One Summer Read Online Free PDF

any case, she felt a fierce, protective love as she looked down at the few silvery strands of hair that made a poor job of covering his scalp. Aging was never a pleasant prospect, but this disease that took the soul before the body was a hideous thing.
    “I’ll be here as long as you need me, Daddy,” Rachel promised silently, and her hand tightened over his.
    “Hound Dog” changed to “Love Me Tender,” and at the sweet, sad notes Rachel felt tears threaten. Ridiculous. The only thing crying would do was give her a stuffy nose. Blinking the moisture back, she patted her father’s hand one last time, waved at J.D. again, and turned away. She would change clothes before going downstairs. If her mother was making her famous southern-fried pork chops, a time-consuming process, Rachel had plenty of time to get her thoughts in order before they sat down to eat.
    Rachel could faintly hear strains of “Heartbreak Hotel” as she slid into a pair of blue and green plaid shorts and a bright green polo shirt. A pair of white socks and sneakerscompleted her outfit. Running a brush through her hair and then fluffing it out with her hand, Rachel surveyed herself in the mirror. For the first time in a long time, she realized, she was really seeing herself instead of just spot-checking her hair and makeup. Then she realized why. Unable to avoid the specter of Johnny Harris any longer, she was subconsciously trying to view herself through his eyes.
    “I had a major case of the hots for you in high school. I still do.” Unbidden, Johnny’s words popped to the forefront of her mind. Rachel’s hand clenched around the brush she still held. Surely he had not meant it. He was just trying to make her uncomfortable for some reason she couldn’t fathom. Certainly she was not the kind of woman who ordinarily filled men with lust. That was one reason she had been so dazzled by Michael. Handsome, brilliant Michael—in love with her. Even at the time, she’d had trouble believing it.
    A pang of remembered pain made Rachel grimace. It had been so long ago since he had given her up with a kiss on the cheek and a line about how they were not really suited after all, were they? Her heart had broken, but he hadn’t seemed to realize, or care. She hardly ever thought of Michael anymore. Not, at least, in connection with herself. He was no longer hers to think about. He was Becky’s now. Becky’s husband.
    Her thoughts slid away, to a subject that was more immediately troublesome. The notion that she might have inspired a case of the “hots” in a teenage Johnny Harris, who’d been quite a stud, to borrow from her students’ idiom again—well, it was quite simply laughable.
    She simply wasn’t the type.
    She was thirty-four, almost thirty-five years old, though she supposed she didn’t look it. A lifelong aversion to the sun because she always burned instead of tanned had left her unwrinkled except for a few lines around her eyes. Her figure was slender, but that was the only point in itsfavor. Most thirteen-year-old girls had curves she might envy. Her best-kept secret was that she could, and often did, buy her clothes in the preadolescent boys’ department of Grumer’s, the local department store. Her hair was plain medium brown, cut chin length and turned under at the ends to frame a face that was passably pretty, with its delicate even features and oval shape, but rather colorless. Certainly it fell far short of beauty. Her eyes were large and well shaped, with a thick sweep of dark brown lashes, but they were of an ordinary shade of hazel that would mesmerize no man. “Cute” was how she had most often heard herself described. Even Rob, the man she’d been desultorily dating for the better part of the past two years, had called her that.
    Rachel hated to be called cute. It was a word for toddlers and puppies, not grown women. Even if it was accurate, she considered the description mildly insulting. But of course Rob had no