Read Online Goodness and Light by Patty Blount - Free Book Online Page A

dessert for teenagers and volunteered hours of his time to charities like SFG—and she could never keep him. Didn’t deserve to keep him. And even as he pulled things from her she didn’t know she could give, she knew she’d have to say goodbye to him and add that pain to the list she’d begun the day her mother died.

    L ucas strode through the frigid night air, hands in his pockets, mind still swirling with thoughts of Elena.
    The look on her face after he’d kissed her—damn, he’d never get it out of his head. Her eyes—those enormous milk chocolate eyes of hers spilled all her secrets. There’d been fear. Desire. Those he knew. But there was more... something he couldn’t pinpoint—words spoken in a language he hadn’t yet mastered. It was there, right at the front of his brain, but just out of reach. Whatever it was, it was something familiar. Something he knew . More like resignation. And when she started babbling about not being sad, it was all he could do to not jump on top of Kara’s kitchen counter and shout it was the best kiss of his life.
    His steps faltered. The best kiss of his life... yes. Yes, he decided. It definitely was. Until the second one. A laugh tumbled out of his mouth. Al was always lecturing him about his sexual habits. Thought it was terrible that his encounters were nothing more substantial than casual hookups or friends-with-benefits, blah, blah. Al said when a woman finally came along who Lucas could fall for, it would be like getting kicked between the eyes by a Rockette in tap shoes.
    He found a seat on the PATH train and rubbed his forehead. When the significance of that gesture dawned on him, he muttered a curse and slouched low in his seat, thinking about his mother’s snowflake. Part of him wasn’t entirely sure if the reason he kept volunteering at SFG wasn’t to find that girl—some pathetic attempt to use crystal snowflakes as a pair of glass slippers. God knew he was no prince, especially after what he’d done—
    He snapped upright.
    The look in Elena’s eyes... he finally recognized it. It was the same look he used to wear until Al helped him deal.
    Guilt.

    E arly Sunday morning, Elena headed off to do the rest of the grocery shopping she’d planned to do the day before. The weather was bright but cold so she burrowed deeper into her coat, tugged her hat low over her ears and started walking, excited to finish her errand so she could see Lucas later. The sun caught the spire on the new One World Trade Center, a spear through the clouds, and for one very long minute, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
    “Elena?”
    She whipped around, found Luke’s friend standing behind her.
    “Oh, hi, Al.”
    A smile and a nod. “You remembered.” He stepped closer, cupped his hands and blew on them. “You okay? You’re not lost or anything, are you?”
    She’d been lost for many years now. “No, no. I’m right where I am supposed to be.” On the edge of Hell.
    “Me, too!” Al said, his face bright.
    She smiled tightly. “Well, great. I should get going. See you at SFG.”
    He pulled an old, beat up baseball card out of his pocket. “Look what I just found.” He smiled at it like a proud new father at a baby.
    Elena stared at the card. “A baseball card.”
    “My dad loved his baseball cards. Kids today don’t care about collecting baseball cards—I sure didn’t. So what are the odds of finding one of these on a street nowadays?”
    Elena glanced at the trash that lined the street, awaiting pick up, and figured those odds were pretty damn good. “So you’re saying this is a sign from your dad?”
    Al shrugged. “I like to think so. What about you? What kind of signs remind you of your mom?”
    The look on her face when I told her I hated her guts . Elena shook her head. “The usual.”
    “No, I mean what were the things that made your mom happiest?”
    Playing along, Elena thought for a moment. “Well, she loved to play cards.