Afraid to Die Read Online Free PDF

was ninety if she was a day, sharp as a whip and opinionated to the nth. She wasn’t about to keep on track with the Bible study meeting about the giving tree they were establishing this year and had preferred to go over, line by line, the “ridiculous” and “outrageous” costs of constructing the new church. “This is the Lord’s house,” she’d insisted, “and everyone in town, every single parishioner should give their time, money and labor into its construction. Lorraine?” she’d asked the preacher’s wife. “Did you see the estimate for the plumbing? Did you?” Her face had flushed beneath her thick powder and she’d wagged a finger at Dorie Oestergard, wife of the unfortunate contractor assigned to the job. Though it was well known that he’d cut his usual fee by 25 percent for the church, Mildred was certain he’d “padded the bills” and she’d been vocal about it. “Your husband should be ashamed of himself, Dorie. It’s highway robbery! Can’t he read his own bills?”
    That comment had elicited a gasp from Dorie, but Mildred was on a roll and didn’t stop. “If you ask me,” she’d said, “the devil’s behind this. He’s always there, y’know, Satan, he’s just over your shoulder, waiting to pounce.” Her lips had pursed for a second, and before she could rant on, another person on the committee, Jenny Kropft, had asked Mildred if she would be so kind as to give her blackberry crumb cake recipe to the cookbook the group was assembling. Mildred had been too smart not to see that she was being diverted, but had been pleased just the same.
    â€œSave me,” Brenda whispered now, her breath fogging in the night air as she crossed the near-empty lot and unlocked her car. This, the old church, was located high on the bluff in the hills overlooking the city. The church and parsonage had been built in the late 1880s, and though modernized over the years with indoor plumbing, electricity, forced-air heat and insulation, the buildings were still as drafty as they were charming, and the congregation was growing each year. As it was, on Sunday morning, the old choir loft was filled with parishioners, and on Easter and Christmas, there had to be an additional two services added for the once- and twice-a-year members of the flock. In the harsh Montana winters, the old buildings suffered, as did everyone inside.
    The new church was a great idea in Brenda’s mind, as was Preacher Mullins’s introduction of rock renditions of traditional songs by a couple of young musicians in the flock. Though traditionalists like Mildred might balk at the changes, if they could bring new, young blood into the church, Brenda was all for it. Maybe eventually she could convince her two teenaged boys to get up and attend services again, though she doubted it, especially with Ray, her ex-husband, setting such a stellar example of being a hedonistic, self-indulgent jerk!
    At the thought of the boys’ father, she scowled, sent up a little prayer for humility and a way to find forgiveness in her heart, then caught the anger simmering in her eyes in the reflection of her rearview mirror. “Please, give me strength,” she whispered as she shoved her old Ford Escape into gear, backed up and headed out of the church lot. The boys were with Ray tonight and she had to accept the fact that she was the one who had decided Ray Sutherland was the perfect man to father her kids. “The follies of youth,” she said under her breath and tried not to dwell on Ray and his failings as a husband and dad.
    She’d hoped to pick up a few odds and ends Christmas presents at the local pharmacy and gift shop, so she drove across the bluff to the strip mall, where she sneaked in, just before the store was to close, and grabbed a stuffed reindeer for her nephew and some plastic Christmas-themed blocks for