Read Online Earth Colors by Sarah Andrews - Free Book Online Page B

independent woman who had the world by the tail to a highly attractive, highly obligated, highly vulnerable single mother who missed her former life just as much as she loved her child.
    I got up and paced for a while, then booted up Faye’s laptop computer and checked for e-mails from Jack, hoping to find a little comfort in his virtual embrace. As the computer went through its starting-up ceremony, my attention came to rest on one of Baby Sloane’s teething rings, and I thought of her sitting in Tert Krehbeil’s lap. An unseen hand formed a fist around my heart. Seeing the three of them sitting there in the museum had been a terrible shock. Woman, man, and baby. The full complement of personnel. Tert had been holding Sloane as if she were his, all comfortable and easy, Mr. Composure, just dropping in to stay a couple hundred years.
    It’s not Faye I’m really worried about , I realized, it’s the baby. Could this man replace the father she would never know? Or would he in fact be worse than no father at all ?
    And it was clear to me now, in the harshness of an empty house, that the idea of being made extraneous in Sloane’s life was part of what had panicked me.
    The computer made a jungle roar at me, a sound Jack had programmed in as its wake-up noise back when he was around enough to capture my heart. Back before he ran off to Florida to help someone other than me.
    And I followed him.
    And Tom followed me, and got himself killed … .
    The room tilted slightly at the memory of Tom’s stiffening corpse. I fought the sensation, forcing myself to tap in commands and downloaded my e-mail.
    I stared at the results. Tucked in among the spam that pushed on-line Viagra, mortgage re-fis, make money at home schemes, penile enlargements,
and red-hot farmgirl “cams,” there was in fact a message from Jack. I told myself this was a good omen. Until I read it.

    Hey there Em
    Looks like no luck on my request for early release. It’s a tough job out here but they say somebody’s got to do it, so why not this old pinniped. Sorry to disappoint you. Can’t say much else as I’m on someone else’s machine and that’s a no no, so give that baby a squeeze for me and I’ll write again soon.
    Love always, Jack

    I read it again and then closed the message. Then I opened it up again, hit REPLY, and wrote:

    Hey there Jack
    Just back from Cody, where I was with Faye as I explained before. I came back early because she’s gotten tight with some

    I erased the second sentence and tried again.

    Hey there Jack
    Just back from Cody, where I was with Faye as I explained before. Had some nice moments with baby S out on the badlands looking for rocks. Surprise surprise I found some, pretty strange considering I’m a geologist and that’s what the world is made of, huh? Well, I sure miss you and

    And what? It was getting harder and harder to write to Jack, and I could not sort out why. The fact that we had not seen each other since a month before Sloane Renee was born was certainly an issue, but that couldn’t have been avoided. It was best that he did not come around just after the baby was born, because after all, it was Tom’s death that put Faye into early labor. Jack was a walking reminder of that tragedy. And Jack had lived. Jack’s absence had seemed reasonable at the time, because I did not want to be reminded, either. We had expected to see each other after, at most, perhaps a month. But then he had been called up from the Reserves, like so many others. Off he went, a forty-one-year-old Navy
SEAL sent out to do what the spooky boys do in a time of war, and my discomfort over what was unsettled in our relationship had been conveniently swapped for discomfort over the adversity he was facing.
    And now I faced another communication that felt like no communication at all. I wanted him home. I wanted him safe and sound. And I wanted to see him through his assignment. I couldn’t stand the idea of being the girlfriend who