Read Online Stay a Little Longer by Dorothy Garlock - Free Book Online

the wet sheets she was dismayed
     to see that it was Jonathan Moseley striding toward the line.
    “Rachel,” he called. “Are you out here?”
    Holding her breath and standing completely still, Rachel hoped that he’d fail to notice her and let her be, but a poorly timed
     gust of wind raised a pair of sheets so high into the air that she was left in plain sight. When their eyes met, his face
     brightened just as hers fell.
    “Ah, there you are!”
    When Rachel first laid eyes upon Jonathan Moseley, he’d reminded her of a scarecrow. Tall and thin, stoop-backed and awkward,
     he appeared to be made up of nothing but knees and elbows. Mostly bald, he insisted upon combing what few wisps of straw-blond
     hair he had over his barren pate. His thin nose was crooked; his eyes were large and buglike, and his small mouth was filled
     with stained teeth. He had an unpleasant habit of darting his tongue out and running it over his dry, cracked lips. There
     was simply nothing attractive about the man.
    For the month that he had been a boarder, he had represented himself as a traveling salesman making his way across Minnesota.
     His shabby and battered case contained every sort of item that could possibly be hawked: brushes of all sizes, shoelaces of
     varying length, Bibles, and a hair cream that he claimed would cure baldness. For the life of her, Rachel couldn’t imagine
     who would buy such a product from a man with so little hair.
    Jonathan boasted that he was successful; he was always rambling on about a mansion he had his eye on in Chicago. But from
     the shoddy state of his clothing, such declarations were hard to believe: his white shirt was shoddily made and splotched
     with food stains, the dark pants he wore looked nearly an inch too short, and the bow tie wrapped around his neck was poorly
     tied and ridiculously out of fashion.
    “What a lovely day this is,” he declared, spreading his bony hands wide, “but it is all the more beautiful because you are
     in it, my dear Rachel.”
    “Thank you for such kind words, Mr. Moseley,” she replied as dismissively as she dared.
    “How many times must I tell you?” He grinned. “Call me Jonathan.”
    Rachel cringed inwardly. The last thing that she wanted was for this man to have some degree of familiarity with her. Whenever
     he had previously tried cornering her, she’d taken great pains to escape, listening politely for a moment before excusing
     herself to take care of other matters. But try as she might, she could not get him to understand that she was not interested;
     at every opportunity, he came back for more.
    “The work never ends around here, from the look of things,” he declared, his hands on his bony waist. “Every time I turn around,
     there you are, busy with some task or other.”
    “There is certainly much to be done.”
    “Would you mind if I helped you?”
    “No, no, no,” Rachel replied nervously. Her mind raced over every excuse she could think of, settling upon, “My mother insists
     that things be done a particular way and if I were to come back with it done incorrectly, I’d have to wash it all over again.”
    “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Jonathan answered with feigned disappointment; it was clear to Rachel that such feelings
     were contrived; he was obviously relieved that he wouldn’t have to do any actual work.
    For a few minutes, they remained silent, Rachel continuing to put the laundry on the line and Jonathan watching her as if
     she were a pupil doing mathematics at the chalkboard and he the teacher waiting for the first sign of a mistake. It took all
     of her will not to just dump the basket and run. She was so intent on finishing her chore that when Jonathan finally did speak,
     she nearly jumped in surprise.
    “I suppose you might be wondering why I was looking for you?” he asked.
    “I… I hadn’t… thought to ask,” Rachel muttered.
    “I was wondering if you might like to accompany me on a