Forever After Read Online Free PDF Page B

linoleum. Smoke billowed up from the antiquated white stove, stinging her eyes. After turning off the gas burner, she grabbed a potholder to move the redhot cast iron skillet off the heat.
    At just that moment, the smoke detector went off, its blast so shrill that Meredith nearly parted company with her shoes. Sammy gave a start as well, then pressed a grimy little hand to her mouth, her eyes bright with tears.
    “Enough, you stupid thing! We hear you,” Meredith shouted at the plastic fire alarm affixed to the ceiling between the kitchen and living room. At present tally, it was the one fixture in the house that still worked properly, and given the lack of kitchen ventilation, it did so with nerve-jangling regularity.
    Stepping over to the sink, she struggled to open the double-hung window. Until recently, it had been stuck shut with countless layers of enamel, and it still didn’t slide smoothly. She’d meant to give the runners a few squirts of nonstick cooking spray, but what with everything else that needed attention around here, she’d forgotten.
    “There,” she said, dredging up a stiff smile for Sammy when she finally got the sash raised. As the smoke dissipated, the detector finally stopped blaring, giving way to shrill bleeps instead. “Thank goodness for that much. That darned thing is going to make me go deaf.”
    With a choked hiccough and sniffle, Sammy shifted on Meredith’s hip to look at the charred remains of their evening meal. “Uh-oh,” she said faintly.
    Gazing down at the patties, which now resembled misshapen chunks of coal, Meredith waved a hand in front of their faces. At $2.19 a pound, the meat was no small loss. But, even so, she was glad for the distraction. At least it gave both of them something to think about besides that horrible dog.
    “‘Uh-oh’ is right. There’s nothing to do but put it down the garbage disposal.”
    “We don’t gots one,” Sammy reminded her in a shaky voice.
    Glancing at the rust-stained porcelain sink, Meredith clenched her teeth to keep from adding that a garbage disposal wasn’t the only luxury they no longer had, a kitchen fan at the top of the list, central air-conditioning a close second. The warm day had left the inadequately insulated house miserably stuffy.
    “Well, I guess we’ll have to fix something else for supper. What sounds good?”
    “More hugs,” Sammy murmured, burrowing close.
    Meredith was happy to comply. She had been as horrified to see that dog in their yard as Sammy had been. Even now, she still couldn’t make her heart stop skittering, and when she walked, her legs felt as limp as overcooked spinach.
    She kept seeing her little girl, pressed against the shedlike a sinner on a cross. Meredith didn’t know what she would have done if the dog had attacked her child. She’d had no weapon handy, not even a stick to use as a club.
    “Mommy, your face is all funny.”
    “It’s just the smoke, punkin,” Meredith said, shifting Sammy to the other arm. As she tightened her hold, she felt residual shudders course through the child’s body.
    Meredith began to pace, the toes of her sneakers catching on the occasional ragged edge of the speckled green linoleum, the floorboards creaking and groaning. At every sound, Sammy jerked to look over her shoulder.
    “It’s all right,” Meredith whispered. “It’s all right. Don’t be scared, sweetie.”
    Still trembling, Sammy hugged Meredith’s neck again, her thin arms so tense they felt like brittle twigs. Meredith rubbed the child’s taut shoulders, then worked at the knotted muscles along her spine.
    “Mommy?”
    “What, sweetie?”
    “What if that big, mean dog comes back?”
    Meredith was tempted to make rash promises, anything to ease the child’s mind. “I’ll think of something, sweetkins. You’ll be safe. I’ll see to it.”
    Only how? Just as Sammy had pointed out, the dog might come back. What was she going to do if it did? Maybe she should buy a baseball bat