“We have to do something, Holder. Just today, Carlene complained about him. He’s coming over too often, especially with Mr. Hoffman dying.”
Holder ran both hands through his blonde hair before groaning. “I can’t get a lick of work from him, sweetheart. I’m too busy to keep him from sneaking away from the fields.”
Carl saw Myra go into the twins’ bedroom. In his imagination, he saw her lay Darlene next to her twin, Dora. Knowing Myra, she’d lovingly smooth a hand over each girl’s blonde hair. For a stepmother, she did love the children, all four of them.
Watching Holder, he sighed with guilt as the man leaned wearily against the wall and waited for his wife. Only three months prior, their own mother had died. Holder and Myra nursed Jennie through the illness while keeping the farm, house, and family cared for.
“Miss McKinley could help us. There’s bound to be a woman needing a home and a cause.”
Holder pulled away from the wall and stared down at his wife. In the dark hall, Carl couldn’t make out his expression even though his face was turned toward him. “What do you mean cause?”
Myra pulled one of Holder’s arms around her and melted into his side. “He’s hurt and acts confused most of the time. Caring for him would give a woman purpose.”
Watching Holder shake his head, Carl breathed a sigh of relief. Holder wouldn’t go along with her plan.
“So we order him a nurse? I don’t think we could afford that.”
Pulling back from her husband, Myra looked up at him and held up her hands. The pleading gesture gnawed at Carl’s insides. The terror of being killed for what he knew kept him from giving in to the guilt he felt.
“Not a nurse. We’d order him a wife.”
Holding his breath, Carl waited for his brother to laugh or dismiss Myra’s suggestion. In the darkness, he made out the hand Holder rubbed across his chin. The gesture surprised Carl. It meant his brother was considering the idea.
Considering it? How could Holder think to marry an idiot to some poor woman?
He’d been sure the entire family, as well as all of the people on the surrounding farms and in the town of Idyll Wood, believed he was no better than a child following that beating. They wouldn’t let a child get married. They weren’t that desperate.
They were that desperate. “Write the letter in the morning. You’re good at finding the right words.”
What would he do? If a wife arrived, he couldn’t say he didn’t want to get married. That wouldn’t fit with the compliant child he presented to the world. Sure, he ran around and didn’t do his chores. Still, he always did whatever he was told.
Should he pretend to understand what they were doing? Probably not, though it depended on how they presented the woman to him. He wouldn’t worry. Letters to and from the matchmaker would take a while.
He steepled his hands behind his head as he leaned against his slightly damp pillow. Yep, there was no way Myra would come up with a woman anytime soon.
-:¦:--:¦:--:¦:--:¦:--:¦:--:¦:-
Carl felt a tinge of guilt as he looked into his sister-in-law’s face the next morning. Dark smudges sat below her eyes and her forehead wrinkled whenever she moved. That, along with a hand rubbing at her back, told him she was an angel to put up with him.
Maybe he should tell them the truth! No, Fred said no one else could know if Carl wanted to stay alive.
Holder put down his cup and pulled back from the table. With breakfast finished, he would assign Carl jobs to do. Jobs Carl would start and never finish or simply ignore. It was all a part of the act. Still, the guilt ate at him.
“Carl! Look at me so I know you’re listening.”
He twisted his mouth into an idiot’s grin and faced his older brother, the one who’d inherited both the farm and all of the responsibility for the family. Though he smiled, inside he twisted with guilt. He would make it up to Holder as soon as the head of the white slaver gang in Idyll Wood was caught. This was about more than just his own life.
“You’ll take Myra and the girls into town. Be sure you’re watching them good. With the goings-on lately, no telling if someone might try to snatch Johanna, even if she’s only ten.”
Carl flopped his head, making the lock of dark hair dance against his forehead. Both of his brothers were fair like their mother. Only Carl was a dark German, with black hair like their father. That was fine as long as he didn’t have a black soul like that man.
He missed what Holder told him. It didn’t matter. He’d drive the females of his family into town. Last year, Johanna would have stayed with Jennie, Carl’s and Holder’s ill mother. She’d passed in the summer.
The last time she’d looked at Carl, sadness filled her face. He wanted to tell her the truth. Fred shook his head, telling Carl to keep up the act. So, Jennie had wrung a promise from Holder to care for his poor brother the rest of Carl’s life.
What kind of man was he to put the family through all of this?
Holder stood, his movement bringing Carl back to the present. The man moved to his wife and gave her a peck on the lips. “See, Myra. He doesn’t react at all even though I explained it. Chances are, he’ll take to her right off and won’t give us any trouble.”
She nodded. “I’ll go ahead then. I need help around here.” Carl saw her look apologetically at her oldest step-daughter. “Even
