Read Online Forever by Linda Cassidy Lewis - Free Book Online Page B

in the dress she’d worn yesterday flashed in his mind. He smiled and touched the phone through his jeans pocket. How would she react to being woken at dawn? Lindsay was asleep. Julie would be gone for a couple of hours more, at least.
    (It’s wrong to call Annie from here.)
    He lifted his hand off his phone.
    (Annie should not be in your life at all.)
    His whistle for Max muffled but couldn’t drown out that second reminder from his conscience. He pushed Annie out of his mind and turned to go back inside.
    Pain hit his head like a hammer blow. “ Goddammit .”
    With his head now aching like the devil, he repealed his earlier coffee decision, impatiently filling his mug before the brewing cycle could finish. He took two Excedrin from the bottle in the cupboard and, as he did most mornings, he carried his coffee to the table in the breakfast nook.
    The light from the bay window behind him filtered through the room like smoke, softening all the edges and bathing the room in illusion. Tom felt he was a ghost haunting the silent rooms. He sat frozen by the eeriness of that thought until a white-hot surge of anger burned it away.
    Why the hell should I feel like a ghost in my own house ?
    Well now, there’s a laugh. He’d saved for it, customized it, and paid for it, but it wasn’t really his house. This was Julie’s house, and always had been. He slept and ate here. He barbecued on the patio that he’d laid brick by brick, and drank beer in this very room as he watched the games on his big-screen HDTV. But did that make him any more than a resident here? Had he ever truly lived here? The throb in his head increased when the thought struck him that he hadn’t been living at all—for a long time.
    Tom was still sitting at the table when Julie walked in twenty minutes later.
    “Oh,” she said. “I thought you would be gone already.”
    “Were you trying to sneak in?”
    She laughed. “Of course not. What I meant was I hoped you’d still be here, but I thought I might be too late.”
    “I thought you’d still be sleeping off the wine.”
    “Funny.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Want me to fix you some breakfast?”
    “I’ll get something later.”
    She sat down opposite him. “How’d it go last night?”
    He stopped breathing and looked at her blankly.
    “The job? Lindsay said you were having dinner with a client or something.”
    “Oh. No, it was just some guys . . . from work.” He took a gulp from his cup, nearly gagging at the now cold brew. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
    “Where did that come from?”
    “It’s something that came up last night . . . in conversation.”
    “How drunk were you guys?” She started to laugh then caught herself. “Are you serious?”
    He shrugged. “Just a question.”
    “Okay. Well, no, I don’t. We only get one chance. Isn’t that what you believe?”
    The look on Julie’s face made it plain what she expected his answer to be. He stood. “Yeah, sure. The guy was talking about a movie he saw. I’d better get to work. You should go back to sleep. You look worn out.”
    He kissed her good-bye. On the way to his truck it hit him that Julie did look more tired than she should have after one late night. And if he’d been paying more attention to her, he would have noticed before now. She was right, we only get one chance. And it was time he made more of an effort not to blow his.
    * * *
    Annie left the house at seven o’clock to take her turn at the grocery shopping. She’d rushed through that, stowed it all at home, and drove off again. She was on her way downtown. Her destination was the central branch of the library to search out evidence of Jacob and Maggie’s existence. She’d found online sites with possible help, but you had to pay to use them. Besides, with only a couple of names for clues, she needed help to know how to search for the proof she needed.
    She wasn’t stupid. Tom had tried to hide it, but he resisted that they