The Outcast Read Free

brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns you for a villain.’ ”
    Louisa laughed in delight and gave him a hug. McNair was one of her favorite people in the world. With his white hair and bushy white beard, he was old enough to be her great-grandfather. Yet he was as spry as Zach and as dear a man as ever drew breath. He wore buckskins, and his rifle was cradled in the crook of his left elbow. “What brings you over to our side of the lake?” she asked.
    â€œI’m going hunting tomorrow and reckoned maybe that husband of yours would like to tag along.” Shakespeare was telling only half the truth. His wife, Blue Water Woman, had told him to check in on Lou.
    â€œOh. He’s off hunting right now, although he didn’t want to. I sent him after a grouse for supper.”
    Shakespeare glanced at the bucket and then at her waist. “Have you no more brains than earwax, girl? Your man is off in the woods and you came outside unarmed? What were you thinking?”
    Lou frowned. Zach was always on her, too, about not stepping out the door without a gun. He kept trying to impress on her that all it took was one mistake and she would pay with her life. As he put it to her once, “The wilderness has buried a lot of people and it will bury you, too, if you won’t start taking it seriously. There’s danger around every hill and behind every tree.”
    She’d laughed and told him that he exaggerated. But it became a sore point, so much so that she now said to McNair, “Please don’t tell my husband. He’ll have one of his fits, and I want everything to be perfect.”
    â€œYou’re about to tell him, I take it?”
    Louisa blinked. “Tell him what?”
    â€œOh, come now.” McNair grinned. “You’re with child. It’s as plain as your rosy cheeks and the glow you share with the sun.”
    Lou shouldn’t have been surprised; McNair knew about her recent morning sickness. McNair and Nate King were best friends. McNair was so close to the family, in fact, that to this day Zach called him uncle. “Oh my. How many others know?”
    â€œJust about everybody except your husband. There are none so blind as those who can’t see past the nose on their face.”
    â€œThat’s not another quote from William Shakespeare, is it?”
    â€œNo, but it should be.”
    That was another thing Lou liked about McNair: his passion for the Bard. He had a big book of Shakespeare’s plays and quoted them by the hour. How he could recite it all was beyond her. She was lucky if she remembered a few quotes from the Bible.
    â€œSo, am I right? Is this the night you drop fatherhood on his head and change his life forever?”
    â€œYou make it sound like a millstone.”
    â€œI’m only saying it’s not to be taken lightly. It’s good you’re both ready for it.” Shakespeare paused. “You are both looking forward to having a baby, aren’t you?”
    â€œWell, it wasn’t as if we planned it,” Lou said, hedging. McNair had hit on the one thing that troubled her.
    â€œTell me, and be honest. Have the two of you talked this over? What it means to be a parent? The changes the baby will bring?”
    â€œNot exactly, no.”
    â€œ ‘Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?’ ” Shakespeare quoted. “You haven’t said a word to each other, have you?”
    â€œOf course we have,” Lou said, a trifle indignantly. But the truth was, they’d talked about it only once, a short while back when she first thought she might be pregnant.
    â€œGood. No one should jump in a poison ivy patch unless they like to itch a lot.”
    â€œYou’re comparing a baby to poison ivy? They have nothing in common.”
    â€œTell that to a parent who has been up all night with a baby with the croup. Tell it to a parent who has to put up with all the caterwauling