The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Karenina?”
    As she turned toward him, before she could speak, he had kissed her. It was fast, he didn’t push it, but he thought she responded, just a little. When he let her go, she looked as if she’d been struck.
    He pulled away, not acknowledging that it had happened, and said, “What about Scarlett O’Hara?”
    “Who’s that?” she had said, and given him an ironic smile.
    “See ya.” He got out as fast as he could, sweat beaded on his forehead, not able to believe what had happened. It seemed so strange, it had happened so fast, had been so utterly unexpected, that he almost thought it hadn’t. He had no idea what to make of it, hadn’t planned it, hadn’t even considered it. It was as if some part of him he couldn’t control had taken over.
    Why? Why did I do that?
    He knew the answer. He just couldn’t believe it.
    And what of Torian? Would she tell her parents? Boo?
    Would she call the police?
    If, somehow, word got back to certain people, he wouldn’t get the job he wanted.
    Fuck the damn job! I’ll finish my Ph.D. and be happy. I’ll marry her if she’ll have me.
    Marry her? Hold on, old buddy. She’s fifteen.
    “What is it?” said Boo, when he got to the party. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “I don’t feel too great.”
    She had brought him a drink and been solicitous all afternoon, but he pleaded illness and left early.
    He came in from the garage and there was Torian, standing with her back to him, holding Joy up in front of the big mirror over the fireplace. “There’s your nose, and here’s your eye …”
    He saw his own reflection behind theirs, and Torian’s face took on a look of such beatific happiness it was as if the babysitter and his daughter had become the Madonna and child.
    “Hello, Noel,” she said, and put down the child. “Joy, honey, go get your Pooh. Show Daddy your Pooh.”
    He watched his child toddle out of the room. At the same moment, he and Torian stepped towards each other, their arms going round each other as if they had done it a thousand times.
    “I love you,” he said.
    “I know.”
    He hadn’t realized how much he loved her, or what love would feel like. She made him ashamed of every relationship he’d ever had. He was a taker and a user. He knew how to get women, and he did. In this arena, at thirty-three, he was as much a virgin as Torian.
    The job had come through—just today—and that only confused things. He wanted desperately to leave Boo, to get out from under the lie he was living, but he couldn’t do that now, not for months.
    His life was split by lightning as jagged as the flash that bisected the sky. It was killing him.
    Boo was waiting for him in white shorts and T-shirt, the way Torian had dressed that day, and the sight made his throat constrict. It was like a parody.
    She was tall, nearly as tall as he was, and slender, though not so thin as Torian. But where Torian was dark and mysterious, Boo was blond and ordinary. Where Torian was languid, Boo was brisk. Where Torian was sensitive, Boo was mindlessly cheerful.
    “You got caught.” She smiled at his bedraggled appearance.
    He shrugged. “I was walking. I couldn’t see stopping.”
    “Want a beer?”
    “I’ll get it.”
    He went quickly into the kitchen, hoping she hadn’t seen his face. Living with her, keeping his real life from her, was getting harder and harder. Every day he felt less like her husband, more oppressed by their life together. He was increasingly aware how few decisions he made, how much of their life was about what Boo wanted.
    For instance, she had wanted to buy this house. “Do you realize we’ll be under construction for two years?” he had said, and her eyes shone.
    “Oh, please, Noel. Think how much fun it’ll be to bring it back to life.”
    So far she had brought only one room back (besides her office)—the baby’s, which she had painted peach, a color he loathed. They both liked antiques, they could agree on that. But