Love's First Bloom Read Online Free PDF Page A

never meant for you to carry the burden of what I’d done. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry, Clifford.”
    His brother stood up straight. “I’ll never be able to forget what you did, Jake, and I’d be less than honest if I said that I’d ever be able to forgive you, either. So if that’s why you’re here, I’m afraid you’ll just have to be as disappointed in me as I am in you.”
    Stung, Jake nodded stiffly. Shifting his weight from one foot to another, he struggled to choose the right words to say so that his brother would not refuse his request to return to work, in spite of how unforgiving he claimed to be. “You have every right to be angry with me—”
    “How good of you to admit it to my face,” his brother snapped. “Not that you care, but I’ve worked long and hard for the past two years without your help. The Galaxy is second only to the Sun at the moment, thanks to the Livingstone trial, and I’m determined to top their circulation by year’s end. If it’s money you want, I’m willing to return your initial investment, but frankly, I don’t think you deserve any of the profits I’ve managed to accumulate.”
    Jake cleared his throat. “All I want is to come back and work with you.”
    “Work here again? Are you daft?”
    “You just admitted that I still own an interest in the business,” Jake insisted. “I don’t want money or any of the profits you’ve earned over the past two years. I just want a chance to prove myself, to you and to the readers I disappointed.”
    “I’ve worked very hard to regain the people’s trust,” his brother countered. “Readers have a long memory, especially when they’ve been hoodwinked out of their hard-earned money. And just in case they’ve forgotten how you led them down that ill-fated path, there are reporters for the other penny dailies who will be more than happy to remind them, even if I decided to take a risk and let you return to work here.”
    “Then don’t tell anyone I’m back here working again,” Jake argued. “Give me an assignment outside of the city. Anything. I’ll travel anywhere, for any length of time, to investigate the background of any story you choose. Just let me prove to you that I can pursue a story and investigate it until I’ve uncovered the whole truth of the matter and not just the truth I hope or want to see.”
    “And if you fail?” Clifford asked.
    Jake stiffened. “I won’t fail.”
    “But what if you do? What then? Where will you run off to this time?”
    “I won’t fail. No matter how long it takes or how hard I have to work, I won’t let you down again. Please, Clifford. I just want one more chance.”
    Clifford’s gaze hardened. “If you fail this time, you’ll sign over your interest in the newspaper to me, leaving me free to find a more suitable partner. That’s the best I can do.”
    Jake extended his hand. “Agreed.”
    Instead of shaking his brother’s hand, Clifford walked over to the desk Jake once used and sorted through a bunch of newspapers lying on top. “Are you familiar with the Livingstone trial, or have you been living in total oblivion for the past few weeks?”
    “Actually, I’ve been living for the past few months in a very small town in New Hampshire, helping to rebuild a church that was destroyed by fire. They have absolutely no interest in anything beyond county lines and barely support their local newspaper.”
    Clifford snorted. “What about the Jewett case two years ago, right after you left?”
    Jake nodded. Headlines up and down the East Coast had roared with the Jewett case for a good year after the trial ended. “That I remember.”
    Clifford paused for a moment and looked at his brother.
    Jake shrugged. “I was living in Philadelphia at the time, and the papers carried the story there, too. As I recall, despite overwhelming evidence, the young man was obviously guilty of killing Helen Jewett, but he was acquitted—a case of where the victim’s ill-fated