Reason To Believe Read Online Free PDF

spared the retreating boy a quick wave. "Thanks, Pritchert. Take it easy, now."
    "Yeah."
    Larry Pritchert backpedaled a few steps, then turned and ran, disappearing around the corner of the house.
    Anna grabbed her father's arm, dragging his attention back to her sad state of affairs. "What's she so 'stressed about? I wuz out wi' sum frens. Don'cha want me to have any frens?"
    "There's friends, and then there's drinkin' buddies," he said, reaching out to steady her. "Which kind was that guy?"
    "He's nuthin'. Jus' a way to get places." The statement, Ben realized, echoed her mother's cavalier attitude toward cars. Nothing important. Just a way to get around.
    Anna giggled. "Ol' Larry Pretty Shit," she repeated, enjoying the fruits of her liquored-up wit. She started slipping toward the ground.
    Ben caught her by the shoulders and hauled her up on tiptoe. But her legs had gone rubbery. She giggled and went limp again. "Cut it out, now, Annie, we're goin' in the house."
    "Can't say Pretty Shit in th' house, ya know. She'll have a damn piss fit over it."
    His little girl slumped against his side. Tucked under his arm, she dragged the toes of her tennis shoes in the grass, the way she had years ago when she didn't want to quit playing and go inside for supper, a bath, homework, or any number of other fun-killing demands parents were wont to make. Silently Ben cursed Iktome for punishing him with the vilest trick imaginable. Of all the lessons his child might have learned from him...
    "Is she mad?"
    "You had her worried."
    Anna tipped her chin to look up at him, and her head fell back like a hinged lid. "How 'bout you? Were you worried?"
    "Yeah." Worried would do for starters.
    "Never thought you'd see th' day," Anna mocked with a child's knack for hitting the nail on the parental head. "Course, I've seen you a whole lot worse off."
    Drunk as she was, her aim was true. But he'd never felt any worse than he did right now, supporting his thirteen-year-old daughter while she tried to find her balance on flat, solid ground. God, how he wished he could do it for her.
    "So how do you like it so far?"
    "Got your attention, din' I? Jus' like you use ta get ours whenever you..." She pressed her face into the open front of his jacket.
    He paused, knowing how rocky the motion made her feel at this point. He brushed his palm over her forehead, as though he thought his baby might have something easily treatable, like a fever.
    She groaned. "I don' guess I feel so good, though. I think I'm gonna—"
    She jerked away from him and vomited behind a rosebush.
    He was glad he was there to keep her from falling in it face-first, even though the stench was an unwelcome reminder of a past that still nipped too closely at his heels.
    "I'm sorry, Daddy," she muttered as he wiped her chin with a wool glove from his pocket.
    "Me, too." He lifted her into his arms. Still his baby, he thought. Still his long, lanky little bit of a thing who needed her daddy to pick her up and put her to bed tonight.
    "I promise I..." Her head lolled against his shoulder. "I won't do it anymore. Don't tell Mom."
    "Don't have to." He glanced up at Clara, who was standing on the doorstep holding the door open for them. "She knows."
    "She always knows... everything."
    Not quite, he thought. Clara worried, but she also hoped for the best. And she was trusting. At least, she had been, once upon a time.
    "We're going to put you to bed," he told his little girl, laying his chin against her forehead as he stepped past his wife. They exchanged a look, sharing the bittersweet heartache. "Me and Mom, the way we used to. We're going to tuck you in."
    "You're going to stay?" Anna's arms tightened around his neck, her innocent hopes tormenting his ear.
    "I'll come back tomorrow."
    "No, don't go." She wedged her head beneath his chin, pressing hard against his Adam's apple. He could hear the dog panting at his heels as he made his way down the hall, sidestepping to keep her shoes from