Remember Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

saw her place card next to Rachel’s.
    It had been
foolish to come to this dinner. The last thing she wanted was to make
conversation with virtual strangers, to listen to them talk about their
families and pull out pictures of their kids. Years ago, their small class had
been close-knit. Now everyone had changed. She had changed.
    Hiding out in her
store for the last few years, losing contact with all but her occasional
customers.
    She sat slowly
beside Rachel and tried to forget about feeling alone in a room full of happy
strangers. She focused on the conversation she’d just escaped. Did Alec want to
buy her store? Her business was too small for any kind of stocks or
shareholding. She didn’t even own her building. But she was in trouble and it
wouldn't be too hard for him to pressure her out somehow.
    Maybe. Could he?
She should've taken the business course instead of letting Mom do it.
    Not that she
thought Alec would force her hand with the store at first. When he found out
about Joey though, well, grief made people do horrible things. Hadn't Mom hated
the sight of her for years, all because SIDS killed her mother’s first baby? Mom
never got over that.
    Abruptly, she
realized Rachel was talking to her.
    "What?"
    "I said
you’ve lost an earring somewhere." Rachel pointed to Katrina’s ear and
flashed a pearly white grin.
    "Again?"
Katrina frowned. "I’ve only had them for a month." She looked around,
relieved that most of the ogling men had dispersed, food being more important
at the moment than a possible date.
    She pulled the
lone earring from her ear and dropped it into the little black purse hanging
from her chair. A month with the same pair of earrings. That had to be a
record.
    Just one more
loss to add to the list.
    Mary Jane Smith
walked to the microphone stationed near the buffet tables. As the former class
president spoke, Katrina leaned close to Rachel and said, "I need to talk
to you."
    The four
classmates at their table, whose faces she didn't remember, appeared enraptured
by Mary Jane’s instructions for the progression of the evening’s dinner. No one
would hear her talk to Rachel.
    "I don’t
think Alec knows yet," she told Rachel quietly. "For some reason no
one has told him, or maybe he hasn’t been in town all that much. Anyhow, he
asked if I'm interested in selling Kat's Korner."
    "What? Why
would he care about your little bookstore?"
    "I don’t
know. Can you look him up, maybe do a little investigating in your free time?"
    Rachel grinned. "You
better believe it. Word is he’s done well for himself. Shouldn’t be too hard to
find out how and what he’s all about."
    "Thanks,
Rachel." Katrina felt her smile wobble. "It makes me nervous, him
being here." Her gaze skittered to where he sat at a nearby table.
    Rachel covered
Katrina’s hand with her own and squeezed gently. "God has not given us a
spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. He’ll help you get
through this."
    "Kat's
Korner means a lot to me."
    "Of course
it does," Rachel soothed, reminding Katrina why she loved her friend so
much.
    Mary Jane's voice
warbled on. Katrina latched onto the sound of it, thrusting her fears down and
away, to examine later. She leaned back in her chair and scanned the crowd. "Have
you seen Sharon?" 
    "Steve told
her she couldn't come tonight." Rachel wrinkled her nose.
    "You’ve got
to be kidding me. Why?"
    "Take a wild
guess. He's a control freak who needs to be stopped."
    Katrina frowned.
Even though nothing seemed out of the ordinary yesterday, that didn't mean
things were okay. "There's nothing we can do." She said it low, so no
one would hear. No need to start the gossip mill.
    "There's
always something." Rachel plucked at her napkin and laid it on her lap as
Mary Jane stepped down from her podium. "We need a plan."
    Waiters bustled
around the room. Conversations rose in volume. Katrina didn't get to ask Rachel
what kind of plan she was thinking of because the fellow students at