The Heart Remembers Read Online Free PDF Page A

was overseas, I saved my pay and made my plans.”
    Jim stared at her, his brows raised.
    â€œYou were overseas?”
    â€œI’m an ex-G.I. Jane,” she told him lightly. “I was in the Women’s Army Corps for twenty-eight months; fourteen of them in Italy and France.”
    â€œWell, blow me down!” Jim was wide-eyed and admiring.
    â€œSo you see I’m not quite the helpless, lily-handed child of idleness you seem to think,” she pointed out. “Life in the WAC wasn’t all beer and skittles, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world.”
    Jim was frankly excited and quite as frankly admiring. Whole-heartedly so for the first time since she had met him, she realized, and felt a small, warm glow at the thought.
    â€œOf course you wouldn’t,” he agreed. “I saw some of them out in the Pacific. A grand bunch of gals. We were all as proud of them as though they had been our own family. And boy, what a lift it gave us when we saw them in there punching! Cute as a bug’s ear and as independent as a multi-millionaire’s bank account!”
    Flushed, bright-eyed, Shelley made a little deprecating gesture.
    â€œOh, of course, we didn’t exactly win the war single-handed,” she admitted gaily. “But one day General Eisenhower came to see us and he said we helped a lot, and so did General Bradley!”
    â€œWhy, of course you did, and plenty! Well, my girl, us ex-G.I.s must stick together, else why did we fight a war, anyway? Any time I can do anything, just say the word.”
    â€œThanks!”
    He frowned at the fire for a moment and then he demanded, “See here, you didn’t finance this new venture of yours with one of those justly celebrated G.I. loans, did you?”
    Without resentment, because now she sensed that there was a warm friendliness in his voice, and an interest far beyond mere curiosity, she answeredpromptly and completely.
    â€œNo, I haven’t a G.I. loan. I saved my pay while I was overseas and then when I came home there was a small legacy waiting for me.”
    â€œGood!” He was obviously relieved. “Then when you lose your shirt on this deal, you’ll still have the loan to fall back on for some more sensible enterprise.”
    And this she
did
resent, furiously.
    â€œI’ve never seen anybody with such a ‘down’ on the place he calls home,” she told him sharply. “For Heaven’s sake, if you hate Harbour Pines so much, why did you come back here when you were discharged from the service?”
    He grinned wryly and pitched his half finished cigarette into the fire.
    â€œA fair question, a fair question, lady, and one deserving of a fair answer. I came back because the family has owned and developed Harbour Pines for more than seventy years. Everything we’ve made has gone back into the business. It’s like the old Bible story of Joseph and his Brethren; you know, seven fat years, and then seven lean years that eat up the fat years. It’s a chancy sort of business but we’re sunk too deeply to have any hope of getting out. The profit from a couple of good years can easily be swallowed up by the losses of one bad one. But you have to keep hanging on. The other reason I stay on is, of course, Aunt Selena. She was born here; she’s lived here all her life; she can’t conceive of living anywhere else. She worked herself almost to death just to keep things going while I was away; she and I are the last two members of the family left. We have a tremendous responsibility to the families who depend on the naval stores for their living; so when the shootin’ was over, there wasn’t anything else I could do but come back and take over.”
    Shelley nodded reluctantly.
    â€œI can begin to understand why you dislike the place, I guess.”
    Jim eyed her with wry amusement.
    â€œThanks,” he said.
    Selena stood in the