Read Cole's Redemption (Love Amongst the Pines) for Free Online Page B

pretty. When they had enough money, Pa and Ma gathered me up, and we came out here to live."
                  Her smile faded then, her thoughts obviously going to some distant memory.
                  "How old are you?"
                  "Eighteen. I was seven when we left San Francisco."
                  "That means you've been out here for eleven years. In all
    this time, you've had no luck with the mine?"
                  By the way she flinched, he could tell his words stung.  To her credit, she recovered quickly.  A second later she looked him straight in the eyes and gave him a stern expression.
                  "Not yet, but we've been managing all right. I can catch and cook a mighty fine rabbit here and there. Uncle Dermott likes to fish. My Pa used to leave during the summer months and go around to the local towns and earn money at cards."
                  "Oh." 
                  Her voice quieted and Cole knew her tough visage was slipping.  "We were a right happy family.  Then, Ma got consumption and she couldn't take the long trips anymore. So when Pa'd come back, he'd tell us about all his adventures. It went on like that awhile.  Then, one day, he got thrown from his horse. Landed clean on a rattlesnake. By the time me and uncle Dermott found him, he was dead."
                  "I'm sorry."
                  "Ma took it really hard. Not long after, she came down with a terrible fever. I took care of her as best I could. I guess sometime life just hands you things that are bigger than you can carry."
                  Cole closed his eyes. The truth of her words stung him, just as bad. His burdens had been so heavy that it was easier to give into his pain and just hand himself over to fate.
                  And fate had taken him to a small town in the middle of nowhere, before a hanging judge and community full of angry people.
                  "Can I ask you something?"
                  "You can. That doesn't mean I'll answer, but go ahead."
                  "Did you really kill that man in cold blood?"
                  Cole stared at her as the breath left him. She studied him with wide brown eyes, so dark that they looked opaque. Her face was smudged with dirt, and her grimy blond hair was chopped raggedly around her face.
                  She looked like some street urchin from one of Mr. Dickens's stories, or worse. He sensed innocence about her, and a stubbornness as well. She wore them both like the tattered oversized shirt she wrapped around her small form.
                  "Yes. I did." He watched her carefully, waiting for her to recoil in horror at his admission. Instead, her expression tightened.
                  "Did you have a good reason for killing him?"
                  Open and honest, she was judging him, all right, but not the way the people in Whispering Pines had. In fact, her scrutiny scared him far more than the possibility of facing a short rope and a tall tree.
                  "I thought so at the time."
                  She nodded. "You get some sleep. I'll watch over you. Doc said that we need to change those bandages and soak your hands every morning. I'll do it directly after breakfast. Don't worry about me taking care of you, I done lots of things for my Ma."
                  Before Cole could argue, she leaned forward and pulled up the worn sheet until it rested feather light across his chest. Then she rose, and went to the table and two rickety chairs on the other side of the room. In minutes, she was seated, reading quietly to herself by the light of a low burning candle.                            
                  Like a lullaby from his distant past, her soft voice filled the room with