Read Online Jane Bonander by Dancing on Snowflakes - Free Book Online Page A

picked him up and brought him into the house and had to step over his wet diaper and pajamas to get to the door. He was obviously looking for you.” He was quiet a moment. “He found me.”
    There was a cutting comment on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. She finished pinning the diaper, then pulled Corey close, ignoring his attempts to get free.
    “Ma
ma
, “ Corey whined, pushing at her chest.
    Reluctantly, she put him down. Without glancing at Nathan, she went into Corey’s room and got his clothes. When she returned, Nathan was gone and Corey was just toddling toward the door.
    “Corey, let me get you dressed, honey, then we’ll both go outside and play.” She was relieved when he came to her willingly.
    But she fought an internal battle. Nathan Wolfe had quietly and effortlessly charmed her son. Her first instinct was to put a stop to it. She had to wonder if it was because she was afraid of the ghosts from her past, or the devils in her future.
    Nate hammered the new railing to the cabin, then checked the soundness of the posts that held up the slanted roof over the porch.
    There wasn’t much left to do, unless he could convince her that both the porch floor and the roof needed replacing. They did, of course, but somehow he knew she still wanted to get rid of him.
    All morning his thoughts had been on Susannah. Something ugly kept clawing at him, ugly enough so that he didn’t want to examine it further, for then his own reasons for being there would make him feel dirtier than he already did. But what had bothered him were her unnatural reactions to normal, everyday situations.
    When Corey had spilled his milk, Nate had seen both Susannah’s and Corey’s reactions before, in other people. The stark fear and the chilling panic. The rigid body stance. Corey’s uncontrollable shivering. Then there was the little scene Corey had played out with the two pieces of wood. . . .
    He’d been in homes where beating one’s wife and children was an everyday occurrence. Some men did it because they felt they were within their rights to do so. Others abused their families out of personal frustration. Some men boasted about “letting the woman know who’s boss,” but that was often just talk. Still others, the most despicable kind, found pleasure and arousal in it.
    A bubble of anger festered like a sore in Nate’s stomach, and he tasted the bitter tang of bile. Susannah had most definitely been slapped around, perhaps Corey had, too. Nothing.
Nothing
he’d been told about her appeared to be the truth. There were times when he wished he’d never stopped in St. Louis on his way home from the war, but by then,
home
was just a word. It had no meaning. And, damnit, Sonny Walker was smooth. Nate bet he could charm the fangs from a grizzly if he put his mind to it. Nate had put out the word that he was looking for work. He wanted enough money to make it home, and he didn’t really give a good goddamn what he did to get it.
    He’d met Sonny Walker in the saloon during a poker game. Afterward, when he’d cleaned Nate out, they’d struck up the deal.
    Walker had warned him that she was a “clever bitch, too damned smart for her sweet britches.” Time and time again Nate wondered if she was putting on an act for him. If she was, she was damned good at it.
    Now, Nate was in a hell of a spot. He’d gotten part of his payment in advance, and he didn’t take money from anyone without finishing the job. He had to quit thinking about Susannah as if she were a victim. What Walker did with her or to her once Nate got her to Missouri wasn’t any of his damned business. Ah, but hell. There was that churning in his gut, warning him that to take her back to Sonny Walker would be a big, stupid mistake. But he couldn’t afford to think about it.
    He was checking the lumber stacked under the kitchen window when he heard Susannah and Corey leave the cabin.
    “Can we put our feets in the water, Mama?”
    “Sure we can,