AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I like Milton,” he answered. “And Tennyson, and—”
Rosemarie woke up, immediately scrambled off Zane’s chest and launched herself at Winifred’s knees.
“Well, hello, little one. Did you have a nice nap with your papa?”
“’Infred,” the child announced. She tugged at Winifred’s blue dimity skirt and raised both arms to be picked up.
She lifted the child onto her lap, noting that she wore the ruffled pink dress she had sent at Christmas. “Shall I read you a story?”
The child snuggled against her bosom and began playing with the mother-of-pearl buttons on her blue-striped shirtwaist. Winifred picked up her book, paged to the middle and spread it open as if finding a story.
“Once upon a time,” she began. “In a land far, far away, there lived a—”
Yan Li entered with the tea tray, set it down on the small oak table at Winifred’s side and handed Rosemarie a cookie.
“’ookie,” the baby squealed, crumbling it in her small fist.
Yan Li bent to hand Zane a cup and saucer, which he absently set on the floor beside him. He wasn’t looking at his tea; he was looking at Winifred.
“Go on,” he said. “I want to hear the story.”
She swallowed back a burble of laughter. “It isn’t about Sabrina,” she cautioned.
He grinned. “Make it about you,” he suggested.
“Me! No child wants to hear a story about the storyteller.”
“I do,” he said quietly. “Go on, I’m waiting.”
Yan Li laughed softly and offered to take the baby, but Winifred shook her head. Rosemarie sat perfectly still while cookie crumbs rained onto Winifred’s skirt. She pointed her sticky forefinger at the open page.
“Very well. Once upon a time there lived a little girl who loved to eat cookies.”
“Did you?” Zane broke in.
“Well, yes, I did as a matter of fact. Chocolate ones in particular. I left my handprints on every piece of furniture in the house and most of the curtains.”
“And then what?”
“Why, I grew up, of course. Zane, one day you will look back on afternoons like this with Rosemarie and cookies and tea and it will make you...” She caught a flicker of something in his gaze that stopped her breath. Pain, mixed with a hungry longing. “...it will make you glad.”
Zane laid his arm over his eyes. “Is there more to the story?”
Winifred caught Rosemarie’s waving, crumb-coated hand in her own. “No. There is no more to the story. The girl grew up and attended conservatory with her sister and embarked on a career as a pianist. And that is the end.”
“But it’s not the end,” he said. “It has not been enough, has it? That was why you wanted to raise Celeste’s child, was it not? You want to give your own life meaning beyond what you have clung to all these years.”
“No, Zane. You are quite wrong. I felt that I owed Cissy...”
Slowly he sat up and looked at her. Something zinged between them and she couldn’t look away from his accusing gray eyes. Suddenly she found herself wondering all sorts of things, about him. About Cissy.
About herself.
“Winifred,” he said, his voice quiet. “Would you care to play some whist this evening after supper?”
“But you don’t play whist. I heard you tell Darla this morning...”
He held her gaze and a smile tugged at his mouth. “I do play whist. Just not with Darla.”
She nodded but could not think of a thing to say. They drank their tea in silence, Zane cross-legged on the floor and Winifred in the chair with Rosemarie on her lap until she began to fuss.
“Not another tooth, I hope,” Winifred said.
“More likely she wants another cookie. Or,” he said with a low chuckle, “maybe she feels left out and wants to play whist, too.”
Chapter Twelve
They played whist until almost midnight, when the clang of the doorbell startled them. Zane heaved himself out of his chair and went into the hall to answer it, returning within minutes. “I’ve got to go out. Ellie Johnson is in labor.”
“The schoolteacher?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Married women aren’t usually allowed to teach school in Oregon. They made an exception for Ellie when she became pregnant. Matt, her husband, wants her to continue, but even a federal marshal can’t order the school board around.”
