Secondhand Bride
“Lying there in that hotel room, Jeb counted the cracks in the ceiling and the boards in the wall. A single fly had come to keep him company, now buzzing at his head, now bumbling against the glass in the window. He tried to read some from the lofty tomes Kade had brought him, but words on those pages seemed as restless as the fly. They just wouldn’t light on his brain and settle in.
Perhaps because he’d come so close to crossing over— according to Doc, he’d tried to slip away a couple of times during the operation—he kept thinking about his mother.
He remembered once, when he was six or seven, spending a night in town with a friend and taking in the fiery sermons of an itinerant preacher. He’d been terrified, and awakened screaming and sweating in the depths of a summer night, flailing at his covers.
“I’m bad and I’m going to hell,” he’d told Georgia McKettrick, in a bullet spray of words, when she hurried into his room with a lantern and a concerned expression.
She’d sat on the edge ...of his narrow bed, wearing a satin wrapper and smelling of some combination of lilacs and sleep, and smoothed his hair back from his forehead with one blessedly cool hand.MoreLess
Perhaps because he’d come so close to crossing over— according to Doc, he’d tried to slip away a couple of times during the operation—he kept thinking about his mother.
He remembered once, when he was six or seven, spending a night in town with a friend and taking in the fiery sermons of an itinerant preacher. He’d been terrified, and awakened screaming and sweating in the depths of a summer night, flailing at his covers.
“I’m bad and I’m going to hell,” he’d told Georgia McKettrick, in a bullet spray of words, when she hurried into his room with a lantern and a concerned expression.
She’d sat on the edge ...of his narrow bed, wearing a satin wrapper and smelling of some combination of lilacs and sleep, and smoothed his hair back from his forehead with one blessedly cool hand.MoreLess
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