Runaway Groom Read Online Free PDF

has.
    Anyway, I’m eating a turkey dinner in a restaurant this year. Hope you enjoy having friends and family around you. Guess that is one thing I miss. Both a burden and a gift, really.
    Anyway, love ya Abs,
    B
     
    “You were with that boy, weren’t you?”  
    Her mother knew she was out late the night before. She knew where she went— gotta love small town gossips —and recognized the truck in the drive early this morning. She also knew that Abigail had gone out for lunch. Since Abigail worked from home, all of this was suspect.
    Ignoring the comment and the acidic tone that went with it, Abigail opened the applesauce cup and sat it on the tray. It had to be on the upper right-hand side of the tray at a precise angle to the spoon. If it wasn’t, Katherine, her mother, would wing it across the room. Then she would burst into tears. Abigail adjusted the cup’s position—she wasn’t up for another bad night.
    “You should know better than to be out whoring around with him. He left you. How much rejection do you need before you understand that he doesn’t want you?” Abigail continued to ignore her mother and poured coffee into a plastic cup.
    Turning with the prepared tray, she approached the bed. The acrid scent of antiseptic bit the air, stinging Abigail’s nose on every inhale. Her mother, the wraith-like shadow of a woman that terrorized Abigail’s childhood, frowned at her. Her thin, mostly gray hair pulled back from her face emphasized the icy pallor of her skin. Katherine wasn’t an old woman…but mental illness and lifestyle choices debilitated her body. She rarely left the house and often stayed in bed all day.
    “I made you grilled chicken, Mother. And the bath lady will be over later. Darcy said she came over and played cards with you too. Did you enjoy that?” She kept her tone carefully soothing. Even the slightest change in routine could set Katherine off for a week. It was a game of balance, keeping Mother happy and being her caretaker.
    “Darcy is nothing more than a gossip. Even she heard how you are off flaunting yourself around the town with that boy. He wasn’t good enough for you when you were children. He certainly isn’t good enough for you now that you’re all grown and successful.”
    “Yes, Mother.” Disagreeing with Katherine was a practice in futility.
    Living in the house next door to her mother wasn’t much independence, but Abigail clutched at the shards she could grasp while still upholding her responsibilities to her family. Her sister Gracie lived in the other side of the same condo as their mom and couldn’t be bothered to even check in on her. Other than collecting the mail—not that she paid any of the many bills that came in—Gracie didn’t do much of anything. She never had, taking her inheritance from Grandma and living free in the condo.
    Not going into the whole messy rigmarole with Braxton on the hill was wise. How could she tell him that Mother succumbed to sickness of the mind over the years, hell-bent on her own destruction and tying Abigail to this town more thoroughly than a wedding ring ever could have? That Gracie spent her time partying like she was twenty and not taking responsibility for any of her actions—rather blaming everyone else for any trouble she got into—and leaving all the mess on her sister’s overloaded shoulders. He probably heard most of the rumors anyway. None of it was his fault and laying that guilt at his feet felt cheap and not something she wanted to do.
    She didn’t lie to him. Grandma Miller got sick the day of the wedding, the start of a long, drawn out, downward spiral. Katherine, still devastated by recently divorcing Abby’s father, couldn’t care for her, leaving the weight of it on Abigail. Both women leaned on her, almost happy she hadn’t run off in blissful marriage to her first love.
    She did what was right—shouldered all of it—learning how to balance checkbooks, schedule doctor’s appointments and