Still Waters Read Online Free PDF Page B

of sugar and excitement.
    He glanced at the brightly-wrapped package on the passenger seat of his car, and he smiled. Secreted inside the large box were two baseball gloves, a bat, and an assortment of balls that were just right for whacking into the nearest gutter — or into an outstretched glove, depending on the circumstance. The way Adam figured it, the little guy had never known his father, so if he could treat Christopher to a game of catch, that would be fine. Mighty fine, in fact.
    Christopher Appleton. The thought of him still took Adam’s breath away. Bud’s son. Bud’s little boy.
    Miracles really did happen.
    Well, they all deserved a miracle, didn’t they? Especially Bill and Kitty, losing two sons in a matter of years, as if Denny’s death hadn’t been bad enough.
    When Kitty had written to him in the early autumn of 1950 to share the joyful news that Jenna was going to have Bud’s child, all he had been able to think was, maybe God’s making up for it. And suddenly it had made sense that Jenna had never answered any of the letters he’d written to her. She’d been caught up in a private world built of grief and joy. She probably hadn’t spared him much of a thought since they’d parted so awkwardly two days after their unexpectedly intimate reunion.
    Adam had continued to write to Jenna in the following years, but she’d never replied. Well, Jenna had always done things her own way. And that was one of the reasons why he loved her, wasn’t it?
    Truth to tell, what had happened between them had never sat too well with Adam. She was Bud’s wife, after all. And when he learned that Jenna had been pregnant during their time together, he had felt nearly sick with shame.
    But as he read Kitty’s letters, read of her absolute joy and gratitude that she and Bill had a grandchild, that a piece of Bud would survive, Adam’s guilt had eased and had been replaced by happiness.
    Misery had never been natural for him, anyway. Although he had seen more than his share of tragedy, high spirits were his natural disposition. He and Bud had been a good match that way. There was no occasion so solemn that it couldn’t be lightened with a joke, no depression so heavy that it couldn’t be alleviated with a funny story or a simple heart-to-heart conversation. The two of them had seen each other through the frustrations and dangers of childhood, from scraped knees to bullies to exams, and always had kept right on smiling.
    So really, it wasn’t surprising that he and Bud would fall in love with the same girl. Especially when that girl was Jenna.
    And this moment, with the blue sky overhead and the spring breeze blowing his hair through the open top of his new car, Adam knew in his heart that when he asked Jenna to marry him, somewhere Bud would be cheering.
    * * *
    Linden Street had changed a lot since the last time Adam had seen it, but Jenna’s house was just as he remembered. It was a neat house on a street of neat houses, built of brick, with two windows upstairs and two windows down. The porches on those Arlington Forest homes were fixed to the side, which gave the smallish front lawns a more expansive feeling. Jenna’s place was perched on the outer corner as he made the right turn off Linden Street.
    Like it was waiting for him, he thought.
    Balloons were tied to the railings of the porch, and there were more on the gate that led to the backyard. They danced brightly on the spring air. Adam turned right again on Farley Street, then made a graceful U-turn and pulled up at the curb.
    He was just walking up the steps from the sidewalk to the front path of the house when Kitty came around from the back. She was a small woman, compact and elegantly built, who wore her dark hair curled softly around the nape of her neck. She was casually dressed in pink pedal pushers and a cotton blouse. She looked young, and fresh, and so different from the last time Adam had seen her that he almost didn’t recognize her.
    Of