Dirty Secrets Read Online Free PDF

of the robber’s bullet instead. Emma’s voice softened, trembled. “The mother was . . . very grateful.”
    “She testified,” Kate said quietly. “The mother, that is. She was a very convincing eyewitness. She had the jury in tears when she told how Will saved her little boy.”
    Emma blinked at Kate. “You went to the trial?”
    “Every damn day. I figured it was the least I could do for you.”
    Emma’s eyes stung. “Oh, Kate.”
    “I cheered when they sentenced the bastard to life without parole,” Kate said forcefully. “He’ll never touch anyone else.”
    “Which is justice, but small consolation.” Emma pulled Will’s books from the box, needing to change the subject before she started crying again. “I wonder how much the used bookstore would pay for these?”
    Kate’s eyes narrowed, but she went along with the subject change. “Not much. You might do better to donate them to the library or to the Salvation Army along with his clothes.” She scooted to another pile of boxes. “What’s all this?”
    Emma cocked her head. “No idea. Open it and see.”
    Kate ripped the tape off the box flaps and laughed out loud. “Lookee here. It’s your old high school yearbooks. This one’s from 1989.”
    Emma groaned. “My junior year.”
    “What was your maiden name?”
    “Kate, please . . . Oh, hell. You’ll pester me until I tell you. It was Wilson.”
    Kate flipped pages and let out another laugh. “Look at you. Your glasses were bigger than your whole face. Here, look.”
    “I don’t want to.” Emma shuddered. “I remember keenly. I was a nerd.”
    “You were not. You were cute. What’s this?” Kate waved a folded sheet of paper.
    Emma glanced up from yet another box of Will’s books. “I have no idea. Read it.”
    “Oh my,” Kate murmured. “Oh my, oh my. Emma, you never told me.”
    “Told you what?”
    “That you’d had a torrid romance in high school.”
    Emma’s eyes widened. “Because I didn’t. Will was the first man I ever dated and I didn’t meet him till college. What is that?”
    “It fell out of the yearbook.” Kate waggled her brows. “It starts with `Emma, my love’ and ends with “All my love, Christopher.’”
    Emma carefully put down the book she’d pulled from the box. “Excuse me? Did you say
Christopher
?”
    “I certainly did. ‘Emma, mi querida.’” Kate looked up, her eyes twinkling. “That means ‘my love.’”
    “I took six years of Spanish in junior high and high school, so I know what ‘mi querida’ means,” Emma said impatiently. “What else does it say?”
    “‘I’ve sat next to you for two years and only now have the courage to tell you what’s in my heart. We danced last night and for the first time my dreams became real.’”
    Emma closed her eyes, remembering both Christopher Walker and that one dance. “It was our junior prom and we’d gone together. As friends.”
    Kate hummed. “Uh-huh.”
    “It’s true. That’s what I thought at first anyway. But that night he asked me to dance and . . . I wondered.” Emma bit her lower lip. “He was my best guy-friend. We were lab partners in chemistry and we took Spanish together, too. Our seats were always assigned next to each other, since both our names started with W. He broke up with his girlfriend the week before the prom and I’d never had a boyfriend, so we decided to go together.”
    Kate tapped his yearbook photo. “He’s cute with all that curly brown hair. Nice eyes, too. Kind of skinny, though.”
    “He was six feet tall and all arms and legs,” Emma said fondly, then paused and frowned. “Well, is there more, or does he stop there?”
    Kate blinked. “You mean you’ve really never seen this letter? Holy Moses. Okay. Here’s the rest. `When I held you in my arms I let myself hope that you might feel the same way. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but if you let yourself, you might find we have more in common than you realize.’”