Truly Madly Yours Read Online Free PDF

the big window above the sink. “Henry was in his tack shed and it caught on fire. Sheriff Crow told me they think it started in a pile of linseed rags he’d left by an old space heater.” Gwen’s voice wavered as she spoke.
    Delaney moved toward her mother and put her arm around Gwen’s shoulders. She looked out at the backyard, at the boat dock swaying on gentle waves, and asked the question she’d been afraid to voice, “Do you know if he suffered very much?”
    “I don’t think so, but I don’t want to know if he did. I don’t know how long he lived or if God was merciful and he died before the flames got to him. I didn’t ask. Everything that has happened this past week has been hard enough.” She paused to clear her throat. “I’ve had so much to do, and I don’t like to think about it.”
    Delaney turned her gaze to her mother, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt a connection to the woman who’d given her life. They were so different, but in this, they were the same. Despite his faults, they had both loved Henry Shaw.
    “I’m sure your friends would understand if you canceled your meeting today. If you’d like, I’ll call them for you.”
    Gwen turned her attention to Delaney and shook her head. “I have responsibilities, Laney. I can’t put my life on hold forever.”
    Forever ? Henry had been dead less than a week, buried less than twenty-four hours. She dropped her hand from her mother’s shoulders, feeling the connection snap. “I’m going outside for a bit,” she said, and walked out the back door before she could give in to the disappointment. A late morning breeze rustled the quaking aspen, filling the pine-scented air with the whisper of leaves. She took a deep breath and moved across the back patio.
    Disappointment seemed the best word to describe her family. They’d lived a facade, and as a result, they’d been doomed to disappoint one another. A long time ago she’d come to terms with the fact that her mother was superficial, far more concerned with appearance than substance. And Delaney had accepted that Henry was an over-the-top control freak. When she’d behaved as Henry expected, he’d been a wonderful father. He’d given her his time and attention, taken her and her friends boating or camping in the Sawtooths, but the Shaws had lived a life of reprimand and reward, and she’d always felt disappointed that everything, even love, had been conditional.
    Delaney walked past a towering Ponderosa to the large dog run on the edge of the back lawn. Two brass name plates tacked above the door of the kennel declared the Weimaraners inside were Duke and Dolores.
    “Aren’t you pretty babies?” she cooed, touching their smooth noses through the chain link and talking to them as if they were lap dogs. Delaney loved dogs, having been raised with Dolores and Duke’s predecessors, Clark and Clara. But these days, she moved too often to have a goldfish, let alone a real pet. “Poor pretty babies all penned up.” The Weimaraners licked her fingers, and she lowered to one knee. The dogs were well-groomed, and since they’d belonged to Henry, no doubt well-trained. Their long brown faces and sad blue eyes silently begged her to set them free. “I know how you feel,” she said. “I used to be trapped here, too.” Duke let loose with a pitiful whine that tugged at Delaney’s sympathetic heart. “Okay, but don’t go out of the yard,” she said as she stood.
    The kennel door swung open and Duke and Dolores threw themselves forward, shooting past Delaney like two streaks of lightening. “Damn it, get back here!” she yelled, turning just in time to see their stubby tails disappear into the forest. She thought about letting them go with the hope they’d return on their own. Then she thought of the highway less than a mile from the house.
    She grabbed two leather leashes from inside the kennel and took off after them. She didn’t feel any attachment toward the