The Third Daughter's Wish. Kaitlyn Rice

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter Two

      Josie’s truck tires spun up a cloud of dust as she traveled a lonely road in the middle of Kansas. When she approached a rise thick with spindly red cedars and yellowing cottonwoods, she spotted a mailbox tilted hopefully out toward the road. Slowing quickly, she read the boxy black numbers adhered to its side. “Nine fifty-four,” she murmured, then glanced into her passenger seat to check her printout. The numbers matched. This had to be the house.

      After turning into the drive, she weaved the truck through a succession of dry potholes, then parked behind a dingy white van and yanked her keys from the ignition.

      Abruptly, the bold curiosity that had kept her foot heavy on the pedal from her house to this one failed. She opened the bottled soda she’d bought at a highway service station, tipped it high against her lips and winced as the soda went down. It was too warm to quench thirst. Too sugary to satisfy. Josie craved the bitter snap of a cold beer. Just one, for courage.

      But she was driving and it was early—she’d had to sneak out at the crack of dawn to avoid Gabe, who’d been wanting to hang out more than usual lately. Besides, she never drank alone, thanks to a nagging worry that her taste for brew meant she was on her way to alcoholism. Like her father.

      Josie had her mom to thank for most of that worry. But Ella Blume wasn’t around anymore, to check Josie’s refrigerator for beer bottles or her life for stray men. Despite Ella’s clean, simple living, she’d died of ovarian cancer when she was barely into her fifties.

      Her mother hadn’t been wrong about everything, of course, but she hadn’t been right about a lot. All men were not worthless. The outside world was not an evil place. Josie hoped her mother had been wrong about her father, too.

      How could a man be completely uninterested in his own children? Would the knowledge that he had grandchildren draw him closer to the family? Would he be concerned about Lilly’s well-being?

      Josie had a thousand questions. He’d answer some of them, she was certain. After recapping the soft-drink bottle, Josie set it in her cup holder and eyed the shabby two-story a dozen yards ahead.

      For some reason, she’d always envisioned her father in a sprawling ranch. This smallish house had the flat, no-nonsense lines of the Prairie-style architecture prevalent in the Midwest over a century ago.

      If someone spent a little time out here with a paintbrush and hammer, the structure could be gorgeous. The patchwork yard of cracking mud and weedy, dormant grass could also use some TLC. Josie’s theory about her father’s destination after his departure was also wrecked. Apparently, he hadn’t fled small-town life to seek fortune in some distant metropolis. Woodbine was little more than a scattering of homes. Tiny even when compared with Augusta’s population of eight-thousand.

      Josie wondered if her father had left Kansas and returned, or if he’d always been here—just ninety miles north of home on highway seventy-seven. Close enough to pop by once or twice in twenty-seven years to say, “Hi, I’m your dad. How are you?”

      As soon as she stepped down from her truck, the sound of barking dogs caught her attention. Stuffing her key into her jeans pocket, she swiveled to peruse the end of the drive. Five or six big dogs stood enclosed in a row of chain-link pens beneath the cedars. They must have been hidden from the road.

      She hadn’t pictured her dad as a dog owner. Her mother hadn’t allowed pets.

      Perhaps the man had always wanted a dog. Maybe it was one of several things that had caused such a furious schism between husband and wife. Josie didn’t know. Callie was the only one who remembered their father, but her memories were sketchy. A trip to a carnival, where their father had lifted her onto a white carousel horse. Coins emptied from his pockets and scattered on the back porch step while he taught her to count the pennies.

      A man who cared for dogs now would be curious about that little girl he’d loved then, wouldn’t he? He’d wonder about all three of his little girls. Even the one he’d never seen.

      The pain in that thought struck. Josie couldn’t decide if she was here for Lilly’s sake or her own. She hesitated, motionless for a moment while she tried to decide whether to approach the house or forget it.

      A breeze soothed her neck and hands, diverting her attention long enough to calm her fears. After removing her sweater, she folded it over her arm.

      The worst that could happen was that her father would be the drunken fool that Ella had described. If he was, Josie would ask about any seizure disorders and go away. She hadn’t driven all this way to chicken out. Not without resolving a single question.

      “Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and strode up the drive.

      The square, concrete porch was inviting enough. Clay pots of orange chrysanthemums flanked the metal storm door, and the wooden angel plaque hanging СКАЧАТЬ