A Year of You Read Online Free PDF Page B

little separation from everything.

    “Thanks for driving me out here.”
    “No big deal. “
    She fought the big lump in her throat and the tears building up behind her eyes. Go away, just go away, she pleaded silently with her damn gooey emotions.
The blasted sob worked its way out of her throat, as strangled as it was.
Embarrassed, she buried her face in her hands.
    “You okay?” West asked.
    Mattie nodded and stared out the window, not seeing a thing.
Tears ran down her cheeks anyway. Turning her back to West, she rested her arms on the doorand buried her face within. The truck chugged to a stop. He shut off the engine.
A warm hand touched her back and patted gently.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. Mattie turned around and gazed at him startled by his concern. For thelast few hours, he’d been her constant shadow, but he’d been silent and distant, completely distrusting.
    “Why do you care?” Mattie asked. Was his compassion a trick?

    “I’m not a total asshole.”
    
Mattie shook her head, swiping at her tears with the heels of her hands and hoping her mascara wasn’t running too bad. “I’m fine. It’s just a lot to take in. That’s my grandmother. And I met my sister and…I don’t know how to handle this stuff.”

    West chewed on his bottom lip, eyeing her. “You’re so sure they’re yours.” He plucked a tissue out of a squashed box crammed between the back of the seat and the flat back window and handed it to her. Mattie swabbed her face and blew her nose.
    “I’ve always known who they are,” she said. “This really is just a lot. I’ve always known about Karen and Ruth Ellen and Emeline, and now that I’m here it’s just...overwhelming.”
    She hated the way his stunning eyes never lost their suspicious gaze when he was around her.
“I bet. You knew about them? You told me on the plane you had only recently found out.”

    Mattie felt a flutter of nervousness in her belly. Anxiety wrapped around her chest, squeezing tight. She shrugged. “I didn’t know you. I still don’t, really. I’m not going to blurt out my hellacious childhood to a stranger.”
    West cocked himself sideways in the driver’s seat and eyed her again. “Well, we’re not strangers now. Why don’t you go ahead and get it all off your chest?”
    “No. It’s none of your business. The people who need to know my past already know it.” Mattie crossed her arms over her chest and stared straight ahead. He had parked them in the parking lot of a shopping center. People swarmed out of a Beall’s Outlet that was going out of business, laden down with bags of discount junk.
    “I’m a lot more important than you think, Matilyn,” West said firmly.

    “Don’t call me Matilyn. I’m Mattie.”

    “Does it matter, Matilyn?”
She heard K’s hateful tones in West’s voice every time he said her full name. It brought up tears again. “Stop it!”
    “Matilyn.”
    “You are being really immature! I hate that name.”

    “I’m sure the hell not calling you Elaine.”

    “I didn’t ask you to. Just stop calling me Matilyn. You’re being such a bastard.”
    West started the truck and wheeled out of the parking lot at high speed. Mattie gasped and clung to the dash to keep from sliding across the slick vinyl seat. “Never said I was a nice guy.”
    “You could pretend to be.”

    “What, like you’re pretending to be Karen’s kid?”
    “Karen was my mother, West.”
    “Uh huh. I bet. Don’t you feel even the remotest sense of guilt for trying to screw that sick, dying woman out of her money?” He glared at her as he drove, only breaking the biting stare to glance at the road once in a while.
    “Ruth Ellen is my grandmother! You’ll see, you arrogant prick, when they do the DNA tests. Then you can just sit and spin.”
    West rolled his eyes. “Where do you want to eat?”

    “Eat? Fuck you, dude. Take me back to McKendrick’s house.”

    “Nope. I have to