Running From Mercy Read Online Free PDF Page B

you know I have to eventually, Nikki.”
    â€œI don’t want you to go yet.”
    â€œThen I won’t.” Pam reached out and gently smoothed the creases from Nikki’s forehead.
    â€œYet,” Chad snapped. Two pairs of eyes trained on him, one irritated and the other surprised, but he ignored the pull of them in favor of concentrating on the simple task of swallowing the rest of his water without choking. “I’m going to bed,” he said and left them standing in the kitchen.

FOUR
    Was he angry? Hell yes he was angry, and why shouldn’t he be? Time had somehow gotten away from him and in the space of thirty minutes, he lost all the ground he’d gained in eighteen years. In stepped Pam and out went his self-control.
    Since he was being honest with himself, Chad admitted that his anger had been simmering just below the surface all day. Pam had taken her time about coming home, and when she finally did, she chose to hide out like a thief instead of helping him and Nikki with everything that needed to be done. She acted like she was attending the funeral of a distant associate rather than that of her only sister. And then there was Nikki, falling all over Pam and pleading with her to stay, like Pam was visiting royalty. Like she couldn’t see that Pam was itching to be on the next flight, leaving Mercy in the dust again.
    It galled Chad that Pam acted like she was the only one grieving over Paris’s death. Hell, the whole town was in shock. Nikki had been prescribed pills to help her sleep, and he was having to dole them out one by one on a nightly basis for fear she’d do something stupid like overdose. Meanwhile, he was desperately searching for ways to reconcile himself with his own sorrow and guilt.
    For him it wasn’t a question of worrying about who would take care of him and see to his needs. His marriage was never like that, and he was never that kind of husband. Paris’s death didn’t leave him scrambling to learn how to iron or how to boil water. They had lived together for fifteen years and basically taken care of themselves the entire time. Neither of them had been partial to leaning on each other excessively, so they had each simply stood. He thought what he and Paris had shared was a little like having a roommate. A kind and generous roommate, but a roommate nonetheless.
    Nikki was already two years old when Chad finally worked up the nerve to ask Paris to marry him. He was going into his junior year at Georgia State University and she her freshman year the day he glanced up from the campus newspaper he was perusing and saw her taking long strides toward the Student Affairs Center. It never occurred to him to notice the way she walked or the anxious expression on her face. Seeing her had stopped his heart and then started it to pounding in anticipation. As he ran to meet her, he called out to her and then tried to keep his smile in place when she turned and he saw that she wasn’t Pam, but Paris. For a minute, he was sure that Pam had changed her mind and decided against leaving Georgia after all. But she was gone and Paris was there.
    Paris was studying social work and he was studying education, so they found themselves in a few of the same elective courses. They studied for exams together and fell into the habit of hanging out before and after classes, just as they’d done years ago as part of a slightly larger group. Paris was easy to talk to and funny in her own way. Just when you thought her mind was off in space somewhere, she’d interject a witty comment with such bull’s-eye accuracy you knew she had only been pretending to be distracted. He began to look forward to talking with her, and somewhere along the way, the evenings they spent together began to take shape and resemble dates.
    He thought it began when, after six months or so, Paris brought him home with her to her apartment to retrieve a book she’d forgotten. She