Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

we’ve got some other things to work out first.”
    “Oh?” Her father crossed his arms and swiveled on his stool. “Such as?”
    Honesty being the best policy… “Things I should’ve said to him a long time ago.”
    “About the accident? Or about Sierra?”
    “Are those my only two choices?”
    “They’re the ones that make the most sense. They’re the two things you and Angelo have in common. You didn’t attendthe same school or share the same circle of friends. He was older than you, a boy…” He let the sentence trail, as if struck with thoughts he hated to voice. “Unless there was something between the two of you I never knew about.”
    “Besides my crush?” she asked, grinning and hoping her father would forgive her the little white lie should he ever learn the truth.
    “Yeah,” he said, his grin more reluctant. “I did know about that.”
    She let that settle into the mess of upset she’d been fighting since Oliver Gatlin’s revelation, the pressure behind her breastbone creating an incredible ache. “I saw Oliver Gatlin earlier. At the cemetery.”
    Her father grew pensive, focused, his eyes narrowing. “Yeah? What did he want?”
    She picked at a chip in her nail, took a deep breath. “He told me about a new memorial cross at the accident site. He’d been out there this morning.”
    “Paying his respects?”
    “More like digging for information.”
    “Information about what?”
    If she got through this without throwing up… “That weekend… Everyone knows, has known for years, that Oscar wasn’t at his music workshop, and Sierra and I played hooky from art camp.”
    Her father nodded sagely. “And everyone has always wondered what you three were really doing.”
    That same “everyone,” realizing she wasn’t going to answer and wanting to spare her the hurt, had eventually stopped asking. “I know. But I promised Sierra I would never tell anyone.”
    Frowning, her father ran one hand back and forth over his short-cropped hair. “What do you mean?”
    “I want to tell you,” she said, her throat closing around the words. “But it’s so big, and so many people are involved, and it’s going to cause so much hurt. And I promised Sierra.”
    “And you think Oliver’s going to find something and beat you to it.”
    He was quiet for several moments after she nodded, several long moments during which Luna’s body was stiff with nerves. It was so unfair for her to mention this to him. She knew that. But she needed his advice, and he would understand that, even without her putting her plea into words.
    “Sierra’s been dead for ten years, Luna,” he finally said, then hands on his knees, he pushed down as he used the leverage to gain his feet. “You’re the only one holding yourself to the promise.”
    “Oh, Daddy,” she said, sorrow nearly drowning her. But he was halfway to the door, and then he was walking through, letting it close softly on its own instead of slamming it.
    But she heard the slam in her mind, because she knew he’d stopped himself only so as not to disturb her further. That was the man he was, thoughtful of others even when wounded. She hadn’t been thoughtful at all. And these latest wounds, they were on her.
    Every single one of them.

CHAPTER FIVE
    T he next morning, Luna left the farm early, using the private entrance to her suite rather than stopping in the kitchen for breakfast. She wasn’t in the habit of telling her parents how she’d be spending her days, but with Angelo in town, and her mother and father both aware, she couldn’t imagine not caving under their scrutiny.
    Oh, they wouldn’t come out and ask, but they’d know. Just like her mother always knew not to accompany her to the cemetery. Just like her father always knew she needed to hear his plain truth.
    And now she had Oliver Gatlin’s revelation to deal with. Unbelievable that he’d found detritus from the accident, but it made sense Oscar and Sierra would’ve had the