Sweet Seduction Serenade Read Online Free PDF

to delay the inevitable. Best to just get on with it, face the music, and then walk away.
    "Boys are busy tonight, give me some money for a taxi," she instructed holding out her hand, palm up, fingers flexing in a "come on" motion. "Unless, of course, you want me to stay here."
    I thrust a twenty in her hand before the sentence was fully out of her mouth.
    "Same time tomorrow night?" I asked, making myself seem disinterested, by flopping down on the couch and propping my boots up on the coffee table with a thump.
    "See how I feel. Ray was better tonight, he's still got some time left."
    I blinked at her. She was delusional if she thought that, he'd lost five kilos alone in the past week. He was looking sallow and jaundiced and couldn't even hold his head up by nine at night. Most of what he ate came back up or out in other more explosive and disgusting ways, he couldn't have been holding on to much nutrition. I was suspecting that, despite his determination to cling to life so he could verbally abuse me, he'd be in a hospice centre before the end of the month.
    But I was determined not to let her know any of that. If she knew how important these early nights off were for me on the weekend, she'd cut Dad off to spite me. Dad needed her visits almost as much as I did. But Jessie did nothing without a reason. Dad might have lived in a council flat, but he actually had a bit put away from his pension and selling off bits and pieces he'd collected and repaired over the years. Jessie wanted his money, what little of it was there. And as there was no chance in hell of me getting it, she'd been keeping herself close to Dad for the past few years.
    The moment Gabe went into prison, Jessie decided to show how much she cared. The sad part was, she did care for him. He was her only sibling. She loved him, about as much as she loved her boys. But she was wasting her time. Dad's money would go to Gabe and no one else.
    Still, I wasn't above using her greed to my advantage.
    "Be a shame if you didn't visit, Aunty Jessie," I said sweetly from the couch. "He talks non-stop about how important your visits are. He tells anyone who comes calling. Even the lawyer the other day." The lawyer had come, at Dad's request, to make sure his will was in order. I managed a brief look at it when they didn't know I was there. It didn't surprise me, Gabe's name was the only one listed at all.
    I didn't need or want Dad's pitiful money. But Jessie sure as hell did.
    "Really?" she said doubtfully. "You wouldn't be just sayin' that to get me to visit?"
    "Now, why would I do that, Aunty Jessie," I said in my best Tennessee.
    She stared at me for several seconds, the beep of a car horn breaking her glare. Obviously the taxi had arrived out front. I held her gaze, having had years of practice with my cousins when I was young. Then watched with some measure of guilt when she was the one to look away.
    That guilt was quashed when she spoke over her shoulder as she walked out the front door.
    "Fuck off!"
    After that little confrontation I didn't much feel like strumming the Martin under the stars, so I did my night time ritual, shoved my earphones in my ears, and switched the MP3 player on to listen to some Garth Brooks. All in all it had been a hell of a day. The only thing to bring me out of my slump would be Garth.
    I slowly drifted off to sleep listening to If Tomorrow Never Comes .
    Country music tells a story, every song complete. I adored that. You could, in no more than three or four minutes, lose your heart to a tale, that had you wanting to cry, while often making you smile. Some were piss-takes, some true heart breakers, but every single one of them left you feeling like you'd been a small part of someone's most endearing moments. Nothing gave me such pleasure as Country songs.
    And when life got really hard, you'd listen to some poor cowboy or cowgirl tell you how much harder their lives were. And sometimes, they'd give you the happy ending you thought