That Carolina Summer (North Carolina) Read Online Free PDF

fatigue. Frustration contributed a healthy amount to it.
    As she yanked the key out of the keyhole to start all over again, the door swung open. For a stunned instant Annette thought it had opened of its own accord, until she saw her bathrobed sister modestly using the bulwark of the door as a shield.
    “If you forgot your key, why didn't you just knock instead of rattling the doorknob like that?” Marsha complained with a trace of lingering anxiety. “I thought someone was trying to break in."
    “I didn't forget my key!” Annette snapped, and limped across the threshold, a raw pain burning where her running shoe rubbed the heel of her right foot. She aimed her body for the nearest chair. “The damned thing wouldn't work!"
    “What happened? Did you sprain your ankle for real this time?” Marsha asked as she closed the door and Annette flopped in the chair by the window.
    “No, I didn't,” Annette sighed at the implied criticism. “I have a blister."
    She untied her shoe and eased it off her foot, feeling the first glimmer of relief. There was still a sock to be removed, which produced a hissing breath of pain when she rolled it off. As Annette twisted her foot across a knee to examine it, Marsha bent toward it, too, and grimaced in sympathy.
    “If looks sore,” she murmured.
    “You ought to feel it from this end,” Annette grumbled as the inflamed area throbbed with the exposure to air.
    “Do you want me to get you a Band-Aid or something?” Marsha offered.
    “No. It will be okay.” She leaned back in the chair and let it support her head. Her mouth thinned into a disgruntled line. “Three days of jogging every morning, and this blister is all I have to show for it."
    “You didn't see him this morning, either,” Marsha gathered from her remark.
    “I saw him all right,” Annette admitted with frustration, “but from three blocks away. I couldn't catch up with him—not with this blister."
    Marsha sat on the single bed opposite the chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Did it occur to you that this might be a sign you should give up?” she suggested.
    “No, it didn't occur to me.” Annette chewed thoughtfully on a finger, her mind working feverishly. “I'm just going to have to think of some other way to see him."
    “You've jogged every morning and haunted the swimming pool every afternoon,” her sister reminded her. “Maybe it just isn't meant to be."
    “I can't accept that,” Annette stated with a decisive shake of her head. “This is where you and I differ, Marsha. You're content to just sit back and wait for Mr. Right to happen along, certain that he'll take one look at you and whisk you off to the altar. That isn't the way it works,” she insisted. “God helps those who help themselves. You have to make your own opportunities."
    On certain things, Marsha could be stubborn. This was one of them. “But you can't make somebody love you, Annette. Either he does or he doesn't."
    “Look.” Annette leaned forward, feeling that she was explaining the facts of life to a child instead of her nearly adult sister. “Josh has looked at me. He's interested. I know that. The seed has been planted and it just needs some water to make it grow.” She paused. “The difference between you and me is that you'll wait until it rains—if it ever does. And I'm going to make sure it gets water if I have to carry it myself!"
    Marsha didn't attempt to deny the accuracy of her sister's assessment. “But you're practically chasing him. I don't think it looks right."
    “Marsha, be realistic.” Annette contained her exasperation to appeal to her sister's common sense. “It's the oldest game around. A boy chases a girl until she catches him, don't you know that? You and I are the only ones who know that I'm chasing Josh Lord. You can bet I'm not going to let him find it out. He's going to think it's all his idea."
    “But you're tricking him into thinking that, and it isn't fair,” she