Fire and Rain, Season 2, Episode 5 (Rising Storm) Read Online Free PDF Page B

again.”
    Just like that, Anna Mae’s agitation turned to something else. Guilt. She was no better than he when it came to keeping big secrets, and this was apparently the time to come clean, because if she didn’t do it now, she might not work up the nerve again.
    “I have something to tell you, as well,” she said quietly.
    She felt more than saw his entire body stiffen.
    “What is it?” he asked, his tone clearly taken aback.
    She was already blinking rapidly, her eyes stinging with tears. She rarely talked about it. It was too painful to think about, let alone voice aloud.
    But he deserved to know. And she needed to unload some of the burden of it onto the only person who could truly share it with her. They’d be the stronger for it in the end, she knew. If he could forgive her, that is.
    “When you left, all those years ago,” she began, but stopped, not sure how to go on.
    “What? What is it?” he prompted her.
    “When you left, when I told you to go...” No, that felt all wrong. She tried to say it another way. “I didn’t want to trap you here. I knew I could have made you stay.”
    “You could have,” he agreed.
    “But you’d have resented me forever for it,” she added.
    “What are you saying?” he asked slowly, with growing trepidation.
    “I was pregnant when you left,” she said tearfully.
    Chase looked as if all the air had been sucked from the truck. Not that she blamed him. It was quite a bombshell after all. He rolled down the window, loosening his collar. “Oh, Annie.”
    “I…” She sucked in a deep breath. “I lost the baby a few months after you left. A miscarriage. I hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to tell you by then, and after…”
    “You could have called me. You know I’d have—”
    “I do. It’s just that…I was very distraught. It was the most painful thing I’d ever been through. At the time I didn’t see the point of burdening you with it.”
    “But it was my burden, too. Oh, God,” he said, his voice full of anguish. “I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known. I wish more than anything that I could have been there for you.”
    “I know that. I think I always knew that.”
    “I can’t believe you had to go through something like that alone. You shouldn’t have been alone. I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “I feel so guilty.”
    “You shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t. You didn’t know. And I wasn’t alone. I had Rita Mae. And now, after all these years, I have you again.”
    He squeezed her hands. “You do have me. For good this time. I promise.”
    They were both crying, but Anna Mae’s tears weren’t just from sadness. There was relief in them, as well. The solace of shared grief had brought her a measure of peace about their lost child that she’d never had before.
    “No more secrets. No more holding back. The past can’t hurt us anymore,” she vowed.
    “It can’t. Not if we face it head on. Together.”
    “Together,” she agreed.
    It was maybe ten minutes later when the unmistakably ornery voice of Rita Mae startled them apart. “Making out in a pickup truck like teenagers again?” she called out.
    Chase let out a breathless laugh.
     “Honestly, Rita Mae!” Anna Mae called back, a smile in her voice. “That was rude! We were just getting to the good part!”
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Kristin watched Travis get dressed. He’d lingered with her even longer than usual today, but he had to go back to his wife and family at some point. No matter what he professed to her, he always went back.
    She couldn’t help but resent that. She wished she could keep him all to herself, day and night.
    “I’ll come over again tomorrow,” he said, zipping up his pants.
    She felt a wave of bitterness toward him and all of the obligations that made her come last in his life. “I don’t know about that. I can’t do this forever. You say one thing, then do another, and the fact is that every day is the same. You come over, stealing a few minutes or