All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,40

said, taking the pin from Sophie.

“That’s not what they should dream of,” Sophie said, continuing with the brushing. It soothed her as much doing it as it had when Bridget had done it to her.

“What, then? More tea trays? More laundry?”

“No,” Sophie murmured, remembering her parents, poor but happy. “A small house of their own. Dishes they chose themselves. Nobody’s laundry but theirs. Those are dreams fit for queens.”

“Or peasants,” Bridget said dryly.

“I’m not afraid of laundry,” Sophie told her, turning her so that Sophie could continue with her hair. “I’m afraid of the king in the castle, the one who terrorizes the maids and the princesses and destroys his prince.”

“His prince isn’t much of a man.” Bridget sniffed disdainfully.

But Sophie wasn’t sure. There had been moments of kindness there, of joy—at least of interest. But the gallant suitor who had brought home a blushing bride had shriveled under his father’s scorn.

Maybe he wasn’t strong—but then, he’d been grown in rocky soil, soaked in acid, and watered in wrath.

“Some place with good earth,” she murmured. “So I can grow a garden, like my mother. Chickens, maybe.”

“Aye,” Bridget murmured, lulled by the gentle strokes. “Some place like that.”

FINALLY TUCKER was able to put down the brush. It fell from his limp grasp, and he flopped back on the bed, the sweat soaking clean through his T-shirt and into the quilt beneath him.

“Oh, Angel,” he panted. “This is awful. It’s exhausting. Please tell me that somewhere in all these rooms are the ghosts of miners who just came up broke and wanted to get laid!”

“I’m sure there are some of those,” Angel said, her new, feminine voice soothing as Tucker lay there and let the sweat dry from his body. “That… that was not easy.”

Tucker closed his eyes against the terror, the violation, and the fucking resignation they’d felt at their lot in life. “I want to think of them somewhere peaceful,” he said. The kitten wandered up and started licking the salt from Tucker’s hairline. Tucker let her, still lost in the poignancy of two lovers, running from the world that had booted them so rudely in the kidneys.

“Where would they be?”

“The ocean,” he said automatically, although the ocean might terrify Sophie. “No, a riverbank. One that doesn’t flood. They’d have a cottage. They’d have a garden and chickens and do their own laundry, and nobody would bother them.” Or peer into their personal moments like a voyeur, but he didn’t say that.

He just waited for the fine trembling to stop while he put together the things he knew and the things he had.

“The snuff box,” he said, his eyes still closed.

“It’s here,” Angel said, as if she recognized the significance.

“The rat fucker—”

“Her father-in-law?” Angel clarified, since Tucker had obviously lost her with the swear word.

“Yes.” Tucker opened his eyes and was overwhelmed by Angel’s bright green eyes within inches of his face. “Augh! Ohmigod, you’re close.”

Angel scooted back on the bed, swinging her hair over her shoulder as if she’d always had long hair and it was no big deal. “Sorry,” she said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But you were referring to her father-in-law?”

“I can’t even call him by a name,” Tucker snarled, loathing ripping from deep inside him. “I mean… poor Sophie!”

“Yes.” Angel dropped her eyes and petted the kitten disconsolately. “That was horrible. I’ve…. Your aunt Ruth and I have seen that. Not often. But enough.” She shivered. “I don’t understand how people can be so awful.”

“Well, this guy was obviously… okay, crazy. And drug addicted. And sort of a dick anyway. But worse than all of that, he was here.”

He and Angel met gazes, and for once they were on completely the same page—that snuff box had belonged to Thomas Conklin Senior. “He was here. And somebody needs their story told.”

“God,” Tucker muttered. “I really hope they got away.”

Angel dropped her eyes, concentrating on the orange stitching of the quilt. “Tucker, people here…. If their ghosts are here, on the grounds, that usually means….”

She couldn’t say it, but Tucker knew. It was very possible that Sophie and Bridget had died here—but perhaps not. There was always the other possibility: that the ghosts he saw here were just what remained of two women whose time here had been pivotal in their lives.

Tucker shook his head and tried to rid himself of the bitter disappointment filling his heart. “It was a nice dream,” he muttered, pushing himself off the bed. He staggered over to the dresser