She Loves Me Not Read Online Free PDF

is smug.
    â€œDid you remember to put your name and the date on top?”
    â€œI put my name. I didn’t know the date.”
    â€œIt’s February thirteenth,” Rose says over her shoulder, making her way to the front of the house. “Which reminds me . . . if your homework is done, then go start writing out your valentines, Jenna.”
    â€œYou said you’d help me.”
    â€œYou know how to do it.”
    â€œIt’s not fun alone.”
    No. Nothing’s fun alone.
    Rose sighs. “Okay, wait here. I’ll be back down as soon as your brother’s back to sleep.”
    She grabs her coat and the kids’ jackets, which are draped over the stairway bannister, and carries them up the stairs. The house is a true Victorian, with very little closet space upstairs and none on the first floor. Sam was going to turn an alcove off the living room into a coat closet someday.
    Someday . . .
    Rose climbs the stairs, pushing Sam from her thoughts only to have them taken over by the mysterious red envelope again.
    Who sent the construction paper heart?
    And why the typewritten address label?
    Maybe she has a secret admirer. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t he have written something? Or at least, have sent a regular card, instead of a plain red heart?
    It isn’t necessarily scary.
    Just . . .
    Odd.
    Rose doesn’t have the patience or the energy for odd. She’s doing all she can do to make it through each day as it is.
    â€œMama!” her youngest child wails.
    â€œComing, Leo.” She trudges wearily up the stairs.
    F resh from a relaxing late-night bubble bath, Christine turns a critical eye on the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.
    Her blond hair looks good, at least. The baby-fine, hippie-straight hair that fell out with chemotherapy never grew back, and was replaced instead by thicker, bouncier tresses that air-dry in the kind of loose waves she used to futilely attempt with a curling iron.
    Yup, all it took was life-threatening cancer and the ravages of chemo to give me the kind of hair I always coveted, she thinks dryly.
    And anyway, she isn’t thrilled with her image from the neck down. Maybe she should have taken one of her flannel nightgowns out of her drawer to wear tonight, instead of this skimpy negligee she got as a bachelorette party gift from the girls in her office. This old house is so drafty that her bare arms and legs are covered in goose bumps, and the nightgown doesn’t fit right anymore, either. The slinky fabric strains across her midsection, and the bodice gaps where her cleavage used to be.
    She turns away, knowing that if she continues to critique her reflection, she’ll lose her nerve.
    The tub faucet is dripping again. Ben tried to fix it last week, and whatever he did worked for a while. But now, when Christine bends to turn it off, no matter how tightly she twists the knob, there’s a steady plop, plop, plop of water into the drain.
    Her first thought is that she’ll have to call the super.
    Then she remembers that there is no super. Ah, the joy of being homeowners.
    She’ll just tell Ben they’re going to have to spring for a plumber. The next-door neighbors must have a good one—and lousy pipes. She frequently spots a panel truck— Hitchcock and Sons, Plumbing and Heating Contractors —parked over there.
    Christine leaves behind the dripping tub and thoughts of plumbers, hangs the bath mat over the shower curtain bar, turns off the light, and makes her way back across the hall to their bedroom.
    The house is chilly. She contemplates running downstairs to adjust the thermostat, but knows what Ben will say about that. Oil is expensive. Sixty-two degrees is as high as he’ll allow the temperature to go during the day; sixty at night.
    She left her husband reading the latest issue of Kiplinger’s. Now he’s curled up on his side of the bed, snoring