Do You Promise Not to Tell? Read Online Free PDF

didn’t think she could keep going. But she had put all of her energy and the proceeds from a small insurance policy into fixing up the old house and starting her own business, and somehow, to her amazement, she’d gotten through the worst. She’d always love this old place. It had saved her. Barely.
    The house, the business—but more importantly, Peter—had kept Pat going. Now he was a freshman in college; but then he’d been just four years old . . . a little boy facing childhood and the complicatedgrowth to manhood without a father to stand by him. It was so unfair.
    Uneasily, Pat inspected the paint job. The body of the house was a pale apple green, with elaborate gingerbread trim done in an unexpected shade of raspberry. Before selecting the paint, Pat had researched carefully, wanting to be true to the colors used at the time the house was built. She had been surprised to learn that people had been painting their houses whimsical colors at the end of the nineteenth century.
    She sighed. The house needed another painting. And that would be costly. All the scrollwork and tiny patterned shingles had to be colored carefully by hand. What a miserable drag it was, worrying about money all these years.
    Letting herself in through the beveled glass-paneled front door, Pat knew who would be waiting for her on the other side.
    “Emily!” she cried, as she knelt and buried her forehead into the collie’s long, honey-colored fur. “Good girl! Good girl! I can see you are taking good care of everything for me. I know I can count on you. Come on, Em. I’ll let you out.”
    The collie followed her mistress to the tiny kitchen at the rear of the house and eagerly made her way through the door that led to the backyard. Insurance regulations called for the Consignment Depot to be electrically alarmed, but Pat always had trouble with the damned thing. Emily was the safety backup and Pat had the feeling the dog liked doing her part.
    Pat walked back to the living room and surveyed her shop with pride. The plum-colored walls were agood foil for just about anything she hung on them . . . paintings, etchings, mirrors, sconces and, sometimes, just empty frames, if they were interesting enough on their own.
    Mirrors
.
We’re down on mirrors, and they’re always good sellers
. She hoped someone would bring one in today.
    She switched on all the lamps, both upstairs and down, plumped a needlepoint pillow on a tufted settee that sat beside the fireplace, and straightened a vanilla candle that tilted in the silver candelabra on the mantel. Smoothing the corner of a beautifully woven kilim that Emily had accidentally flipped back from the aged oak floor, Pat was satisfied the shop looked in order.
    Back in the kitchen, Pat unwrapped her breakfast and opened up the newspaper. She relished the headline, remembering the excitement at Churchill’s salesroom.
    MOON EGG FETCHES SIX MILLION DOLLARS .
    As she read the article, Pat’s thoughts turned to Farrell Slater. How weird to meet again at an auction gallery after all these years.
    They’d been grammar-school classmates and had been, at one time, inseparable. But Farrell had gone to parochial high school, while Pat had gone to West-wood High. When Farrell went away to college, Pat married Allan just after graduation.
    Too young, too young to get married, everyone had clucked.
    She considered that Peter was, today, older than she had been when she’d married his father. Pat admittedthat they’d been young. But she didn’t regret her decision. Not one single day of their too-short time together.
    Her friend Farrell had gone on to the big leagues. A producer at KEY News! What an exciting life Farrell must be leading.
    And yet, Farrell hadn’t looked very happy at Churchill’s yesterday. She’d been friendly enough when introduced to Tim Kavanagh, and seemed genuinely pleased to see Pat and Peter, exclaiming her amazement that the little baby she had known had grown into such a