Stranger With My Face Read Online Free PDF

path leading up from the road. The sound of the surf was very loud. I walked slowly along the side of the house to the
     point where the path stopped at the cliff ’s edge. There was no beach in front of Cliff House, just rocks, stair-stepping
     down tier by tier to the water. The highest of these were flat and dry and safe to stand on, but the lower ones were slimy
     with foam and seaweed. Once when he was very small Neal had slipped on one and taken a bad fall to the tier below. Between
     the rocks were crevices that led to hollows and caves where Megan liked to think mermaids lived. I knew better than to risk
     slipping down there, so I just stood, quiet, listening to the waves breaking against the base of the cliff. The longer I stood
     there, the brighter the moonlight seemed to become. The white, swirling water had a luminescent quality that was hypnotic.
     If I gazed at it long enough, I thought, I might actually see a mermaid.
    “Laurie?”
    The voice spoke directly behind me, and I almost jumped out of my skin. Strong hands closed upon my shoulders. With a gasp
     of terror I tore myself free—and spun around to find myself facing Gordon.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked me.
    “What do you think is the matter? You scared me to death!” My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst through
     the wall of my chest. “What are you doing here?”
    “I wanted to talk to you,” Gordon said.
    “Then why didn’t you call?”
    “I thought you might hang up on me, so I came over instead. I was just headed up the path to the house when I saw you standing
     out here on the rocks.” He was staring hard at my face. “Hey, something really is the matter, isn’t it? You’re not usually
     jumpy like this.”
    “No—really.” I drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “It’s just—well, it’s been a messed-up day.”
    “It has,” Gordon agreed. “Laurie, what I came over here to say was—well, I just want to tell you that it’s okay.”
    “What’s okay?”
    “Whatever it was that you were doing last night. Not that I’m happy about it or anything. I’m jealous as hell. But it was
     true, what you said on the boat this afternoon. I don’t have any right to give you a hard time when I was out there with Nat.”
    “Are you in love with Nat?” I asked him.
    “Of course not! She’s a pretty girl—I’d had a few beers—my girlfriend had stood me up—”
    “I didn’t stand you up!” I objected.
    “Let’s not fight about it, Laurie. The point is, neither one of us is completely innocent. We were both messing around a little.
     It wasn’t anything for me—just a couple of kisses. What about you?”
    “It wasn’t even that for me,” I said.
    “Who was the guy?”
    “I’ve told you over and over. There wasn’t any guy.”
    “You want me to believe you were out there alone? That you’d break our date and miss the summer’s best party just to go wandering
     the beach by yourself ?”
    “I don’t care what you believe,” I said wearily. “You’re the one who said let’s not fight. Did you come over here to make
     up or not?”
    “I don’t know now. You’re making it so tough.” He put his hand under my chin and tilted my face up toward his. “Do you still
     want to be with me, Laurie?”
    “I—I guess so,” I said shakily. Jeff ’s words flashed through my mind— he’s got you on a string — he snaps his fingers, and you jump .
    “That’s what I wanted to hear.” He lowered his head, and his mouth came down onto mine, and suddenly it didn’t matter anymore
     whether he believed me or not, whether he had been with Natalie, whether he was pulling strings and snapping fingers—all that
     counted was that this was Gordon, my Gordon, and he was here now with his arms around me, and things between us were all right
     again.
    We stayed for a long time out there in the moonlight. I didn’t realize how long until I went inside to be greeted by the sound
     of