The Man From Her Past Read Online Free PDF

Hope, or ask questions.
     
    H OPE WAS ASLEEP when Cassie parked in front of her father’s home. With her palms sweating on the steering wheel, she stared at the house, low, squat and dingy in moonlight instead of the rich blue of her memory. The ivy her father had tended so lovingly had taken over the porch and the roof, trying to pull the house down.
    A woman could almost wish it had.
    She glanced at Hope, hating to wake her until she saw what awaited them inside. Van had said her father would still be in the hospital, but when had Leo Wainwright Warne ever paid attention to anyone or anything other than his own sense of right and wrong?
    Wallowing in a hospital bed would strike him as the height of wrong.
    Cassie climbed out of the car, eased the door shut and started up the cracked driveway. Then she stopped, eyeing the house and a dark band of cloth blocking off the porch. Someone had pinned a Wet Paint sign to it. She leaned down to touch a step. Tacky. And that wasn’t all.
    The ivy, cracks in the dirty cement, black tire streaks and bird droppings dotting the graying pavement. Her father hadn’t been out here with his pressure washer in a long time.
    Five years couldn’t change anything this much—not unless time and neglect had lived hand in hand. Van had tried to warn her about her father. Like Hope, she just hadn’t got it.
    She went around to the kitchen door. Half expecting to find it unlocked, she nonetheless lifted her key.
    Only to have the door open in her face and Van come out.
    Without thinking, she turned toward the car. He took her arm as if to stop her from running. She looked down at his broad hand, his splayed, capable fingers.
    Her body seemed to grow heavier, but she wasn’t confused about her real feelings. She looked up at him and prayed Hope wouldn’t wake, the way children did when a car stopped too long.
    “I thought I’d be out of here before you arrived.” Stress tensed his face. His dark green eyes watched her as if she were a stranger.
    “You dreaded seeing me, too.” She pulled away from him. How could he bother her so much after five years? After the revulsion he hadn’t been able to hide before she’d left?
    She started over.
    “I came straight from the airport,” she said. “What are you doing here?” She forbade herself another glance toward Hope. Sometime he’d have to know but, please God, not now. Not yet.
    “The house was a—we have to talk, Cass.”
    “Don’t call me that.” Her old nickname tugged her toward him as if he were her true north. Everyone had used it, but from Van it meant familiarity and whispers in the cocoon of their bed. Secrets only they knew.
    He nodded, his eyes so intense she wanted to scream. He shut the door behind him. “Parts of the house were in bad shape. Are in bad shape.”
    “What are you talking about?” She reached past him. Just then, the back door of her rental car opened, and a small voice shouted, “Mommy?”
    She turned. “Hope.” Cassie ran across the grass and snatched her daughter into her arms, holding on so tight Hope tried to wriggle free.
    “You’re squishing me.”
    “Sorry.” Tears choked her, but she never cried. “Sorry, baby.” She turned, her daughter in her arms.
    Van had followed, shock draining his face of color. She wished the sunset would just finish up and fade and make them all invisible.
    Cassie shook her head, begging him not to say anything that might hurt Hope. Naturally, he wondered if she belonged to him. Despite five years and the certainty he hadn’t wanted her or their marriage, she feared his unspoken question.
    At last, he dragged his gaze away from Hope, moving his head as if his muscles were locked. Pain pulsed from his body.
    Cassie relented. She’d assumed a lot of bad things about Van’s inability to be human, but he obviously had feelings.
    “No,” she said. “Not yours.”
    He grimaced, looking confused. Then he put his hand over his mouth. She was close enough to