persuade Tobey to come with her and share the land. Sure, I can convince him to
do that. All he has to do is change everything about him, she thought and sighed, resigned to the fact that she would have to hire someone else. But who?
It had been relatively easy to imagine entering into such a venture with
Mourning Free, whom she had known all her life. She trusted him. Regarded
him as a person of high character, in his own prickly, stubborn way. And she couldn’t imagine the two of them having man-woman problems. Olivia had seen
how men could behave, as if they wanted to wrap some woman up in a big
spider web. But Mourning had never looked at her in that sticky way. Even when
they were children, he’d never twisted her arm, pushed her into the river, or done
any of the things little boys do to get a little girl’s attention. And she’d never wanted him to. True, he had grown into a tall, hard body, his skin smooth and shiny. His white teeth flashed in a lovely way when he smiled. But that’s pretty
much never, ornery as he is, she thought.
She made the unconscious assumption that the color of Mourning’s skin was
a brick wall between them; neither of them would dare take a hammer to it.
Where was she going to find anyone else with whom she would feel that safe?
She sighed and forced herself to reconsider. Maybe Five Rocks wasn’t so
horrible. After all, every town must have its share of nosy, annoying women.
And Avis wasn’t really such a bad sort. Truth be told, he usually said and did the
right thing. Olivia couldn’t deny that he was a good and decent man. Most folks
in town would probably say Avis was the only one of those three Killion
children that was worth a lick. Perhaps she could work in the store, but take a room in another town, get a horse like Big Bad, and ride to work. If she lived far
enough away, not every single person she met on the street would know all the
stories about her mother and father. Maybe now that she was grown, she could
find some place to be just plain Olivia.
As she climbed the back steps she heard Mabel Mears’ voice in the kitchen,
bossing Avis and Tobey. Avis’s beloved must be fixing supper again. Olivia
closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the icy doorframe, exhausted.
She tried to console herself. At least the food would be delicious. Olivia
hadn’t realized how bad a cook Mrs. Hardaway was until the formidable Mabel
invaded their kitchen. With no basis for comparison, Olivia had assumed that
beef was by nature dry and leathery and that there was nothing to be done with a
chicken but toss it into a pot of boiling water and serve it pale and pimply, scattered clumps of pinfeathers still clinging to it. The first meal Mabel prepared
for them had been an eye-opening spread of flaky biscuits, pot roast you could cut with a fork, glazed carrots, and fluffy mashed potatoes. Now Olivia smelled
Mabel’s fried chicken. She always got a perfect scorch on it, crispy outside and
ready to fall off the bone.
“Avis, dear, come get the big platter down.” Mabel’s voice carried easily
through wood and glass. “Tobey, you slice up the bread. Not that knife, use this
one. I had it sharpened last week. Then you can ladle out the gravy. Better wrap
this towel around you, save your coat. Where on earth can that Olivia have
gotten to?”
Olivia increased the pressure of her forehead against the cold wood.
Shivering, her head aching, she remained outside on the steps, listening to Mabel
