SECRET IDENTITY Read Online Free PDF

You?”
    “Nope. No boyfriend,” he admitted with a straight face.
    She burst out laughing and gave him a hard shove in the
shoulder. “I meant, do you have a girlfriend?”
    “No. No time.”
    Sighing loudly, Brenda nodded. “I can relate.”
    They continued to imbibe their drinks as the occasional car
glided by, passing through a neighborhood filled with middle-class houses circa
1950s and ’60s. The shade from the gum tree next to the house made the porch a
good ten degrees cooler than the temperature was out in the sun. Brenda
breathed deeply of the fresh air.
    “I didn’t know how much I missed this place until now. Hey,
you never told me what you’re up to these days. What have you been doing since
college?”
    Lorne lifted his knees before propping his arms on them, and
dangled his drink can between his legs. “Me? Not a whole lot. I stock goods and
bag groceries over at the Supermart, and sometimes I help over at Luigi’s
whenever they’re short-handed. Luke is a video game developer for a company out
of Nashville. Lee is still employed at the factory.”
    “That’s good to know, but isn’t it crazy how things worked
out? Think about it,” Brenda said. “None of us ended up where we thought we
wanted to be. I got a degree in music, then became the director of acquisitions
at Dobbling Enterprises. You got a degree in criminal justice, but you work
part-time at a grocery store and pizza parlor. Luke has a degree in physics,
and he writes software. And Lee got his degree in telecommunications, but makes
cardboard boxes.” She giggled. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
    “Mmmm, youthful wishful thinking?”
    Mr. Tumlinson from across the street came out of his house,
checked his mail from the box mounted on side of the house next to the front
door, then went back inside.
    “One of these days, Mr. Tumlinson won’t be around anymore to
do that,” Brenda mentioned softly. Suddenly the meaning behind what she’d just
said swooped over her like an enormous bird of prey, gripping her in its razor
talons and rendering her into little pieces. She dropped her soda and barely
covered her face when the tears came again, harder, heavier, and hotter.
    Strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her against him to
cuddle. As her sobbing became less controllable, Lorne dragged her into his lap
where she could safely fall apart within his embrace. He said little, allowing
her to weep until she was spent. Minutes crawled by, and finally Brenda was
able to get herself under control. Looking around for a tissue, she was
surprised when Lorne lifted the tail of his plaid shirt.
    “Be my guest.”
    “Thanks.” She wiped her eyes before blowing her nose. When
she was done, Lorne shrugged out of his shirt and bundled it into her lap. “I
can’t believe I did that again.”
    “We were stunned to hear about your dad’s death,” his deep
voice murmured against her hair. “He was a great man, and a wonderful neighbor.
We’ll miss him.”
    She nodded, unable to answer.
    “Thank you for letting me and my brothers be pallbearers.”
    “Th-thank you for accepting.” More tears flowed. Brenda
sniffed. “He…he was always a strong man. He was my superhero. Always
strong. Always there, even after Mom died.”
    “Mr. Mac was a good man. My brothers and I always looked up
to him.”
    “Even when he caught us in the swimming pool at two in the
morning in our birthday suits?”
    Lorne laughed. It was a deep, chesty, man’s laugh, not the
high-pitched giggle of an adolescence.
    “Bren, we were in elementary school then!”
    She managed a laugh, and they hugged once more. She felt
like she had come home. For real. People were always bemoaning the fact that
people could never go home, at least not emotionally. They were wrong. Either
that, or she was very, very lucky.
    The Palmers had moved in next door when she was six.
Immediately the three boys had adopted her as a sister, and she was included on
all their