Read Online Indefensible by Pamela Callow - Free Book Online

you two that lobster dinner.”
    Lucy’s face lit up. “Yeah. Sweet!”
    Elise grinned at her. “Now it’s time for bed. You need to put away your memoirs.”
    Lucy placed the ribbon marker precisely between the pages, which Elise noted were crammed with her loopy, generous handwriting.
    â€œNo peeking,” Lucy chided, stuffing the journal under her pillow.
    â€œOf course not.” Elise meant it. “I would never pry. That’s your private stuff, honey.”
    Lucy slid her lean limbs under the sheets. Elise marveled at the perfect symmetry of her daughter’s body. She was stretching out, her body morphing into a young woman’s. Once again, Elise’s protective instincts rose, honed recently to quivering alertness. Lucy was still achild despite her changing body. She was just becoming aware of her effect on boys.
    She reached over, turning off Lucy’s iPod and her bedside light. “Have you taken out your contacts?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBrushed your teeth?”
    â€œYe-e-s!” Lucy said with the righteous indignation of a child who had remembered this time.
    Elise bent over and kissed Lucy’s cheek. Her skin was so smooth. “Sleep well, darling.”
    â€œI love you, Mum,” Lucy murmured.
    Those words gave Elise more comfort than anything. She just needed to keep it that way. She walked through the darkness to the door. “Love you, too. See you in the morning.”
    â€œUh-huh,” Lucy said, already drifting into sleep. Her daughter had an uncanny ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat that Elise envied.
    She padded across the hall. Nick’s room was in darkness, but she knew he’d be lounging on his bed, surfing his laptop. She hesitated outside his door. The urge to talk to him about his behavior with Randall was almost overwhelming. He couldn’t provoke his father like that.
    But he’d be quick to throw it all back in her face. And she knew her actions had been just as deplorable.
    She put her hand on the brass doorknob. It was cool under her fingers. It seemed to her that Nick was holding his breath on the other side of the room.
    What would she say to him?
    Nothing that he hadn’t heard a million times.
    She could just picture his face when she opened thedoor. The deliberately blank eyes. The sullen, unsmiling face. The reluctance to greet her.
    Fatigue washed through her. She did not have the energy for yet another fight this evening.
    There was time enough tomorrow. When the sun was up and their stomachs were full of her special blueberry buttermilk pancakes, the events of today could be discussed with calmness. Maybe she’d even joke about it with Nick to take the sting away.
    Her fingers slid from the doorknob and she walked slowly to her own room.
    She shed her clothes and threw on a light cotton nightgown in white with pale blue trim. Her breasts swayed heavily under the gown as she carried her overnight bag into the bathroom.
    It took only minutes to get ready for bed. Most of her eye makeup had come off as a result of her weeping. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her blond hair, always wavy and full, was tangled around her face. Her eyes, puffy. Her skin, drawn.
    This was not the way she wanted to live her life.
    She took out her contacts, tossing them in the garbage, and caught her reflection in the mirror again.
    Her face was satisfyingly blurred.

10
    Friday, 10:35 p.m.
    T he light breeze stirred the tendrils by Kate’s ears, tickling her neck. She stood on the curb outside the Shoe, waiting to flag a cab. It wasn’t cold, but she shivered. Every nerve was on edge, her body suffused with the heat of her reaction to Curtis. Now, away from him, the breeze played with her nerve endings.
    A cab cruised down the street. She raised her hand, then lowered it. The cab’s light was off. She exhaled in frustration. All the taxis were full by the time they reached her;