fiancée, his terror at the sickening ring of truth in Lydia’s story, he couldn’t crush his sister. He loved her far too fiercely.
    He reached for her, embraced her tightly . “I hope to God you’re wrong about Rachel. That’s all. I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I’ve never meant to make you think I value Justine more than you. I love your wit, your enthusiasm. I can’t imagine our house without you in it. It’s just that . . .”
    She squeezed him, and the gesture helped him choose his words .
    “It’s just that,” he continued, “words can hurt . Sometimes you seem so amused by other people’s disasters. This is my life , Lydia. I may be a man, and I may be twenty-eight years old, but if what you say is true, I’ll have to reconsider . . . everything.”
    Another squeeze, and Justine embraced him from the other side . After kissing each dark head, he pulled away.
    “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must call on my fiancée.”
    *
    Shae almost bumped into the hired woman near the back steps . Eva’s coffee-colored skin gleamed beneath a layer of sweat, testimony to an afternoon spent scrubbing, if Shae knew Aunt Alberta. The woman’s dark gaze flicked impatiently past Shae, as if she could barely wait to leave.
    “Don’t know how you stands that woman, Miss Shae,” Eva muttered as she untied her apron . She made a wad of it and used it to mop her forehead. “Some days, I pray the Good Lord I don’t just up and snatch her bald-headed.”
    Despite her worries, Shae pictured tiny Eva, who might weigh ninety pounds if she were soaked in syrup, leaping atop Alberta’s back and ripping hair . Fortunately, her aunt was in no danger. Eva had been muttering threats to Shae for years, but she had too many mouths to feed at home to risk this job.
    Thinking of the way her aunt ordered the black woman about, Shae shook her head in sympathy . “Some days I think the Lord might understand.”Eva covered a flash of dazzling ivory teet h a silent burst of laughte r with one hand. Shae noticed the skin appeared chafed and inflamed.
    “Would you like me to talk to her again?” Shae asked. She shifted the dusty carpetbag beneath her other arm.
    “Lordy, no. She ridin’ me already like a devil woman. Much trouble as you in lately, she put on spurs if you do that.”
    “You’re probably right,” Shae agreed . “She’s still mad at me, then.”
    “You could say that, Missy . She been growling your name like a old dog at a bone. You stay out of her way, you hear?”
    “I plan on trying.” Shae hesitated, wondering if she should ask the question on her mind . After all, Eva had worked in this house for eight years.
    The Negro woman nodded a curt goodbye and turned to go.
    “Did you know my mother very well?” Shae’s question escaped without her conscious decision and stopped Eva in her tracks.
    She turned around slowly . “Why you askin’ me that, after all this time?”
    Shae shrugged . “I miss her today. Maybe because of everything that happened last night. I wonder if I’d be different if she’d stayed.”
    Eva leaned against the railing at the bottom step . “You still the same stubborn child as ever, that’s all. Nothin’ gonna change that, thank the Lord. Inside you, there more starch than blood and tears. Your mama knowed it,