Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts Read Online Free PDF

uncomfortable quiet, David blurted, “You look good. I like the new haircut.” Where she’d once had long, dark hair, she now had a sleek, blonde pixie bob. “And the new color is pretty too.”
    Carrie whipped around and put a laser focus on him. “You look the same. Except paler.” She arched a brow pointedly at him. “I guess prison wasn’t so tough after all.”
    David gritted his teeth. He tried to swallow down a retort, but heat bubbled up in his gut, and he couldn’t push it back down. “Once I was functional again, I was fortunate the court listened to my doctor’s recommendation of a minimum-security facility, but neither place was easy or fun. You’re still locked up. In your head you always know you can never leave.” Things David had been forced to do still gave him nightmares. “Prison is not a vacation or a cakewalk, even minimum-security ones.”
    Carrie snorted and laughed. “If you’re looking for sympathy or to be friends again, it isn’t going to happen. You lied to me repeatedly, and you humiliated me in the biggest way a husband can do to a wife, in the worst way one friend can do to another, which was what I thought we were, if nothing else. I don’t see myself ever forgetting the past or forgiving you.”
    The quick flame inside David died, snuffing life. He withdrew his hands from his drink and curled them in his lap under the table. “I know.” Humiliation burned his face and neck, but somehow he didn’t break eye contact. “And I don’t expect you to. I just wanted to apologize for putting you through what I did, and for pretending to be someone I wasn’t. You returned the letters I sent to you from prison, so I wanted to meet with you at least once to tell you how sorry I am for everything, all the way from agreeing to the first date to the sideshow I must have put you through in the aftermath of everything that was exposed about me after I got arrested.” David’s throat constricted, and his voice turned scratchy. “You didn’t deserve any of that, and I will spend the rest of my life sorry for how much I hurt you.”
    Carrie bit off, “Well, good for you. As long as you feel guilty, then everything is better. Except, oh”—she snatched up her purse and shot to her feet—“it’s not. I thought I could be a bigger person, but I admit I borderline hate you. I’m still suffering the consequences of what you did to me, and I don’t forgive you. You never should have come back here.” Streaks of jet black darkened her brown eyes, and venom dripped from each word aimed at David. “All you’re doing by showing up in Coleman is bringing up memories for everyone of exactly what you did. You should have gone somewhere nobody knows you. As long as you’re here, you’ll always be seen as a weak and pathetic liar.”
    Carrie swung to walk away but then turned back, slapped her hand on the table, and got right in David’s face. “The truth is, most folks here wouldn’t have cared all that much that you’re gay. They’re too busy with their own lives to do more than harmlessly gossip about yours. Christian and his man go around town with nobody looking at them twice.” At the mention of Christian, David flinched, and Carrie narrowed her stare and flashed a quick smile. “Yeah, that’s right. Christian. If you’d had some balls, it could have been you holding his hand while eating a meal in this very restaurant instead of that gorgeous giant he’s with now. But the way you lied to the women you dated for years, going so far as to trick and marry one, all while stalking a man who didn’t want you anymore… That’s what people remember about you now. That’s what they won’t ever forgive. Don’t call me again. If you do, I’ll have you arrested for harassment.” Then, without so much as a good-bye, Carrie strode out of the eatery and never once looked back.
    David sat in place, stiff as a statue, too mortified to move. The manager and a young female server