Page 85 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“So you’ve said. Many times.” Noah drummed his fingers on his knees. “But we’ve also well established that youdohave a connection to him. Sanderson knows this and will use it against you to make his point.”
She hadn’t told Noah about Sarah Sanderson. About their truce. About how suspicious she was herself, or Ned’s theory regardingSarah’s guilt. But there was no question Hubbard was a link. Between them all.
“If’n I tell you, you can’t judge me.”
Noah considered it for a long moment. Longer than Ava was comfortable with. Preachers should be quick to forgive. Or so she thought anyway.
“I won’t judge you,” he replied at last. There was something in his voice, though. Not resignation so much as recognition. As if he’d judged before and preferred not to revisit it.
“I told her I’d not tell a soul.”
“Told who?”
“Jipsy.” Ava had never cried loyalty toward Jipsy, but the womanhadtaken her in as a child. Taken her in along with Widower Frisk. Fed her. Housed her. Kept Widower Frisk away from her...
“Jipsy,” Noah repeated.
Ava nodded, finally meeting his yes. “Jipsy and Matthew Hubbard ... well, they had a little thing goin’ on the side.” Not unlike what Ned had accused Sarah Sanderson of. That irony wasn’t lost on Ava.
“Oh.” Apparently that wasn’t what Noah had expected. She had an idea that he thought she had one of her own personal confessions, but she didn’t.
“And now I’m questionin’ whether he had somethin’ going on with Mrs. Sanderson too.”
Noah choked. Held his fist to his mouth and coughed. “Mrs. Sanderson and Matthew Hubbard?”
“Ned seems to think so. Maybe Mrs. Sanderson was jealous of Jipsy and so took her out.”
“But Hubbard was already dead. What difference would it make by then?” Noah raised a brow.
Ava shrugged. “Jealous is jealous, Preacher, you should know that. Sin don’t always follow logic.”
“No. No, it doesn’t.” Noah shook his head. “None of this is helpful, Ava. I don’t see how we’re going to clear your name. Going into report your attack today—it’s just going to look like a smoke screen. A tactic to get their attention off of you. My guess is, they won’t take it seriously.”
“So then. Here we sit.” Ava sagged back into the sofa. She adjusted the skirt of her dress, as it’d ridden up past her knees. She noticed Noah watched her hands. Her legs. Then he shifted his gaze quickly to the floor. For a long moment, they were both quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Ava had a feeling her thoughts were far different from Noah’s.
He was in fix-it mode. She’d spent a day or two watching Mo Jackson at the machine shop fixing things, so she could recognize it in a man. There was a deep concentration when something needed set to rights. Whether it was a car engine or wagon wheel or a person’s life. Only, Ava figured it was right easier to fix an engine than a heart.
She studied Noah. He looked downright exhausted. His chiseled face might be handsome, but Ava didn’t disregard the droop of his shoulders, the defeat in his expression, and his overall approach to pretty much everything.Resigned. That was the word. He was resigned. Like he owed it. To others. To God. The more it cost of himself, the better off it’d be. Like a loan. Widower Frisk had a loan once, Ava recalled. Took him nigh on two years to pay it back, and though she was sure he paid most of it back with goods from his hidden whiskey stash, it definitely cost him. He wasn’t happy till it was paid in full.
“What are you payin’ back, Noah Pritchard?”
Noah’s head came up, and his eyes locked with hers.
Well, darn it. She hadn’t meant to ask that out loud.
They both stared at each other, the air thick with unspoken words.
“She break your heart?” Ava suddenly knew—notwhoEmmaline was so much aswhatEmmaline did.
Noah’s expression changed little. It couldn’t. Resignation was a part of him now. He took in a deep breath, his chest rising, and then released it. “No,Ibroke our hearts. It was all me.”
Ava wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it made those embers in Noah’s eyes make more sense. He was a man created to feel, but one who was forcin’ himself not to. And one of these days, he was gonna lose his well-honed control. Would she be able to handle whatever those flickers of emotion in his eyes meant? A part of her wanted to try.
The doll’s eyes were empty. Staring out from her cracked porcelain skull like hollow voids. The trauma she’d witnessed was buried behind them, tormenting and killing. Ava reached for her doll, her fingertips connecting with the hair. Human hair, Ma had said, ’cause it was all special and expensive-like on a doll. Ava’s fingers grazed the hair as she tried to grab it, but the doll rolled away.
Fog rolled in, from the sides. A strange thing, seeing as she was back in the cellar—somehow. Dreamin’. She had to be. Another look at her doll and Ava left her behind, climbing the ladder. Her scream caught in her throat, choking her and stealing breath from her lungs. The fog parted across the cabin’s wood floor, leaving her face-to-face with a dead man.
Her pa’s eyes mimicked her doll’s. Open. Blue. Reflecting a horror that froze the moment death had stolen breath from him.
