Goodness and Light Read Online Free PDF

somebody who sucked the happiness out of everyone around her.
    You ruin everything, Laney!
    If she had a dollar for every time Kara or her brothers had said that, she’d be living on a private island.
    When Lucas returned to their booth and sat down, she hid her face in her cup, refusing to look at him.
    “So where’s home?” Al finally asked when the silence grew long.
    “These days, it’s Florida. We moved soon after—” Abruptly, she clamped her lips together. She would not speak of that day. She simply would not.
    But they knew.
    “I lost my brother that day,” Debbie revealed. “Al lost his dad. Who’d you lose?”
    “Guys. Enough.” Luke’s voice was a whip.
    “No, no. It’s okay.” Elena took a deep breath. It was kind of nice talking to people who didn’t just feel sorry for her, but were dealing with the same pain themselves. “I lost my mom.”
    “Oh. You and Luke have something in common. He lost his mom, too.”
    That cracked the shields around Elena’s heart. Elena slid Luke a glance over the rim of her hot chocolate. He was potent, like the coffee he drank. There was simply no diluting him. Dark hair that begged for a woman’s fingers to rake, those eyes with the crinkles at the corners. And the—
    No! Damn it, not the smile. But it was a flash of teeth and then it was gone. He sipped from his cup and abruptly, the grief descended on Elena again.
    “How do you all stand being here?” she whispered.
    Al smiled for a second and then turned to stare out the window. “I can’t leave. My dad’s spirit is out here, somewhere. I can’t leave that—him.”
    Elena frowned. “Spirit? You believe that stuff?”
    Al gave her half a shrug. “Sure. Not like a ghost or anything. Just little things. Signs, you know? I like to surround myself with them.”
    Signs. That sounded a lot like faith that Elena no longer had. “Well, that’s all that matters,” she offered in her best non-committal, not judgmental tone.
    He nodded. “Kara told me your mom worked for Burke & Kirkpatrick. Yours did, too, right, Luke?”
    “Almir. Leave it alone,” Luke warned.
    Elena’s blood chilled. She hadn’t known that. How could she? They’d just met. “Your mom worked for Burke & Kirkpatrick?” Had they been friends? Had her mother told his mother all about her and her wild mood changes and all the crap she’d dished out on a daily basis? Had her mother told his mother what Elena’s last words to her had been? She rubbed her chest, where the guilt still burned.
    Luke nodded again. “Yeah. They were risk managers in the same department. I work at Burke & Kirk now, too. In IT.”
    He sipped more coffee, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to discuss their mothers in the past tense. She put her back against the seat rest, stared out the window, and let her cocoa go cold. Her hand kept creeping back to her chest, rubbing the ache.
    “So, what kind of work do you do that you get to work remotely?”
    “I’m a technical writer. I write instruction guides and help systems.”
    “Oh, you’re in IT, too?” Al’s grin got wide and just a little bit wicked. “Luke’s head of development at Burke & Kirk. Lucas, you have to try out some of those software developer pick-up lines on someone who gets them.”
    “No.”
    Elena’s lips twitched and she groaned just for form. Inside, she was grateful for the change of subject. “Okay. Gimme one. Let’s see what you got.”
    “No.”
    “Come on, Luke! Don’t be such a dick.” Al elbowed him.
    “No. And don’t call me a dick.”
    “Please? I want to hear these, too.” Debbie patted the table between them.
    “Okay, okay. You asked for it.” Luke rubbed his hands together and gave Elena a smoldering look, dropped his voice down an octave. “I hope you’re broadband, baby, because I really want high-speed access.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
    Elena rolled her eyes. “That’s terrible.”
    “Yeah, man, that was awful,” Al