Wild Man Creek Read Online Free PDF Page A

people—the people so unlike those she’d been used to in Silicon Valley. Though she appreciated invitations for dinner from the owners, she declined Luke and Shelby’s offers and remained on her own.
    It was hard to change patterns and habits that had been ten years in the making—she bought prepared dinners that were easy to warm and eat, as if she were still putting in those long days. She was so happy to have time to read again, to indulge a few real girlie novels, but the love scenes only made her cry.
    By driving to an open area, Jill was able to talk to Kelly at least once a day.
    “Are you doing all right?” Kelly asked. “Any idea what’s next?”
    “I’m kicking around a few ideas,” Jillian said. Truth was she had absolutely no ideas. “I don’t want to say anything out loud until I’ve done some more thinking….”
    “How about your poor battered heart?”
    “Hah! My heart is fine. I hate him and I want to kill him.”
    “Good for you!” Kelly said approvingly.
    In fact, Jill’s heart was in shreds. She still couldn’t believe the same man had supported her, comforted her, praised her—then betrayed her. It had been so long since her heart had hurt like this—maybe since high school? College? She hadn’t been a total workaholic since joining BSS—she had dated a bit. But Kurt had the distinction of having really reeled her in.
    And there was something else she was having real trouble dealing with—she wasn’t sure if she mourned more for the lost relationship or the lost job.
    Ironically, it was that weird old house and the memories it invoked that had originally made her think of Virgin River as her escape. Yet it took her three days of fishing, walking, reading and just thinking before she recalled how it made her feel. She wanted to go back to see that house.
    And, oh! The house had changed in the six months since she’d seen it last! It was now simply beautiful! So different from when she had last seen it. It was painted white with tan and brown trim; the shutters were dark, the trim lighter. The gables were decorated and the turrets at the front end of the structure stood as proud as those at any castle. The porch had been reinforced and painted tan and white; new doors and windows had been installed. It was a stunning, refurbished house that might be a hundred years old but that looked as fresh and new as the day it had been built.
    And if the house wasn’t amazing in itself, the grounds were as fabulous as she remembered—manicured shrubs, flowers just coming up and lining the base of the house and walk, trees sprouting buds. She identified hydrangeaand rhododendron along with some other bushes that would burst into flower in another month. She walked slowly around the house and lawn, taking it in, sighing and oohing and aahing. She went up onto the porch and peeked into the window, seeing that, as she suspected, the place was empty. No one lived here.
    This was not really like the house she and Kelly had grown up in—her nana’s house was so much smaller, a little three-bedroom with the downstairs bedroom off the kitchen no bigger than a large closet. But it, too, had been an old Victorian clapboard with gables and a big yard, and front and back porches.
    Jillian and Kelly had been on their own for several years now. When they were only five and six years old there had been a car accident; their father was killed and their mother was left an invalid. Their already-elderly great-grandmother took them on, along with their mother, who needed daily care. The girls grew up in that little house in an older neighborhood in Modesto, California. Because their mother was in a wheelchair and had very limited mobility even in that, she slept downstairs in an old-fashioned hospital bed while the girls shared one upstairs bedroom and Nana had the other one. Their mother was the first to go when the girls were in high school; their great-grandmother passed when they were in their twenties.