Read Heartbreak Creek for Free Online Page A

suggested. “Let’s go back to Rose Hill, dig up my grandfather’s bones, and stomp the stuffings out of them. Will that make you feel better?”
    Pru bit back a smile and resumed packing. “It might.”
    “Sounds a bit drastic,” Maddie called. “Even the Scots don’t dig up their dead.”
    Flopping back again, Edwina watched lacy cobwebs on the stained ceiling swing to and fro in a gentle draft, and felt such a sense of despair it seemed to clog her throat. “I just want to put it all behind me,” she said in a wobbly voice. “All that pain and death and destruction. I don’t want to think about all those new graves. Is that so wrong? To want to start over?”
    “No, love. It isn’t.” Sinking onto the edge of the bed beside her, Pru reached out and patted Edwina’s hand. “I’m just not sure marrying a man you never met is the way to go about it.”
    “I agree,” Lucinda called. “Men will always break your heart.”
    “Sad, but true,” Maddie put in. “And if you do marry a stranger, sometimes getting to know him better will only lead to impossible hopes and expectations they are unable or unwilling to fulfill.”
    “Well, what choice did I have?” Edwina complained, sitting up again. “A Klansman or a carpetbagger. It seems all the men were either married, so defeated they couldn’t go on, or so angry they wouldn’t let the killing end. I can’t live like that any longer. I won’t.”
    Pru resumed packing. “Eldridge Blankenship was unmarried, and was neither Klansman nor carpetbagger. He would have made a fine husband.”
    “Or a beaver,” Edwina argued, earning a laugh from Lucinda. “Did you see those teeth? Besides, he wanted children.”
    Another subject they hadn’t broached with their new friends, so Pru didn’t respond.
    But Maddie’s curiosity was aroused. Tipping her head to study Edwina through the open door, she asked, “You don’t want children?”
    Edwina shrugged.
    “How do you plan to stop them from coming?”
    “There are ways,” Lucinda said before Edwina had to admit she was hoping to talk her groom into abstinence. “A man named Charles Goodyear has invented a rubber sheath that fits over—”
    “Lucinda Hathaway!” Prudence gave her a look that would have done her name proud. “I cannot believe you would discuss such a thing!”
    “We’re none of us virgins,” Lucinda pointed out. “Including you, I’d guess, since you’re experienced enough to know what I’m talking about.”
    Surprised, Edwina turned to her sister, expecting an immediate denial. But Pru didn’t meet her gaze, although her caramel-colored skin did seem to darken a bit.
    “Fits over what?” Maddie persisted.
    Lucinda rolled her eyes. “For someone with an arts background you have a somewhat limited imagination, don’t you, dear?”
    “I’m a photographer, not a—my word! You’re talking about French letters, aren’t you? They’re made of rubber ? I thought they were made of linen or silk or animal intestines.”
    “Intestines? Good Lord. You Scots truly are backward.”
    “I’m English, Lucinda, as well you know.”
    “Be that as it may, rubber sheaths have been around for at least a decade. Apparently neither you nor your Scottish husband has ever used one.”
    “There was no need.”
    “No need? You mean you didn’t—”
    “Of course we did,” Maddie cut. “Many times. Often in the same day. But contraception wasn’t an issue. I wanted children. Very much.”
    Edwina gaped at her two friends, amazed that they could so blithely discuss such taboo subjects as consummation and conception. They seemed so confident and assured. So experienced. “I wish I could be more like you two,” she said wistfully. “Say whatever you want. Travel where and when the mood strikes. Follow your dreams wherever they take you, instead of just being someone’s wife.”
    “Oh, being a wife isn’t so bad,” Maddie allowed. “I rather liked it. Until he dumped me on his