Marrying Her: The Keeping Her Christmas Wedding (The Keeping Her Series Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

worse
tomorrow.  He’ll have all night to twist that shit up in his head to suit. 
Your mom, too.”
    Clytie closed her eyes,
pushed her face against his chest, and breathed him in, not speaking for a long
while.  “Sara and her family will be here tomorrow, and they are expecting my
Uncle Vern and his new wife to come back then as well.”  She sighed, “Maybe he’ll
be so distracted by all the company that he’ll forget to make us miserable.”
    “Could be,” Demon said
mildly enough, but she could hear he was just humoring her.  Yeah, she didn’t
believe it either.
    ***
    The next morning they
were getting breakfast at a small cafe on the way to the hospital when Clytie’s
phone rang.  She handed Cassie the knife to finish cutting Roxanne’s pancakes and
dug for her phone.  She looked at the smartphone screen and put it to her ear.
    “Sara?”  Clytie said by
way of greeting.  “Are you already here?”
    “I’m at the hospital,”
the voice was unusually timid for her sister.
    “Did something happen? 
We stopped to get breakfast but we can come now if you need us.”
    Clytie heard the
hesitation and started to feel a sick knot forming in her belly, until Sara’s
next words defused it.  “Nothing has happened.  Mom asked me to call you before
you got here.”  She stopped speaking and Clytie waited, wondering what her
sister was trying not to say.
    “You need us to stop and
pick something up for you?  If you are already there you must have driven
straight through.”
    “We did.  I had David
drop me off before he took the kids to the Motel 6 for some sleep before they
visit.”  Again with the hesitation.  “Mom called me last night after you left.”
    Clytie grimaced, finally understanding. 
“Yeah, that probably could have gone better.”  Before Sara could speak Clytie
went on with what they had been discussing at breakfast.  “Don’t worry.  It’s
just going to be me today.  Demon will be at the hospital if I need him but not
in the room.  Cassandra, Mac, and Ben will stay close in case we need anything,
but give Dad his family time.  I get that it should be about him right now, and
we are going to see he gets what makes him comfortable.”
    “Clytie,” Sara interrupted
quickly before she could go on with her assurances, “Mom and Dad feel like
company is too much right now.”
    “I get it,” Clytie said,
her brow furrowing at the careful way her sister was talking.  “It’ll just be
me today.  I was figuring on talking to them and seeing how they felt about
meeting Roxanne, but I know it’s about Dad right now.”
    “He doesn’t want you to
come back, Clytie.”
    Clytie opened her mouth
but nothing came out.  That feeling in her stomach was back, worse than before.
    “I’m sorry.”  From her
voice, she knew her sister was sorry but she went on anyway.  “I have to call
and tell Uncle Vern the same thing.  They don’t want any visitors besides . . .”
Sara trailed off and Clytie understood what her sister didn’t want to say.
    “Their daughter.”  Clytie
laughed harshly and everyone around her went quiet. “You can say it.  They don’t
want any visitors but their daughter and I assume her husband and their
grandchildren.”
    Sara started to explain .
. . something, but Clytie cut her off.  “It’s okay, Sara.  I get it, believe me
I do.”  She pushed out a breath and wished the tension in her belly would
follow, but it didn’t.  “Can you tell me if the doctors know anything yet?  When
I was there they were still running the tests.”
    “We don’t know yet.  The
doctor hasn’t made his rounds, but I’ll let you know what I hear when he does,
but from what I understand this is not going to be a fast process.  I do know
there is a meeting scheduled about in-home care possibilities.”  She could hear
the discomfort in her sister’s voice, but there was no way to diffuse it.
    Clytie sighed, “I’m sorry
this is going to all fall