Forbidden Son

Forbidden Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Forbidden Son Read Online Free PDF
Author: Loretta C. Rogers
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Historical
track before the arms came completely down. The thrum in her heart
matched the pulsating veins in her temples. What if she didn’t beat the train?
She wiped a sweat-drenched palm down her jeans and then switched hands to dry
the other one, too. She gripped the steering wheel.
    The
train whistle blasted, the engine’s light flashed like a one-eyed Cyclops.
    Honey
Belle pushed for more speed—seventy miles per hour. It was a neck-and-neck
race, with the train gaining. Seventy-five miles per hour...eighty. “Hold
tight, Mama.”
    Honey
Belle held the steering wheel in a death grip as the truck’s tires hit the
tracks with a vengeance. She didn’t have time to see the terror in her mother’s
eyes as the truck went airborne.
    Sparks
flew from the truck’s front bumper when it landed with a bounce that nearly
jarred Honey Belle from the seat. She managed to glance over her shoulder to
see freight cars whizzing down the track. She’d beat the train with only
seconds to spare.
    Her
father moaned again. She listened to him struggling to breathe. “We’re almost
there, Daddy...you okay, Mama?”
    “Besides
being scared out of ten years of my life and hitting my head on the ceiling,
I’m no worse for wear.”
    Five
miles down the road, Honey Belle guided the truck to a halt under the emergency
room’s portico. Her legs trembled as she jumped to the ground. She commanded
her mother, “Stay here. I’ll go get someone to help.”
    As
soon as the ER had admitted her father, Honey Belle’s mother said, “You go on
to work. Tell the boss man about your daddy.”
    Her
mother’s sallow complexion and dark circles under her eyes worried Honey Belle.
She chalked it up to stress and exhaustion. “You gonna stay with Daddy, Mama?”
    “For
a while. Whatever this costs, heaped on top of what we already owe, sometimes I
don’t think we’ll ever have two nickels to rub together. I’ll call your cousin
Bubba to bring me to work.”
    “I’ll
get you some coffee and sweet roll, Mama. Try to rest a little while you’re
waiting. Okay?”
    Honey
Belle felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to reach out and hug her mother—to
give herself some comfort, too. She didn’t, fearing her mother would rebuff the
affectionate gesture.
    She
hadn’t noticed how cold the waiting room was until her mother shivered. Honey
Belle walked to the nurse’s station and asked for a blanket.
    “It’s
for my mama. We’re not used to air conditioning.” She didn’t know why she’d
felt it necessary to offer an excuse. Returning to where her mother sat huddled
in a chair, Honey Belle draped the blanket over the frail body. “I’ll come back
and sit with daddy as soon as my shift is over.”
    “No,
you won’t. You’ll go home and get some proper rest. Can’t afford for neither
one of us to get sick.”
    Honey
Belle turned with a reluctant shrug. She walked through the hospital’s
automatic doors and into the darkness.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter
Six
     
    “Honey
Belle.” Her mother’s voice was low and harsh.
    Honey
Belle swiped at the mosquito buzzing around her ear as she opened the screened
door and stepped into the kitchen. She swore the temperature was hotter inside
the house than the out in the mid-July night, and by the tone of her mother’s
voice, the climate was about to get hotter.
    Still
languishing in the memory of Tripp’s sensual caresses, she ran her tongue over
her lips, recalling the taste of his moist kisses. The sound of her mother’s
voice came again, this time like cold water being dumped on sizzling coals. She
sighed, wondering what she’d done this time to warrant her mother’s wrath.
    “What
is it, Mama?”
    “Brought
your daddy home from the hospital today. Where you been?”
    “You
said for me not to worry because Bubba had volunteered to drive you home and
help get Daddy settled in bed.”
    “That
ain’t what I asked you, girl. I asked...where you been?”
    “It’s
Sunday, and my only day off. I went
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