Free Awake Unto Me by Kathleen Knowles Page B

though she had been transported to another planet.
    It wasn’t as though she wasn’t grateful to Dr. Grant. She understood he was kind and well meaning and had had great regard for her father. When she showed him the bankbook, he was very serious.
    “He has left you a bit of money. I hope you’ll be able to put it to good use. But we’ll have to teach you numbers as well as letters.”
    “I could take it and go live somewhere else, couldn’t I?”
    “Tut. Don’t speak of that. You’re only fifteen and…you aren’t recovered from Jack’s death. You need some time.” He’d finished somewhat lamely.
    “I guess I have plenty of time,” Kerry said, refusing to let the tears fall as she stared past Addison at the trees outside.
    “I promise, the pain will ease eventually, Kerry, and I think you’ll learn to like it here, if you give it, us, a chance.”
    “I don’t think your wife likes me, Addison,” Kerry said bluntly, staring at him. “She looks at me like I’m something off her shoe.”
    “No, no, Kerry, nothing like that. She just doesn’t like surprises, that’s all. When she gets to know you, I’m sure you’ll be the greatest of friends.”
    “I don’t have friends, but Jack trusted you and thought this is where I should go, so I’ll stay, at least till I figure out what else to do. Deal?”
    Addison blinked, obviously unused to a young woman being so forthright. “Yes, we have a deal, Kerry. Just promise me you’ll be patient.” He smiled, patted her knee, and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
    Sighing, Kerry curled on her side and finally cried. Would her Barbary Coast tears stain the pure white linen under her cheek? As she fell asleep, she wondered if Laura would be able to accept her. I guess I can go back to the Barbary if it comes to that.

Chapter Nine
     
    “I can’t do a thing with her. I took her to a dressmaker and had her fitted. She spent all of one hour in the dress and then changed back into trousers, saying the dress tripped her. She demanded I take her to a barber to get her hair cut! When I refused, she tried to cut it herself so that I was forced to give in. Her language is disgraceful. She is like a cat that’s spent his life outside and is now shut up in the house. She will not listen to me.” Laura paced the length of the living room, punctuating her frustration with dramatic flourishes.
    “Laura, darling, I would hope you could open your heart and your mind. She’s an orphan with no place to go. Think of it as an opportunity. She needs the help of a woman like you.”
    “She grew up in a whorehouse, Addison, with a criminal for a father. I fear it’s too late to do anything with her. Mark my words, you’ll regret this charitable impulse of yours, when she disappears one day with my mother’s silver.”
    “I don’t believe that will happen. Please try to be patient, my dear. She’ll come around eventually. It’s just that her background is so out of your experience. Try to give her time to adjust.”
    Addison gave Laura his best smile and patted her shoulder. Laura simply pursed her mouth, turned on her heel, and left the room. He hoped things would settle down eventually. Laura wasn’t worldly. She’d grown up in a genteel home in Kansas City and they’d met when her father had come to San Francisco for a medical meeting and brought his family along to see the “Paris of the West.”
    Addison knew the San Franciscans had made up the concept purely to feed their own civic pride, but Laura embraced it wholeheartedly and had indeed convinced her skeptical parents that San Francisco and Addison were her destiny. San Francisco, Addison thought, just as Jack had told him long before, was really the wildest of the Wild West. Laura would never know anything of that, of course. She was, Addison realized, being exposed through Kerry to a side of San Francisco she had no idea existed. Addison hoped she would come to accept Kerry and that Kerry