A Dangerous Affair Read Online Free PDF

you need to mind your manners. It was hard on all of us when you left. Hard on me. Hard on your father. Harder on Josh more than any of us, I suppose."
    Lloyd poured the contents of an open bottle of Wild Turkey down the sink. "This stuff'll kill you."
    "Hey!" Brenda protested. "I paid good money for that bottle."
    "Spend it on something else."
    "I'll spend my money on whatever the hell I want."
    "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"
    "I'm not the one who went to prison," Brenda scolded her oldest adopted son. "If you'd stayed out of trouble, none of this would have happened."
    "We've all made mistakes," Lloyd confessed. "I've paid for mine."
    "So did your father." Brenda swallowed. Her tongue felt dry. Her hands felt numb. "What are you planning to do now? Sponge off me like your brother does?"
    "I'll find a job."
    "Doing what?"
    Lloyd shrugged. "Anything. Maybe teach."
    Brenda snickered. "No school's going to hire an ex-convict. You might as well tape a sign on your forehead."
    "I'm still the same man I was before."
    "You were the one who could have had a good life. Raised a nice family. Made a name for yourself. But you pissed it away like your brother." She staggered toward him with yellow hues around her red-rimmed eyes. "What happened to you? You were a good kid. Now you come back here with your tattooed arms and your attitude."
    Lloyd watched her wobble on shaky legs. "You should have told me sooner about Dad."
    Brenda swayed in place. "Your father shot himself in the head." She staggered toward Lloyd, well on her way into a drunken stupor. Her eyelids fluttered. "I buried him at Seaside Cemetery. He always did want to live close to the water."
    Lloyd caught her as she passed out in front of him. He checked her pulse before he carried her to her room. Nothing he could say or do would change what happened. That much he knew for certain. Tomorrow would bring a new day, and with it, a chance for a new beginning.

 
     
     
    Chapter 6

     
    Jamie used a wooden spoon to chip away at a frozen clump of beef stew in a three-quart saucepan on the stove. An under-cabinet radio played a smooth jazz melody from her favorite radio station. The music carried her to a better place. A time when life was simple and unadulterated from the influence of her significant other. A time when her needs came first, and the dormant temper of Alan Blanchart remained as stationary and uneventful as the leftover entrée on her flat top range.
    The music segued to commercials. The washer hit the spin cycle in the laundry room, gyrating the unbalanced load in the oversized tub.
    She sliced a cucumber and added it to the grated carrots and diced tomato in the bowl of mixed greens. She sprinkled fresh parmesan and added homemade croutons to the mix the way Alan liked it.
    With dinner preparations nearly finished, she hung her apron in the pantry and hauled a load of clean laundry from the dryer to her bedroom.
    She folded Alan's shirts in a neat and orderly fashion. She folded his socks and underwear in the same manner, placing each garment in her husband's bureau drawer. Socks to the left. Underwear to the right. White T-shirts belonged in the bottom drawer stacked in piles of three.
    She wiped the sinks in the bathrooms and mopped the floors. She dusted the family room and the dining room table. She took out the trash and cleaned the windows.
    Chores were a fact of life. A nuisance at times, but one she could live with. They kept her busy and provided a welcome distraction from her menial existence as the wife of Sheriff Blanchart. Dreams came and went, yet her married life persisted, despite the challenges and the ambiguity that defined where Alan's life ended and hers began.
    Settled in the quiet, rural suburb of Lakewood, Florida, she kept her business to herself. From all accounts, the neighbors respected her privacy, going out of their way to steer clear of an awkward conversation with the small town sheriff's wife who came and went at