Give In To Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

aren’t there, you know?”
    April sighed. But Amber was right. She really had to stop by. She really wouldn’t
     want to miss her baby sister’s big night. “Of course. Tell you what. After I take
     Gram’s groceries and visit with her a while, I’ll come to the gallery. Then I’ll get
     our groceries on the way home.” As an afterthought she added, “It’s probably dressy,
     isn’t it?”
    “Well, not
super
dressy, but . . . kind of a wine-and-cheese affair.”
    April let out a weary breath. “I’ll just leave my suit on.” What was a few more hours
     in high heels?
    “Thank you so much, April. And I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
    “Sure you will,” April said teasingly. She loved Amber with all her heart, but she
     knew getting her sister to keep that promise would be like extracting teeth. And despite
     her previous thought, she added, “You should still make a point of visiting Gram soon.
     Like tomorrow or over the next couple of days.”
    “Well, between the showing and stuff I already had scheduled with friends, I’ve got
     a lot going on right now—but I’ll try.”
    A few minutes later, April hung up with Amber and took the call on her other line.
     She had just enough time to shoot Ellen an e-mail about Kayla’s divorce case before
     her cell rang again, and this time it was her other sister, Allison. The middle sister,
     Allison had just turned twenty-nine and was a mother to two toddlers. “Is there any
     way you could watch Jayden and Tiffany tomorrow night?” she asked only a moment into
     the conversation.
    Just say no.
“To tell you the truth, I’m pretty swamped and really need a night to myself tomorrow.”
    But then Allison explained that Amber had called about her show. And she and her husband
     couldn’t afford a sitter right now, and she knew April was going to the opening tonight,
     but she’d promised that she and Jay could at least go tomorrow night. “Amber really
     wants us there, of course. So . . . maybe I could drop the kids at Gram’s for a couple
     of hours,” she suggested.
    Which made April’s spine go rigid. Allison knew good and well that their grandmother
     was in no shape to be babysitting toddlers—the very idea was ridiculous, and clearly
     designed to bend April to her will. At least when
Amber
needed something, she resorted to honest begging and did her best to express her
     appreciation, whereas with Allison, it was generally more manipulative. And April
     knew she needed to start handling Allison’s passive-aggressive behavior more directly,
     but for now, this moment, she couldn’t come up with an easy answer. So she just said,
     “Fine, I’ll watch them. But only for a couple of hours.”
    After disconnecting with Allison, she dove directly into her next task—some billing
     work that needed to be turned in to the accounting department today—though her mind
     wandered. How had she ended up being the only person in her family whom anyone could
     really depend upon?
Maybe it’s always been a mistake to be so dependable. Let them all down a few times
     and maybe they’ll start taking some responsibility for their own lives.
But April knew better. A person didn’t just wake up one day and become undependable.
     It was in her blood, who she was, and her sisters knew it—and relied on it.
    Their parents had been killed in a car accident when April was twelve. And the three
     girls had found themselves being shipped from Ohio to Florida to live with a paternal
     grandmother they barely knew. Gram had been older than most grandmothers of kids that
     age; she’d had her son later in life. And she’d done her best, taking in three little
     girls and ending up with a family she hadn’t expected or asked for—she’d always been
     good to them. But at the same time, as the oldest, April had taken on a mothering
     role to her sisters. She’d never planned it, never decided on it, never even realized
     it—but she’d become the