Erica Spindler Read Online Free PDF

correctly.”
    Matt lifted a hand as if to touch her, then dropped it. “You always wanted something else, something more than Cypress Springs could offer. Something more than I could offer. I never understood it. But I had to accept it.”
    She shifted her gaze slightly, uncomfortable with the truth. That he could speak it so plainly. She changed the direction of their conversation. “Your dad and Cherry said you’re the front-runner in next year’s election for parish sheriff. I’m not surprised. You always said you were destined for great things.”
    â€œBut our definitions of great things always differed, didn’t they, Avery?”
    â€œThat’s not fair, Matt.”
    â€œFair or not, it’s true.” He paused. “You broke my heart.”
    She held his gaze. “You broke mine, too.”
    â€œThen we’re even, aren’t we? A broken heart apiece.”
    She winced at the bitter edge in his voice. “Matt, it…wasn’t you. It was me. I never felt—”
    She had been about to say how she had never felt she belonged in Cypress Springs. That once she’d become a teenager, she had always felt slightly out of step, different in subtle but monumental ways from the other girls she knew.
    Those feelings seemed silly now. The thoughts of a self-absorbed young girl.
    â€œWhat about now, Avery?” he asked. “What do you want now? What do you need?”
    Discomfited by the intensity of his gaze, she looked away. “I don’t know. I don’t want to return to where I was, I’m certain of that. And I don’t mean the geographical location.”
    â€œSounds like you have some thinking to do.”
    A giant understatement . She turned to the Blazer, unlocked the door, then faced him once more. “I should go. I’m asleep on my feet and tomorrow’s going to be difficult.”
    â€œYou could stay here, you know. Mom and Dad have plenty of room. They’d love to have you.”
    A part of her longed to jump at the offer. The idea of sleeping in her parents’ house now, after her father…she didn’t think she would sleep a wink.
    But taking the easy way would be taking the coward’s way. She had to face her father’s suicide. She’d begin tonight, by sleeping in her childhood home.
    He reached around her and opened her car door. “Still fiercely independent, I see. Still stubborn as a mule.”
    She slid behind the wheel, started the vehicle, then looked back up at him “Some would consider those qualities an asset.”
    â€œSure they would. In mules.” He bent his face to hers. “If you need anything, call me.”
    â€œI will. Thanks.” He slammed the door. She backed the Blazer down the steep driveway, then headed out of the subdivision, pointing the vehicle toward the old downtown neighborhood where she had grown up.
    Avery shook her head, remembering how she had begged her parents to follow the Stevenses to Spring Water, the then new subdivision where Matt and his family had bought a house. She had been enamored with the sprawling ranch homes and neighborhood club facilities: pool, tennis court and clubhouse for parties.
    What had then looked so new and cool to her, she saw now as cheaply built, cookie-cutter homes on small plots of ground that had been cleared to make room for as many houses per acre as possible.
    Luckily, her parents had refused to move from their location within walking distance of the square, downtown and her father’s office. Solidly built in the 1920s, their house boasted high ceilings, cypress millwork and the kind of charm available only at a premium today. The neighborhood, too, was vintage—a wide, tree-lined boulevard lit by gas lamps, each home set back on large, shady lots. Unlike many cities whose downtown neighborhoods had fallen victim to the urban decay caused by crime and white flight, Cypress Springs’