Shadow Creek Read Online Free PDF Page A

her so fast that it would have been nice having her along this weekend to celebrate her birthday. They could have used the time to get reacquainted.
    “I still don’t understand,” Brianne was complaining again now, “why I have to go on this dumb trip.”
    “Because your father wants you to go camping with him and …”
    “… the slut?” Brianne asked with a smile, watching for her mother’s reaction. “Don’t look so shocked. That’s what
you
call her.”
    Val made a silent promise to stop referring to Jennifer in this way. At least when her daughter was within earshot. “Hello,” she said now, picking up the phone, on the alert for the telltale slur in her mother’s response.
    “Hey, you,” Evan said instead, the same way he’d been greeting her voice on the phone for almost two decades. Casual, yet intimate. Intimate, yet casual.
    Their marriage, in a nutshell.
    “Hey,” Val echoed, afraid to say more. She pictured her soon-to-be ex-husband sitting behind the wheel of his new black Jaguar, his soft, dark hair falling into his light blue eyes, his full lips curled into an easy smile, one hand on the wheel,the other hand sliding under Jennifer’s skirt. “Is there a problem?” she asked, banishing the image.
    He laughed. “Am I that transparent?”
    It’s part of your charm, Val thought, but didn’t say. Instead she said, “You’re running late.”
    “About half an hour.”
    Val immediately doubled his estimate. Half an hour, Evan-time, meant at least an hour on anybody else’s clock. “Okay. I’ll tell Brianne.”
    “Tell her a problem came up that …”
    “… has to be dealt with,” Val finished for him, having learned the script by heart years ago.
    “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
    “I’ll tell her.”
    “It’ll be strange,” he added, his voice trailing off to a whisper.
    “What will?”
    A sigh. Then, “Being there without you. Not celebrating your birthday together.”
    Val said nothing. How could she speak when he’d knocked the wind right out of her?
    “Val?”
    “I’ll tell Brianne you’ll be here in half an hour.” Val hung up the phone before either of them could say another word. What was he trying to tell her?
    “What are you doing?” Brianne asked suddenly.
    Val spun around. Her daughter was standing in front of her, still wearing only her underwear.
    “Is everything all right?” Brianne continued. “Did something happen to Grandma?”
    “What? Why on earth would you think that?”
    “Because something’s obviously wrong. You’ve been standingthere for the last ten minutes with your hand on the phone, not moving.”
    “I have not.”
    “Yes, you have. I’ve been watching you.”
    Val was about to argue when she glanced at her watch and realized her daughter was right. What did it mean? That Evan now had the power to make time stand still? “Your grandmother’s fine.”
    Brianne shrugged. “So, who called?”
    “Your father. He’s …”
    “Not your problem anymore,” Brianne reminded her.
    “He’s running late,” Val continued, ignoring her daughter’s interruption.
    “Let me guess. A problem came up …”
    “… that had to be dealt with,” mother and daughter said together, then laughed, something they did less and less these days. With each other anyway.
    “He’ll be here in half an hour,” Val offered.
    “Yeah, right.”
    “You should get dressed, just in case.”
    The doorbell rang. Val’s head shot toward the sound. Were James and Melissa actually here already? Could it possibly be Evan? She glanced at her reflection in the black glass of the oven. I should have washed my hair, she thought. I should have put on some makeup.
    “You look fine,” Brianne said, as if reading her mother’s thoughts. “Besides, it’s only Sasha.”
    “Who?”
    “Sasha,” Brianne repeated, walking out of the kitchen toward the front door, her round bottom a perfect circle sliced into two wondrously high halves.
    Just shoot