For All of Her Life Read Online Free PDF

involved at the moment.”
    “Tara Hughes?”
    “Is that her name?”
    “Yes.”
    She shrugged. “Is she with you? She may be expecting you back for a late-nite supper.”
    “She’s not here. I’m alone.”
    Hmmm, all right. So his little playmate wasn’t even concerned about his taking a trip to see his ex-wife. Not exactly flattering, Kathy decided. “She must miss you,” she told him.
    “My life is my own.” He shrugged. “Kathy, will you have dinner with me? It really doesn’t seem that much to ask.” He hesitated just a second. “You did leave me, remember?” he asked softly.
    “You filed for divorce.”
    “Somehow, I didn’t get the impression that you were just on a vacation.”
    “You didn’t—”
    “Kathy, didn’t we do our fighting long ago?”
    Ouch. Maybe he was right.
    “It was why I left.”
    “Was it?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Sometimes I think you left because you were afraid.”
    “Of what?”
    “I don’t know exactly. You tell me.”
    She started to rise. “Jordan—”
    “Sorry, I’m not trying to wage war again. It’s just that I sometimes wonder if you didn’t just throw everything away because you weren’t willing to fight.”
    “I didn’t want to have to fight. I wanted marriage to be an equal, trusting relationship.”
    “Why didn’t you trust me?” he demanded tensely.
    “Why didn’t you trust me?” she countered.
    “And just what wasn’t equal?” he responded.
    “Didn’t you just say we’d already done our fighting?” Kathy asked. It was absolutely incredible that after so much time had passed, they came up with these questions—with so much passion still, and so much anger. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over.
    Yet it was frightening to see how much emotion remained, how much anger would not go away.
    “Yeah,” Jordan breathed softly. “We’ve done the fighting. It’s all in the past, isn’t it?”
    “Definitely,” she lied.
    “Then surely, by now we can be civil. Kath, can we go to dinner?”
    Dinner. Out with him. He just didn’t understand—even if he was close in a strange way she would never admit. He didn’t realize why she had left. She was okay when she didn’t see him. When he wasn’t a part of her life. But being with him again...
    She could manage, and she was going to do so. Maybe they could never actually be friends—their time together had been far too intense for that, as they had proven to one another in a matter of seconds after nearly ten years—but it might help her to get on with things if she could exorcise the ghosts of their marriage and at least have a decent speaking relationship with him again.
    “All right. Just give me a few minutes. There are sodas and beers in the refrigerator if you want to help yourself to anything.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Sure.”
    She rose and started toward her bedroom.
    “Kathy!”
    She paused and turned back. He was standing, tall, straight, arresting, his green eyes sharp, intelligent, and curiously soft as they lit upon her. “This is a nice home you’ve created here.”
    “Thanks.”
    “And you look great.”
    Was that what he really thought? Or was it polite conversation because she’d agreed to go out for dinner?
    “Really great!” he said.
    It sounded sincere. As if the words had resulted from the intent scrutiny he had given her before.
    “Thanks, again,” she murmured. Keep the tone casual, she reminded herself.
    She started back to her bedroom again, wondering what she was doing. This was a mistake. She had been better off when she’d closed the door on him. She should have told him to go away. Then he would have been only a minor interruption. She would have been tortured by his face in her dreams for a month or so, but then the memories would fade.
    This was just dinner. They’d been apart ten years. She loved what she did for a living. She had good friends. She did date upon occasion. It was just...
    She’d never found what she had once had. Long