Heaven Should Fall Read Online Free PDF Page B

the way you might hold up a stick against a rabid dog. It was the same thing every year: I’d play the tough girl through October, the month in which my mom had died, and just when I was congratulating myself at having muscled through another anniversary, the holidays would be upon us. Last year, when Cade and I were still newly an item, I had packed my car and driven out to Southridge once he left to visit his family. It hadn’t been difficult to cover my disappointment at not being invited up to New Hampshire, because our relationship was still so new that it seemed excusable. This year, though, his silence on the subject was causing my case of the holiday blues to arrive at double speed. When I had told Dave I’d be going home with Cade for sure this year, I had thought there was no chance he wouldn’t ask me. But as December meandered on, I grew less and less sure.
    I chalked it up to distraction, at least at first. Ever since Mark Bylina had won the election, Cade had grown obsessed with whether he would be offered a job on his staff. For months he had attended to the menial tasks of electioneering with slavish diligence, all in the hope that his good work would be rewarded with a permanent job once the election was over. Now his excitement was tempered by his suspicion that Drew Fielder, his least favorite fellow volunteer, was being groomed for the assistantship Cade had hoped for.
    “I’ve put in twice as many hours as that asshole,” he said, late on a Sunday afternoon as we lay in bed. “That guy knows how to show up and look like he’s been working, then vanish as soon as the paid staff’s out of sight. And then I leave early one day this week so I can come see you, and the manager’s calling, ‘Leaving early, Cade?’”
    “That sucks. I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not on you. My sister’s already pissed that I didn’t come home for Thanksgiving, as if I could leave when Bylina had community service stuff going on all that week. I told her I’ll be back for Christmas, but she doesn’t get it. None of them do. The whole idea of climbing the ladder is just beyond them.”
    I draped my arms loosely across my eyes and took a cleansing breath before I replied. It was time to address this. “At least you’ve got a place to go,” I pointed out.
    He frowned at the ceiling. “No, all I’ve got is guilt and pressure to go someplace I don’t want to. If you were in my shoes, you’d hate it, too.”
    “Not living on a farm. That part would be amazing.”
    He snorted a laugh. “Amazing. Yeah. Picture this, okay? It’s minus five degrees outside. You’re sleeping in a hundred-year-old house with drafts out the yin-yang. The roof leaks, and two smokers spent all day putting the smoke from four packs of Marlboros into the air. You’re getting up at four-thirty to milk cows in the bitchin’ cold because hey, you’re home, they expect you to pitch in like you always did before.”
    “I don’t mind milking cows. Or the cold.”
    “You’d hate it. Hate it like death.”
    “I wouldn’t. It’s no different from what I’ve done every summer since I was thirteen.”
    “You don’t know cold until you’ve lived in New England. And spending the holidays with my family would be hell. Believe me, Jill. Especially my brother-in-law. He’s King Jackass of the Universe.” He got out of bed, still wearing nothing but his watch and his boxers, and took a Mountain Dew out of the minifridge.
    “I’ve got to meet them sometime,” I said. “And it’s depressing to be alone over Christmas. It really is, Cade.”
    “You can go visit Dave, right? That’s what you did last year.”
    “I could, but I was hoping to spend it with you. It seems kind of lame to go hang out with my old camp counselor while my fiancé is off with his family.” I sat up and pulled my T-shirt over my head. “It’s not normal.”
    Cade laughed again. “Neither is my family.”
    “Nobody’s is. Everybody thinks that.”
    Still