Dorothy Garlock Read Online Free PDF

was active in the Lions Club, had his horses, his bike, and a few close friends. He had been fairly content with his life . . . until now.
    • • •
    Nelda watched until the black truck passed between the stone pillars, then got into her car and called to Kelly. The dog was reluctant to come, and she had to call several times. Finally, he jumped into the car and she closed the door.
    Automatically she put the car into gear and drove out of the cemetery. She followed the county blacktop to the graveled road leading to the farm and turned in at a rusty tin sign that proclaimed: 4 - H MEMBER LIVES HERE .
    “We’ll have to do something about that sign, Kelly,” she observed tiredly, fondling the dog’s ears. “We’ll have to put up one that says: POOPED INTERIOR DESIGNER AND HOUND DOG LIVE HERE .” The setter nuzzled her arm and made a swipe at her face with a wet tongue.
    Not until she had parked the car behind the farmhouse and turned off the motor did she remember the list she had made that morning. Kelly’s eyes were
fixed on the lilac bushes, and he was whining to get out.
    “Okay, fella. We’ll go into town after lunch.”
    Nelda stood on the back porch steps and watched the dog, his tail wagging, his nose to the ground. He ran around the side of the house, then back, chasing a squirrel until it ran up the oak tree. He continued to bark at it as it scampered high into the branches. At least her dog was happy, Nelda thought with a touch of self-pity.
    She picked up an apple on her way through the kitchen to the front porch. She sank down in the wicker rocking chair and looked out across the lane to the field of tall corn. All her attempts to put Lute from her mind were futile. She kept seeing the ring on his finger.
I never had a wedding ring
. She wondered what type of woman he had chosen for his wife and if he had bought her a plain gold band to match the one he wore?
    Why did it hurt after all these years to picture him with someone else? She had thought of him off and on over the years, not continually, because she had become resigned to the break between them. But not a day had passed that she wasn’t reminded that she had given birth to his daughter. A child playing in the street, an advertisement in a magazine, or a program on television always pulled that memory sharply into focus.
    For a long time the pain of remembering Becky had been powerful enough to double her over, but gradually she was able to recall the pleasures of
motherhood as well. She sometimes wondered if she’d ever experience those joys again.
    After she was told that Lute was eager to be rid of her, she had tried to close her mind to him, to pick up the threads of her life, and, by keeping busy, to hold thoughts of him at bay. She had managed quite well at first. She had the baby to occupy her thoughts, then school, and finally her career. Now the magic, the inexplicable magnetism of him, was drawing at her. Contentment would be impossible now if she stayed here.
    She’d always felt that she would see him again . . . someday. But now, on her second day back, he had come barreling into her life again, blasting all her cool philosophizing.
    And he was married.
    She didn’t understand why she was surprised and why she even cared. Something was terribly wrong with her character if just the thought of him with someone else, making love to another woman as he had made love to her, made her heartbeat escalate, her palms grow moist, and a dull ache settle in the middle of her body.
    Disgusted with herself, she went to the door to throw out the apple core. It opened at her push. It was unlocked! She pulled it closed and locked it with a click. She was sure that she had locked it last night before she went to bed, and she hadn’t come out to the porch this morning.
    Grandma and Grandpa never locked the doors. She doubted they had a key. That was then. Times had changed. Living in Chicago, where break-ins
were a common occurrence, had