Love Remains Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyes, trying to stop the memories from flooding in.
    She waited until they were both in Patrick’s car before closing and locking her front door. The questions, the memories, the pain brought on by Bobby’s sudden appearance tonight crashed down on her. The tremors, which they had attributed to her fever, increased tenfold as she allowed herself to experience a rush of emotions now that no one else was around to see it.
    Her tired, aching, chill-wracked body wanted to melt into apuddle right here on the living room floor. But she could not let that happen—she would not let Bobby’s presence make her lose everything she’d gained during the last fourteen years. She had worked far too long and far too hard to become a happy, independent, self-reliant person.

Chapter 3

    I n the kitchen, Zarah filled the kettle with water, put it on the stove, and turned the burner on high. Then she went back into the living room, found her purse on the floor where it had fallen off the sofa, and pulled out her cell phone. She glanced at the antique clock atop her entertainment center. Good. Barely eight thirty. She pressed the button to make the number pad show up on the touch screen, then pressed and held the two. C ALLING K IKI scrolled across the screen.
    One ring, followed by, “Zarah, dear? Is everything all right?”
    As if she didn’t know. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Tell you what?” Her grandmother sounded genuinely surprised.
    “Bobby Patterson. Why didn’t you tell me, first of all, that he was back in Nashville and, second of all, that he would be at the singles’ cookout tonight?” The kettle started whistling, and Zarah trudged into the kitchen to pull it off the burner. She grabbed a tea bag out of the jar of herbals, tossed it in a mug, and poured the steaming water over it.
    “He’s at the party?”
    “He will be as soon as he and Patrick get back there. I…started feeling bad, and Patrick insisted they drive me home.” Zarah carried theblue ceramic mug into her bedroom, pulled a pair of flannel pajamas off the dresser, put her phone on speaker, and started changing.
    “Are you okay? Do I need to come over and take you to the emergency room again?” From the tone of her voice, Kiki sounded like she was halfway to the car already.
    Zarah’s head spun when she bent over to pick up her discarded capris from the floor. She staggered over to the cedar chest at the foot of her bed and sat to pull on her pajama bottoms. “No, I don’t need to go to the emergency room. They told me I might continue to run a low-grade fever over the next several days. And you’re avoiding my question.”
    “I knew he was coming back to town, but I was not certain when. Lindy told me a few weeks ago that he accepted a job at the TCIU and would be moving back. I guess she didn’t think to mention he’d arrived when I saw her yesterday morning.”
    “That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me he was moving back to town.” She donned a Vanderbilt University sweatshirt over her pajamas and pulled on a pair of thick wool socks she usually wore only in the winter and then only if it snowed.
    “I thought, maybe if you just ran into him…”
    “What? That it would be easier on me if I just ran into him out of the blue?” She turned the overhead light off and climbed into the bed. “Because believe me, it wasn’t easy all.”
    “But if I had told you, if you had been forewarned that there was even the slightest chance he might show up at a singles’ event or church, you would have gone back to being a hermit, just like that first year you lived here.”
    Zarah stopped fussing with pillows behind her and sank back into them. She picked the phone up off the nightstand, switched it back to normal mode, and pressed it to her ear. She wanted to deny what Kiki said, but a little voice in the back of her mind told her it was true. If Kiki had told her Bobby was coming to Nashville—moving here to live—Zarah