Wild in the Field Read Free

fill a whole sky.
    It made him sick to think about her hurting.
    â€œPssst. Dad.” The daredevil hanging over the second story railing was, of course, risking life and limb. “Ms. Campbell—is she gone? Is it safe to come down?”
    â€œYeah, she’s gone.”
    In another moment, his son’s spitting image hung over the railing, too. “Are you sick or something? What’s the matter with you, Dad? You’re not yelling at us.”
    â€œI will,” Pete promised them absently, but when hedidn’t immediately come through with a good, solid respectable bellow, the boys seemed to panic.
    â€œWe’re not cleaning,” Sean announced.
    â€œYeah, we’re going on strike,” Simon said. “Gramps is going on strike with us. So it’s three against one.”
    Maybe he’d failed a wife, but he’d never fail his boys. Since they were expecting him to scream and yell, he forced his mind off Camille and thumped up the stairs to deliver the lecture they wanted.

Two
    W hen Camille heard the knock on the door, her heart slammed in instant panic—but that was just a stupid, knee-jerk response from the attack. She’d been home and forcefully installed in the cottage by Violet for three weeks now. She was safe. She knew she was safe. But somehow, even all these months after the attack, sudden noises and shadows still made her stomach jump clear to her throat.
    Someone knocked on the door again—which she purposefully ignored. She just as easily ignored the pounding after that. But then came her sister’s insistent voice calling, “Yoo-hoo! Camille? CAMILLE?”
    Camille didn’t budge from old, horsehair rocker in the far corner of the living room, but hearing Vi whining her name reminded her of how much she’d always disliked it. Mom had named all three daughters after flowers, so she could have gotten Violet or Daisy, butno, she had to get Camille. Practically by definition people seemed to assume that a Camille was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, sultry romantic. The dark hair and dark eyes were true, but the rest of the image was completely off.
    These last months, she’d turned mean. Not just a little mean, but horned-toad mean. Porcupine-mean. Curmudgeon-rude and didn’t-give-a-damn-about-anyone mean.
    â€œAll right, Cam, honey.” When no one answered, Violet’s voice turned so patient that Camille wanted to open the door just to smack her one. “I’ll leave lunch on the table at noon, but I want you up at the house for dinner. You don’t have to talk. You don’t have to do anything. But unless you’re up there at six—and I actually see you eat something—I’m calling Mom and Daisy both.”
    Camille’s eyes creaked open in the dim room. Something stirred in her stomach. A touch of an ordinary emotion…like worry. Not that she gave a hoot—about anything or anyone. But the threat of having both her mother and oldest sister sicced on her made Cam break out in a cold sweat. The Campbell women, allied together, could probably make a stone sweat. She just wasn’t up to battling with them.
    With a resigned sigh, she pushed herself out of the old, horsehair rocker to search for a drink.
    Rain drooled down the dirty windows, making it hard to see without a light, but she didn’t turn one on. The past weeks had passed in a blur. She remembered Violet barging into the apartment in Boston, finding her curled up in bed, shaking her, scolding her, packing her up. She remembered driving to Vermont in a blizzard. She remembered refusing to live in the warm,sturdy farmhouse where they’d grown up, fighting with Violet over whether the old cottage on the place was even livable.
    It wasn’t. But then Camille wasn’t livable either, so the place had worked for her fine.
    She stumbled around now, stalking around suitcases and boxes. She hadn’t unpacked anything from Boston.