The Descent Read Online Free PDF Page B

so swiftly, especially one that size.
    “That looks dangerous,” I said, pointing to the sky. “We’ll have to go in.”
    “It’s nothing to be worried about. We get weather like this all the time.” Adair tried to sound nonplussed, but I noticed that, for some unknown reason, he seemed to be looking at the dark clouds with suspicion. The first huge gust rolled in off the water, sending the goats running for the shelter of the pine trees. Adair placed a hand on my back to gently guide me to the house. As we approached the French doors off the dining room, I saw the two women silhouetted in the yellow light watching for our return, the brunette twitching with impatience. As we stepped through the door, the downpour started behind us in earnest.
    I brushed my windblown hair back into place while Adair bolted the door. The women glared at him. “We wondered where you were. You’d been gone so long,” Robin said to Adair in a whiny child’s voice.
    “Quite a storm out there, wouldn’t you say? And strange that it came on us so quickly,” Adair said under a furrowed brow. He seemed to be probing for something.
    “That’s how it is here, on the water,” Terry replied breezily. Of the pair, she was the bold one, the one who would stand up to Adair. “Good thing you came in. Winds couldblow someone as small as her right over a cliff,” she said, nodding coolly at me.
    Robin took Adair’s hand and began to tug him toward the stairs. “C’mon, Adair, say good night to your guest. She must be tired after all that traveling,” she said, though plainly it wouldn’t matter to her if I keeled over from exhaustion at that very second. Adair opened his mouth to protest, but I shook my head.
    “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “Robin’s right. It’s been quite a day, what with the travel and all. We can finish catching up tomorrow.” I needed time, anyway, to make sense of the strange situation in which I’d found him.
    Adair capitulated, tucking the blonde under his left arm and the brunette under his right. Thusly propped up, he turned away from me. “I guess this is good night, then. We’ll see you in the morning.” I watched them walk away, three abreast, the girls’ hips swaying as they climbed the stairs.

THREE

    I waited a few minutes before heading to bed. I didn’t want to run into any of them again tonight. It seemed fitting that I be alone, for that had been my choice, to leave Adair for Luke. Still, I’d been jarred by the sight of Robin and Terry; I don’t know why I hadn’t thought Adair would be with someone else by now, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to me, and I was left feeling unsettled. I climbed the massive staircase and padded by the closed door to their shared bedroom, their muffled voices rising and falling as I passed. I imagined they were talking about me. I started a fire in the tiny fireplace, changed quickly, and slipped into the chilly bed.
    I was smothered by a sense of incredible melancholy. I should’ve known that talking about Luke would stir memories, bringing to the surface everything that I’d tucked away in the back of my mind. It was the first time I’d spoken about Luke’sdeath with someone who hadn’t been directly affected by it; namely: his children, Jolene and Winona; his ex-wife, Tricia, and her husband; and the doctors and nurses who’d worked with Luke at the clinic. Of all those people, I was the one who was least entitled to anyone’s condolences. Sure, Luke and I lived together as though we were husband and wife, but we’d been together for only a few years. I was practically a newcomer. Tricia had more of a claim on him than I, let alone his children. The sympathy belonged to them.
    The first sign that something was wrong came when Luke collapsed at the clinic. He didn’t tell me until he got home that night. “I passed out today,” he said casually at the dinner table, not even looking up from his plate. “I woke up on the floor of