Black Creek Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

what
did
your father call him?”
    “A shiftless son of a—” he began, but his mother cut him off.
    “That’s enough, Zack!”
    “Jeez, Mom,” the boy complained. “I didn’t say anything Dad didn’t say! How come you’re not picking on him?”
    “Because he’s not sixteen,” Joni retorted. Her gaze shifted to her husband. “And I suggest you be a little more careful of your language.” Ed Fletcher rolled his eyes, and Joni felt a twinge of anger rise inside her. “If I talked about your sister and brother-in-law the way you talk about mine, you wouldn’t put up with it for a moment.”
    “My sister is a nurse, and her husband is a doctor,” Ed shot back. “Which puts them a little further up on the winners’ list than the scullery maid at the rectory and her shiftless drunk of a husband.”
    “That’s a very mean thing to say,” Joni said, her anger coalescing into a hard knot in her stomach. She pushed her chair back from the table, suddenly no longer hungry. “If they decide to move to Roundtree and buy the house at Black Creek Crossing, I expect that you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head.” She shifted her attention back to Zack. “And I’ll expect you to take care of your cousin Angel and make sure she meets all your friends.”
    Now Zack shoved his chair back and stood up, his face stormy. At six feet tall—a height to which he’d grown seemingly overnight—he loomed over her. “Angel?” he yelled, his handsome features contorting in sudden anger. “Why do I have to take care of her? She’s a—”
    “Don’t!” Joni commanded, holding up a hand as if to physically block whatever words Zack had been about to utter. Her eyes darted between her husband and her son. “I think it’s time both of you started getting into the habit of speaking as nicely about other people as you’d like them to speak about you.”
    “Aw, Jeez,” Zack groaned. “I’m gonna go get a pizza,” he declared, and started out of the dining room.
    Joni rose to her feet. “You have not been excused from this table, young man!” Zack ignored her, and a moment later she heard the front door slam. “Are you just going to let him go?” she demanded, wheeling on her husband.
    “Oh, come on, Joni, calm down,” Ed Fletcher said, reaching for the box of Kentucky Fried and helping himself to another piece. “He’ll be back when he cools off.”
    “And you’re just going to let him speak to me that way?”
    Ed shrugged. “What do you want me to do? Hit him the way my dad always hit me?”
    Joni was about to respond, then changed her mind and dropped back onto her chair. “Of course I don’t expect you to hit him,” she replied. “But am I the only one that thinks he’s getting a little big for his britches?”
    “Well, you’ve got to admit, he’s got pretty big britches,” Ed drawled, and Joni, caught off guard, found her anger giving way to a laugh.
    “I swear to God,” she sighed, “the two of you are going to drive me to an early grave.”
    “If your sister really does wind up moving here, the men in this house aren’t the only ones who will have to clean up their language,” Ed observed. “As I recall, Sister Myra doesn’t take kindly to taking the name of the Lord in vain.”
    “Don’t call her ‘Sister Myra,’ ” Joni grumbled. “It makes her sound like a nun.”
    “No nun would be married to Marty Sullivan. He’d be more likely to drive a woman into a convent than make one leave.” Rising from his chair, Ed came around to Joni’s end of the table, bent over and nuzzled his wife’s neck. “You know, there’s a good chance Zack won’t be back for a couple of hours,” he whispered huskily. “If you’re not still mad at me . . .” He let his voice trail off suggestively, then nibbled Joni’s ear in the way that always drove her crazy. He felt her resisting, but then a shiver ran through her. “Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered.
    An hour later they lay curled