Family Skeletons Read Online Free PDF Page A

she said, hearing both defense
and defiance in her voice. The defense part bothered her because there was no
reason for it. “Both of them. If you want to look for a villain in this piece,
look at him. That was a man without a heart or conscience.”
    “His body was never found.”
    She narrowed her eyes. He didn’t seem insensitive,
nor was he challenging her, but neither was he backing down. Then, suddenly,
she felt tension easing out of her, and she even managed what was probably a
weak smile. “I don’t scare you, do I?”
    Though he smiled back, his expression clearly was an
uncomfortable one. “I’m not simply curious, Sunny. When my name showed up in
that will, I became a part of this.”
    “Okay,” she said grudgingly after a short moment. “I
guess I can see that. But I can’t tell you anything more. His body was never
found. Period. The consensus was, and still is, that the ocean got him. He’d
been seen here, or at least in town, then just not seen again. Anywhere. End of
story, beginning of...what? The seven-year mystery?”
    His head turned away. She watched his profile as he
stared at the million-dollar view, and then she followed his gaze. She disliked
looking at the sea through netting. It protected them from bugs but distorted
the view.
    “I’ve got one more question,” he said, and her chin
wanted to drag on the floor.
    “Where’s the nearest beach access? I’ve been here
two days, it’s my first trip to the coast, and I have yet to walk the beach.”
    Feeling as if a weight had lifted from her, she
broke into a laugh. “Well, that’s easily remedied. There is a trail down the
cliff, and I’m just the person to introduce you to the art of wading.”
    “Waiting?” His brow was wrinkling. “For what would
we be waiting?”
    “Wading,” she enunciated carefully. “That’s what you
do when you take your shoes and socks off and get your feet wet.”
    His self-conscious laugh made him look five years
younger than she’d previously guessed he was. She hadn’t noted his birth date
when she’d looked at his driver’s license, but she doubted he’d hit thirty yet,
either.
    Then she added a frown to the look she gave him.
“But you look more like a night on the town than a day at the beach. Do you
have jeans? Shorts? Tennies?”
    “I’ll find something.”
    In her old jeans and gray sweatshirt she was already
dressed for the beach, so she waited on the front porch for him. When he joined
her, his new attire of khaki shorts, deck shoes and a sporty brown polo shirt
was less formal, but just as stylish as his previous garb. Apparently the man
didn’t know how to be sloppy.
    Sunny led the way to the cliff. At the bluff’s edge
she stopped, hugged her arms against the chill, rubbed her hands up and down
the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and let the breeze tug at her hair. She could
watch the surf break and swirl all day and not tire of it. One of the mysteries
of nature was how the ocean’s constant motion carried such a distinct calming
effect. Waves built, rolled, crashed, and spilled lazily. The wind carried
drops of spray that spattered her face. The color of the water ranged from
white to blue to green to sandy brown, depending on where and when the wave
struck and how the sun hit it.
    “There’s more sand here today than yesterday,”
Jonathan said.
    She looked up with a smile. “That’s one way of
putting it. Tide’s out.”
    He grimaced, then gave her a sheepish grin. “I don’t
believe I said that.” His gaze traveled from right to left. “So where is this
path?”
    “There.” She pointed. They’d passed the slightly
marked trail to view the ocean from the bluff’s edge, and they stood on the
south corner of the horseshoe-shaped cove. “But I wouldn’t exactly call it a
path.”
    His eyebrows drew together. “I wouldn’t either. I
still can’t see it.”
    As she walked back to the scant path, she realized
that to him it probably looked more like an indentation