The Cattleman's Bride. Joan Kilby

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      CHAPTER THREE

      HE LED THE WAY to the other side of the house, through the biggest country kitchen Sarah had ever seen. She just caught sight of a stone fireplace you could stand up in enclosing a modern stainless-steel stove before Luke pushed open the sliding doors to the back veranda.

      This section of the veranda was enclosed with fly screen and clearly used as an extension of the living space. At one end stood a child’s school desk and bookshelves, while at the other end wicker chairs padded with cushions were grouped around an outdoor table.

      She gazed eagerly through the screen, past the sheds and the clothesline and the tall trees whose spreading boughs shaded the yard to—Huh? Where the lake should have been was nothing but a broad dent in the dry red earth. Tufts of salt grass grew here and there.

      “That’s it?” Although he’d warned her, seeing the empty lake bed made her feel like crying. Anticipation of Lake Burrinbilli had sustained her through the long hours of the journey and now…It simply didn’t exist. “When did it last have water in it?”

      “Three, maybe four years ago. It’s not really a lake, just a depression that holds water when it floods. It’s been six years since it was deep enough to paddle in.”

      Sarah pressed two fingers to her closed eyelids and felt moisture seep beneath her lashes. Fatigue was sending her emotions up and down like a yo-yo. She was dying for a coffee, but even more than that she wanted to be alone with her disappointment. “I think I’ll take a shower and lie down.”

      “It’s a different world when the rains come,” Luke said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Green shooting up over the Downs, thousands of wildflowers. Frogs seem to spring right out of the mud. Flocks of birds so large they darken the sky.”

      Sarah opened her eyes. He was gazing across the dry lake bed, looking into the past. Or maybe it was the future.

      “I wish I could see that,” she said, blinking at the sun-bleached landscape. Faced with reality, she numbly realized that even her mother’s memories failed her.

      “Life will flourish here again.” His eyes, locked briefly with hers, seemed to add, For those who stay.

      He led her back through the kitchen and down a long hall. “This is my room. Becka’s room.” He gestured to closed doors. “Loungeroom’s out the front. Bathroom’s in there. And this—” he pushed open a door and stood aside “—is your room.”

      Sarah stepped past him into a square room with faded floral wallpaper. The matching curtains were clean but frayed around the edges. A white coverlet lay across the iron single bed. On the opposite wall sat a dresser made of distressed pine that her antique-collecting friends in Seattle would pay big money for. In one corner stood a matching old-fashioned wardrobe. Overhead a ceiling fan whirred quietly.

      Luke set her bags down beside the bed and returned to the doorway. “I was going to move out of the main bedroom while you’re here, but—”

      “I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

      “I reckon this was your mother’s room.”

      “My mother’s room?” she said, glancing around with new interest. “What makes you think so?”

      He nodded toward the dresser and a notebook lying on top. “I found her diary tucked under a loose floorboard beside the bed. Must have been there for years. I told your father about it, but he didn’t mention returning it. Don’t know why, but I kept it instead of throwing it out.”

      Sarah moved across the room to pick up the notebook. Scrawled in a loopy, slanted hand on the front of the faded red cover were the words Anne’s Diary. Private. Keep Out. This means you!

      Sarah smiled. The handwriting was more rounded and immature than nowadays, but it was definitely Anne’s. “Did you read it?”

      Luke looked offended she would even ask. “Says right on the cover that it’s private. Anyway, I don’t have time to read girls’ diaries.”

      Sarah flipped through the closely written pages and found herself tempted. Don’t even think it. She returned the diary to the dresser. “I’ll take it to her. She might find it amusing after all these years.”

      “Right. Well, I’ll let you get settled.” He backed out of the room and shut the door.

      Sarah put her clothes away, then flopped on the bed with her cell phone. She replaced the old batteries with the spares from her suitcase and dialed her mother’s number.

      “Hi, Mom,” she said, disappointed when she got the answering machine. “I’m here. My God, what a trip! It’s so hot. How come you never mentioned the flies? And the lake that’s СКАЧАТЬ