Blood in the Past (Blood for Blood Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

well past her shoulders, encasing her in a gilded halo. Jillian wondered if the woman also noticed the differences, if she thought her husband just wanted something different. Someone different.
     
    Jillian expected a defiant speech, but Susan invited Jillian in and offered her tea. Jillian sat and watched the waif-like woman glide out of the living room, curious to know if Susan always served as the hostess in her little stay-at-home world. Jillian squirmed in the cushioned chair while Calvin’s wife tinkered away in the kitchen. She returned carrying a red, bone china tea set assembled neatly on a serving tray. The gold filigree matched the sunlight’s glint off her hair.
     
    The tea’s warmth inside the delicate teacup radiated through to Jillian’s fingertips. She found comfort in that and used it keep her voice steady and resolute. “I will not stop seeing Calvin.”
     
    The woman had made no efforts at introduction or other pleasantries other than offering tea. She sipped from her cup. “As I told you last night, you’ll be sorry. I can’t say it any plainer than that.” Another sip.
     
    Despite the steaming tea, the room felt cold, subzero even. Things felt wrong. Susan’s words did not feel threatening; they felt like a warning. An oddly compassionate warning. Jillian’s fingers itched to squirm beneath the saucer she held.
     
    “If it weren’t for our daughter, I’d gladly hand him over to you,” the woman continued. “But Lyla would hate me if I divorced him. She idolizes him. She was crushed when I told her Calvin had cheated. She almost didn’t believe me.” She paused to sigh at the memory. “Regardless, I’m telling you, you’d end up about as happy as I am.” Susan gestured to the whole of the room with her teacup before raising it to her lips. She lifted her eyes and peered over the teacup to catch Jillian’s response. Met with neither words nor eye contact, she continued. “Oh, you thought you were the only one?” She stifled a snicker. “No, honey, not only are you not the only one Calvin’s cheated on me with these past twenty-seven years, you’re not even the only one right now .”
     
    Jillian’s eyes stung with humiliation. Tears of burning, searing hatred built up and teetered, clinging desperately to her eyelashes. She failed to dam the waters. She cried. Not for the man who cared nothing for her dreams of being together anywhere in the country. For some reason, that fact had yet to register. When it did, she dismissed it. Instead, Jillian was infuriated by the fair-haired woman spouting off things that couldn’t be true.
     
    Calvin’s wife rose from her seat. “More tea?”
     
    Jillian still failed to find her words.
     
    Susan shrugged, disappeared into the kitchen to put her cup and saucer away, and crossed back through the parlor before sulking up the stairs. “You can let yourself out,” she called over her shoulder with a voice so drenched with melancholy, Jillian hoped she slipped on it and broke her neck.
     
    Jillian sat still for an endless period of time. Then she stood, but not to let herself out. At first, she entered the kitchen to put away her teacup and saucer. Instead, she scanned the room. Next to a rotating wooden spice rack stood a knife block. The matte-red handles matched the crimson appliances and accents—and Jillian’s own rage. The knives called to her, fanning the flames of her fury. Absentmindedly, she dumped the bone china items into her purse and grabbed the chef’s knife from the block. Without even realizing where her footsteps fell, she went up the stairs after her lover’s wife. The stairs creaked under her every step in protest, as if they knew how the early afternoon would unfold.
     
    But how could they? Jillian didn’t even know what would happen next. She didn’t know she would lunge at the woman at the end of the hallway. Didn’t know the hardwood floor beneath the carpeted runner would croak, warning Susan of her