The Widow and the Wastrel Read Online Free PDF Page A

a cold smile. "I must have been drawn by your overwhelming motherly love," he responded cynically. With negligent ease, he walked over and mockingly kissed her cheek.
    "How long do you intend to stay? Or are you just passing through?" His mother's expression was still rigidly controlled.
    "I haven't made any plans," Jed shrugged, squarely meeting her dark gaze.
    "I can believe that," Rebecca agreed with cutting reproval. "Your father and I did everything we could to prepare you for a decent role in life and you threw all of it aside, even the opportunity for a college education. You refused to plan, always insisting that you knew it all and refusing to listen to us. What has it gained you, Jed? You’ve hopped all over the Pacific and what do you have to show for it?"
    The only indication Elizabeth saw which revealed Jed's determined control of his temper was the slight clenching of his jaw. Otherwise he withstood his mother's tirade without any show of emotion.
    "I haven't come back to argue whether what happened in the past was right or wrong, Mother," he replied calmly. "I guess I wanted to come back when I'd made my fortune." He smiled in self-reproach. "When I received your letter about a year after it was written and realized that Dad was gone, I knew I had too much of the same Carrel pride, that I'd condemned, I've come home to make peace with you, Mother."
    Again there was the long, measured look between them. Elizabeth unconsciously held her breath, believing the sincerity in Jed's voice yet uncertain whether his mother did.
    "You can have the room at the end of the stairs as long as you're here," Rebecca said at last. "Amy, Jeremy's daughter, has your old room."
    "Yes, Liza already offered me the use of the other room shortly after I arrived. I—" he glanced down at his fresh clothes—"I needed to clean up after walking from town."
    "You walked from town!" his mother exclaimed in distressed anger. "Did anyone see you? For heaven's sake, why didn't you take a taxi? What will people think if they saw you walking along the highway?"
    "If anyone had seen me, they would probably have thought that I was on my way home," Jed reasoned dryly.
    "I wish you would be more conscious of our position in the community," his mother sighed rather bitterly.
    At that moment, Amy appeared in the kitchen doorway having changed into an everyday outfit of shorts and top. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the stranger in their midst. Elizabeth realized it was probably the first time her daughter had seen a man in the house during the daytime since before her grandfather had passed away.
    As she made her way to Elizabeth, Amy kept her curious brown eyes centered on Jed. There was no shyness in her silent appraisal, nor did she flinch from his returning look.
    "Hello, Amy." Jed's greeting was casual, not forcing any undue warmth or gladness into his voice.
    Amy tilted her dark head back to look at Elizabeth. "Who is he?" she demanded in a bold, clear voice that bordered on rudeness.
    "Your manners, Amy," Rebecca reprimanded sharply.
    Except for a stubborn tightening of her mouth, Amy pretended not to have heard her grandmother's reproval. Elizabeth had the fleeting thought that her daughter's slightly rebellious nature might have come from her uncle.  
    "This is your uncle Jed, Amy. He was your father's brother," Elizabeth explained patiently.
    Curiosity still remained the uppermost emotion as she turned her attention back to Jed. "Hello," she greeted him naturally. "Did you know my father?"
    "Yes, we grew up together," Jed answered, calmly returning her intent scrutiny of him.
    "Did you know me when I was a baby?"
    "No, I was on the other side of the world when you were born."
    His response did not impress Amy. "I didn't know my father. He died before I was born, you know," she informed him with marked indifference.
    "I knew that," he nodded.
    "Did you like my father?"
    "Oh, Amy, what a question to ask!" There was a brittle quality to the