Heaven Beside You Read Online Free PDF Page B

the top step again and landed hard on her derriere. Too dazed to even shout, she kicked the door closed and lay back on the floor. He had been hitting on her. He’d enjoyed their dinner, offered to take her out to lunch, kissed her hand, flirted. Things like this didn’t happen to girls like her. Girls like her stayed in their small towns, married reliable men like Finn Runningwater, had kids and watched them fly the nest to go anywhere that wasn’t Potterville, West Virginia.
    But she hadn’t married Finn, she didn’t have any children, and she’d tried to fly the nest once already. It hadn’t worked.
    That didn’t mean she should get involved with a transient rock star, no matter how many boring college lectures she’d spent fantasizing about him, how many paintings she’d done of him for college projects, or that they were alone up here where nobody would ever have to know. He would leave town and she’d be more alone than she’d ever been before. She looked at the back of her hand, surprised she couldn’t see where he’d kissed her. How was she supposed to bring herself to wash that?
    Cass sat up and rubbed her face. Maybe it was madness to resist him. Or was it more crazy to give in? Not that he’d really offered anyway. So far, all she had was speculation and fantasy. Regardless, she had to call her mother, who would probably know everything and the outcome before Cass said hello.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Hi, honey. Did your guest leave?”
    Cass heard her mother turn away from the phone to check the kitchen clock. No matter how old she was, her mother always wanted to know if she’d gotten in by curfew. Comforting, and annoying at the same time. “Yeah.”
    “How did you end up cooking him dinner?”
    “What makes you think it was a him?”
    “Because you said him when I called earlier, honey. How did you end up cooking him dinner?”
    Cass rolled her eyes at the phone. Her mother had always been far too observant. “He didn’t realize he had to bring his own food and didn’t have any dinner. I didn’t think it was a good idea to send him down the holler in the dark.”
    “That was neighborly of you.”
    Cass shivered. It hadn’t felt neighborly, more like foreplay. “I’m gonna be down in town tomorrow. He’s got to get some groceries and I need to check my mail and talk to Sue about the schedule for summer.”
    “You just got your mail yesterday and you could talk to Sue over the phone,” her mother pointed out.
    Far, far too observant. “I could, but he needs to get groceries anyway and I know where everything is.”
    “So we’ll get to meet him.”
    If her mother saw Jason, she’d know everything. Definitely a fate worse than death. In person, her mother could communicate with expressions while carrying on other conversations. A very scary talent, indeed. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if he wants to go around meeting the whole town.”
    “We’re not the whole town, honey. We’re your momma and daddy.”
    Cass closed her eyes. She’d never realized there was a fate worse than death. “I’ll ask him.” In a tone somewhere below a mumble that he would never hear. She’d assume no response meant no.
    “So who is this mystery man? Anyone we would know?”
    “He’s a musician.”
    “Oh?” Her mother waited. She had more patience than most saints ever dreamed of possessing.
    “Jason Callisto,” Cass admitted.
    “Wasn’t he in that band you liked?”
    Liked? She’d had their posters up in her dorm room in college and brought them home, hung them in her room every summer. Bought their albums the first day they’d gone on sale if she didn’t have them on pre-order. She and three friends had driven two hours to see Touchstone, stood in the predawn March cold for another three hours to get twelve people from the door when the show had sold out. That band she’d liked . “Yes, he is.”
    “How nice.”
    Nice? Cass dropped onto the couch. If the next two weeks were