The Rascal Read Online Free PDF Page A

when you think you’ve got a firm grasp on them. That, she had discovered, was how the world worked. Everything was a tease.
    She left the unpacking (there were only a few dishes and framed photographs to find a place for) and walked to the front of the cottage. The rooms still smelled of other people, of stale time, but Chloe was certain that would dissipate.
    “God help me if this cottage smells like an old museum forever,” she whispered. “God help me.”
    On the porch, she sat down on the one lonely chair. It wasn’t very comfortable and felt near collapse, but it would do for now. They’d get a porch swing in time. There was enough room for that at least.
    Her fingers glided over the photograph of Lana Pruitt even as her thoughts danced elsewhere, swirling around the night before. Jeff hadn’t stirred when the wind howled and things creaked from inside the house. He’d been awake. She knew that. She’d been with him long enough to be familiar with his quirks. Waking breath and sleeping breath sounded distinctly different. She wondered if her own breathing betrayed her. Could he hear the slight tremor in each of her nighttime breaths?
    She had tried to shake the ‘feelings’ off. But now she felt something else: certainty. They were being watched, the both of them. The cottage was doing the watching, she supposed. She did not feel welcome here. Once in the night, she even thought she saw a silhouette in the doorway. She blinked and it was gone. But still, that feeling of otherness in the room had happened too much in the cottage for her to pass off as paranoia. And then, as if sent from somewhere in the air around her, she had heard This will never go away. She did not get much sleep after that.
    The wind was picking up off the sea. The daylight was at least some comfort. Light chased away shadows and secrets, had them scurrying to darker corners until twilight. She cradled herself in her sweater, an old college thing that had always brought her solace. But sometimes everything seemed useless against this chill. She couldn’t say it was a new chill. It had been between her and Jeff for the past year. But it seemed more formed at the cottage. As if brought more fully to life. Gestating a physicality.
    Jeff had found out Chloe had been with another man, some random hookup with a customer on a tour she was leading. Jeff was not on that tour with her. She was drunk and the guy was flirting. One thing led to another, and another led to sex in a tent. He’d reminded her of Jeff, this guy, but she could never remember his name. That was how unimportant he was to her.
    Her guilt clawed at her from the inside. Before Jeff found out, Chloe had gone and taken care of the mishap growing inside of her. She couldn’t cover it up and say it was Jeff’s child. He was unable to give her children due to a trait passed down from his father. That was always a sore point with him. And if Chloe were to admit that she had been with another man…
    Jeff should have been none the wiser. An abortion was the only thing to do, so she did it. But something had gone wrong. An infection due to the procedure exposed the whole affair. All the lies and deceit. The wrong choices. Even if she hadn’t admitted to cheating, which was impossible given the circumstances, she could see Jeff’s eyes. The image he held of her was changed forever. That was when the chill started. That was when it began to feel like an icy wind around her at all times, and the way that chill sounded… it sounded much like the wind from the sea as she sat on the porch in the uncomfortable chair. She hugged herself tighter, bending the old photograph in her hand as it curled into a fist.
    “If only I had your willpower, Jeff,” she said. “If only I had your determination.”
    She rose from the chair and walked to the edge of the porch. Her eyes followed the slant of the hill up to the big house. There was the wind-whipped frenzy of cloth from the top of the