Read Home by Nightfall for Free Online Page A

welcome home. We’re so grateful to have—”
    Panicked and overwhelmed, his breath coming fast, Christophe jerked away and stumbled backward several steps to stare at them. He leaned heavily on his cane. They gaped at him as he watched them, and a chasm of silence and space opened between them.
    At last, the blonde woman, her brow wrinkled with obvious concern, moved a bit closer. “Riley, how much of this—of us—do you remember?”
    He hesitated and looked at each expectant, stunned face. “The woman who saved me from a shelled ambulance in France, she called me Christophe. That is the only name I’ve known. Atleast until the Red Cross found me.” Damn them , he wanted to add. Then he returned his gaze to the dark-haired woman, curious. “I’ve seen your picture,” he said to her. He reached into his coat pocket for the photograph and looked at it. He showed it to her, smiling tentatively. “You—I guess I’m married to you…Your name is Susannah?”
    The woman in question put the fingertips of both hands to her mouth and stared at him with wide, horror-stricken eyes. “Ohhhh.” It sounded like an exhale.
    He shifted his weight off his bad leg, drew a deep breath, and glanced at the platform beneath his feet. “I know none of you,” he said. Looking up at the station and the forested butte in the distance, he added, “I don’t know this place.”
    The boys—were they his sons?—backed away as if he were a goblin, fear in their faces.
    “I’m Jessica Layton Braddock, your sister-in-law. I’m married to your brother, Cole. We all went to school together.” The blonde woman gestured at the rugged, sandy-haired man and stepped aside to let a porter pass with a luggage cart. “These two boys are Joshua and Wade—”
    The old man piped up, his expression a combination of impatience and thin indignation. “ Kree-stoff! Sweet weepin’ Jesus, I’m not calling you some hoity-toity foreign moniker. How can you not remember your own kin? Your own name? You’re the seed of my loins—”
    Christophe took another step back.
    “Shaw, you’re not helping matters,” Jessica interrupted, rolling her eyes.
    “Pop, damn it, be quiet,” Cole snapped and stepped in front of his father. He resettled his hat on his head. “Look, this is no place to talk about anything. Let’s just go back to the farm andwe’ll sort it out. Somehow. It’s a shock for everyone.” He picked up Christophe’s suitcase and inclined his head toward a Ford truck parked near the depot.
    Christophe sighed and followed.
    • • •
    Susannah, clumsy and nervous and holding a knife, sat at the big table in the kitchen peeling potatoes and carrots. She’d already cubed rich stew meat that now bubbled slowly on the stove in a broth fragrant with chopped onions. A double page of newspaper was spread out on the tabletop to catch the thin spirals she produced. Probably no one was hungry, but they had to eat and the job gave her something to do. She’d already cut herself once and had bound up the wound with a strip of old sheeting. Cole had shown Riley to his room upstairs and left him there. Then he and the rest of the family gathered in the dining room to hash over this dilemma. They spoke in hushed, indistinct voices that floated to her when the breeze shifted through the open door, with Shaw’s louder than the rest. The boys, she supposed, were with Tanner.
    During the week before Riley came home, it had been decided that they wouldn’t tell him about her remarriage until he had a chance to settle in. For the time being, Tanner was sharing a room with Josh and Wade. But none of them had anticipated that Riley’s memory would be as blank and featureless as new snowfall upon a field. In fact, this Riley hadn’t even met Tanner yet.
    Those few moments they’d spent together had felt so awkward, she hadn’t attempted to actually engage him in conversation. She wasn’t sure what to say.
    When he’d first emerged from the train