the door for me. I want to talk to Sarah a minute.” He shoved Harland out, and Coby followed. David closed the door and turned a cold eye on his sister. “I’ll give you train fare home. That’s all I’m going to do, and a damn sight more’n you’ve got coming to you. You can move back in with Ma and Pa. Let them look after you and the boy.”
“I’m not going back.”
David laughed without humor. “You ain’t living with me.”
“I’ll live alone.”
“You can’t run that stop by yourself.”
“I expect not, but Imogene and I did pretty well for ourselves. I can sell the livestock.”
“Who’s going to look after you?”
“Damn you, David, nobody’s going to look after me! I’m going to look after myself. I am not the frightened girl you left on the farm, I’m a woman now. Imogene did that for me. She took care of me when I was too weak and too foolish to take care of myself. She carried me for years until she could teach me to stand on my own, and no one-not you, not anyone-can take that away from me.”
David’s reply was stemmed by the strength in his sister’s voice and the stature her small frame assumed in Imogene’s straight-backed, square-shouldered stance. He took a long look at the woman before him. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly.
Sarah nodded slightly, as if accepting tribute, and turned her back on him. Bending down, she kissed Imogene gently on the mouth. “Good-bye, my love. I will be fine.”
About the Author
Award-winning Nevada Barr is the author of eight previous Anna Pigeon mysteries, including her most recent
