Wish 01 - A Secret Wish Read Online Free PDF Page B

run into anyone else, she flipped open the phone and said, “Hello.”
    “Angie, where are you?” Colin asked worriedly. “You’ve been gone for almost an hour.”
    She thought it had only been a few minutes since she’d left the house to get wine. But she realized now she’d been driving around for a while. “I’m sorry. I got distracted.” She paused. “I don’t think I’m going to come back for a while. You better go out and get Uncle Rico his wine.”
    “What are you doing, Angela?”
    “Just taking a drive. I need some time to think.”
    “Come back here and think. I’ll send everyone home. We’ll sit down and talk.”
    “Are you going to change your mind?”
    Her question was met with tense silence. “No,” he said finally. “I could lie and tell you I’d think about it, but it wouldn’t be the truth. And we love each other too much to lie.”
    He was right. The time had come to put all their cards on the table. “I don’t think I’m going to change my mind either, Colin. I’ll be home later. Don’t wait up for me.”
    “It’s your birthday. Of course I’m going to wait up for you.”
    “That’s right, it’s my birthday. I’m thirty-five years old. I can take care of myself.” She ended the call before he could say anything else. She loved Colin, but right now he was standing between her and the baby she’d always wanted. She hated him for that. Why couldn’t he try one more time? It wasn’t as if it were his body going through the painful injections of hormones.
    She put the car back into gear and drove down the street. As she stopped at a light, she suddenly realized where she was – North Beach, the neighborhood she’d grown up in. The church where she and the rest of her Italian Catholic family went to Mass every Sunday was just down the block. She hadn’t been to Mass with the family in a couple of years. She’d told her mother and sisters that she and Colin were going to a new church closer to their house, but the truth was that they weren’t going to any church.
    The light turned green and she drove past the tall, massive building with the steeples and spires and found herself hitting the brake once again. She pulled into a spot nearby and shut off the engine. It was doubtful that the church would even be open on a Friday night. But maybe… maybe she’d just see. It was time she and God had a little chat.
    * * *
     
    Carole sat back against the cushy limo seat, her body shaking, her breath coming hard and fast. She’d almost been run over. If that woman hadn’t stopped her car in time, she’d be dead right now. God! She’d be dead . Forty years old and gone. She’d imagined dying a million times but it had never been like that – so sudden, so fast, and so irrevocable.
    Someone had been watching out for her. She’d been given another chance.
    To do what? She had a feeling she was supposed to know the answer to that question, but she didn’t. She was in new territory tonight. She’d done something she’d never done before: run out on her own life.
    Actually, that wasn’t completely true. She’d run away once before, on her twentieth birthday. She’d left the old neighborhood behind. She’d turned her back on friends and family to go after her dream.
    And now she was running away again.
    There would be repercussions. Blake would be furious. The guests would wonder where she was and why she’d left so abruptly. There would be speculation about whether she was sick, or if she’d drunk too much, or if – God forbid – she’d seen another woman kissing her husband. Greta Sorenson, San Francisco’s society columnist, would probably gossip about her sudden departure in tomorrow’s edition of the Tribune. What she really needed to do was go back to the party.
    It wasn’t too late. She’d only been gone a few minutes. She could laugh off her disappearance with some smooth explanation about fixing a broken strap on her high heel or something like that. The