As he rode home through the soft lazy light of the spring afternoon, Michael was unaware of the eyes that followed him. First there were the eyes of Laura Shields and Ione Simpson, looking up from the final stages of their cleaning of Janet Hall's old farmhouse, watching as Michael rode by. Then, a little further on, there was Ben Findley, peering out from behind the heavy curtains that kept his rundown house in constant gloom. As Michael slowed and peered at the Findley place through the darkening day, the old man's hand automatically reached out and clutched the shotgun that stood on its butt next to the front door. But Michael passed on, and Ben Findley relaxed.

CHAPTER FIVE

The first word that came into Janet's mind was "firetrap," but she made herself deny it, even though she knew it accurately described what she was seeing as the Shieldses' Chevy slewed over the bumpy dirt driveway and the house came into view. Then she got a grip on her emotions and reminded herself that any wooden structure can burn, that this house was no different from any other house. What had happened to the house she grew up in would not happen to this house. She would not let it happen.

Her sudden panic checked, she made herself look at the house objectively.

Objectively, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

From what she could see, the building had no discernible color whatsoever. The prairie weather had long ago stripped it of its paint, and its siding was a streaked and dirty gray, far from the silvery color of the salt-weathered cedar cottages of the eastern seaboard.

She'd wanted a red barn.

This barn, crouched almost defensively behind the house, bore the same drab color as the house, but was in an even worse state of disrepair. Its shingles were half gone, and the loft door, visible beyond one of the dormers of the house, seemed to be hanging from only one hinge.

"This place," she declared at last, "lends new meaning to the word 'awful.' "

"Are we really going to live here, Mom?" Michael asked, voicing Janet's own thought. He had been tempted to giggle as he watched his mother's reaction until he realized the terrible truth: this… place was his new home.

"Maybe it's not so bad, once you get inside," she replied doubtfully.

"Actually, it's worse," Laura told her.

Janet turned to gaze at her sister-in-law. "Worse? What could be worse? It doesn't have dirt floors, does it?"

Laura carefully brought the car to a stop in the weed-choked front yard, and Janet fell silent, studying the house once more. There was something about it that didn't fit. And then she realized what it was.

"My God," she breathed. "All the windows are whole."

Laura gave her a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't they be?"

"But the place is abandoned. What about-well, don't kids like to throw rocks anymore?"

Suddenly understanding, Laura laughed. "Amos fixes them when they do get broken. I'm not going to pretend everybody's perfect around here." She opened the car door and eased her bulk out, smiling wryly at Janet. "I hope you carry your babies more gracefully than I carry mine," she said, then turned her attention to the house. "Actually, it isn't nearly as bad as it looks. It's weathered, and it needs a lot of work, but basically, it's sound. And the floors, believe it or not, are hardwood."

Slowly, the three of them went through the house, and to her own amazement Janet discovered that Laura was right. Though the paint and wallpaper were peeling and the floors needed refinishing, the house did seem to be solid. The floors were level, and the doors square. The plaster had no holes in it, and the plumbing worked.

There were four rooms downstairs-a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a pantry; four more upstairs-three bedrooms and a bathroom, with an attic tucked under the steeply sloping roof. Each of the upstairs rooms had a dormered window, including the bathroom. A narrow staircase through the center of the house connected the two floors, with a spring-loaded pull-down ladder providing access to the attic.

There was no furniture.

Ten minutes later, Janet and Laura were back in the living room.

"I know it isn't much," Laura sighed, moving out onto the front porch and lowering herself awkwardly onto the top step.

"No, Laura," Janet protested. "You were right. It's much better than it looks from the outside."

"And it's a lot better than it looked yesterday," Laura pointed out, brightening a little. "Ione Simpson and I worked like dogs cleaning out the grime."

"I wish you hadn't," Janet began. "The kids and I could have done it. And in your condition-"

Laura brushed her objections aside. "You'd have taken one look and fled. Ione and I almost gave it up ourselves. But by next week or the week after, you won't know the place. We'll have all the weeds cleaned out, the buildings painted, and the fields plowed."

"But I can't afford-"

"Janet," Laura said quietly, "this was Mark's home. Now it's going to be yours, and we're your family. Let us do for you what we'd do for each other." When Janet still hesitated, she added, "Please?"

"But there's so much that needs to be done-"

"And the whole town can do it," Laura stated. "We'll make a party of it, just like an old-fashioned roof-raising. Except, thank God, the roofs in good shape."

The two women fell silent, gazing out into the prairie. It was a comfortable silence, and Janet could feel the quiet of the plains seeping into her, easing the tension that had been her constant companion over the last several days.

"I think I'm going to like it here," she said at last. Next to her, she felt Laura shift her position slightly.

"Really?" the other woman asked. Then she laughed, a brittle laugh that made Janet turn to face her.

"It's so quiet. So different from New York. There's a sense of calm here that I haven't felt since I was a little girl. I'd almost forgotten it."

"That's boredom you're feeling," Laura remarked, her voice tinged with uncharacteristic sarcasm… "Right now it seems like peace, but just wait a year or so."

"Oh, come on," Janet cajoled. "If it's that bad, why do you stay?"

Now Laura turned to face her, her large eyes serious. "You think it's that easy?" she asked. "How do you leave a place like this? When you've grown up here, and your husband's grown up here, and you've never been anywhere else, how do you leave? They don't let you, you know."

"But Mark-"

"Mark ran away," Laura said, her voice suddenly bitter. "Mark fled, and I should have too. Except that when he got out, I was too young to go with him. And by the time I was old enough, it was too late. I was already trapped."

"Trapped? What do you mean, trapped?"

"Just that," Laura told her. "That's what a small town is, you know. A trap. At least that's what Prairie Bend is. I used to dream about getting out. I used to think I'd take Ryan and just run away. But of course, I never did." Suddenly her eyes met Janet's. "You won't either, if you stay. They'll get to you, just like they get to everyone."

"Who? Laura, what are you talking about?"

"Father-all of them."

"Laura-"

But Laura pressed on, her words building into a torrent. "I can't get out, Janet. I'm stuck here, trapped by this whole place. I tried to leave once. I really tried. Do you know what happened? Mother just looked at me. That's all she had to do. Just look at me, with those sad, empty eyes.

She didn't have to say a word. Didn't have to tell me that I was all she had left, that Mark was gone, and the baby was dead, and there was no one left but me. It was all right there in her eyes. Ever since that night…" Her voice trailed off, and her eyes wandered away from Janet, across the yard, fixing finally on a pair of doors that lay low to the ground, covering what Janet assumed was a root cellar.