Read Online Return to Me by Robin Lee Hatcher - Free Book Online Page A

two paperbacks, two leather-bound.
    She pulled one of the paperbacks off the shelf and riffled through the whispery-thin pages. There were notes in the margins, some in ink, some in pencil. Sentences and words were underlined or highlighted throughout.
    From the distant past — she would have been five, perhaps six at the time — came the memory of her parents, seated together on the sofa, her father reading aloud from a well-worn Bible. Her mother’s eyes were closed as she listened, her right hand resting on his knee.
    They’d been so happy. Content. United. In love. She wished she could step into that memory and become a permanent part of it. She wished she had more memories like it. Years and years and years of such memories. They were too few, these distant glimpses of her mother.
    Roxy slipped the Bible back into its spot.
    How different would her life be if Carol Burke had lived? Would Roxy have made the same choices, the kind that drove a wedge between her and her dad? Would her teen years have been less turbulent? Would she have wasted her money and her self- respect in Nashville?
    She released a deep sigh.
    “Was I always bullheaded?” she asked the empty room.
    Yes, came the answer from her conscience . Always.
    Roxy opened the glass door onto the redwood deck. Though it was still early in the day with a lingering nip in the breeze, the sun- shine held a promise of warmth. She turned her face to greet it.
    From a young age, she had struggled against authority. If some- one said she must go right, her immediate response was to go left. If they said yes, she dug in her heels and refused. If they said no to something, she did it anyway.
    “You constantly stumble over stools that aren’t there,” Grandma Ruth used to say to her.
    Why am I like that?
    Maybe, if she’d listened when her father cautioned her about rushing off to Nashville, she wouldn’t find herself where she was today.
    “Roxanne?”
    She drew a quick breath as she turned around. “I’m out on the deck, Dad.”
    A minute later, he stepped through the library door to join her. His eyes appraised her, then he narrowed the distance between them and embraced her. “You look like you feel better.”
    “I do.” She took a step back from him. “Fortuna stuffed me full of waffles.”
    Her father nodded. “We’ll be eating your favorites for some time to come.”
    “Dad, I — ” Her voice broke, and she paused to collect herself. “Thanks for the way you welcomed me back. You had every right to tell me to get out and never darken your door again.”
    “Oh, Roxy.” He shook his head, his expression sad. “Don’t you know me better than that?”
    Yes, she supposed she did. “The things I said to you before I left. The things I did in Nashville. You can’t — ”
    “You’re my precious daughter, Roxy. My baby girl. Nothing you did or will ever do could make me turn you away.”
    Her throat hurt. Her eyes stung. “You don’t know what I’ve done.” You don’t know how low I’ve sunk.
    Her father, a godly man if ever one existed, had a strong moral compass. Right was right and wrong was wrong. Did he ever wake up in the morning, filled with regret for what he’d done the night before? No. At least, not for the same reasons his youngest daughter did.
    “Roxy.” He gathered her back into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Knowing wouldn’t change a thing. I love you. Unconditionally.”
    Was there such a thing as unconditional love? She didn’t know if she believed in it. Others had said they loved her, but she’d ended up alone all the same.
    “Let’s go inside. You’re cold.”
    But it wasn’t the morning air that made her shiver. It was the memories . . . and the shame.
    With one arm around her shoulders, her father shepherded her through the library and into the solarium. This had been her mother’s favorite room. No matter what remodeling and redeco- rating occurred in the rest of the house, the solarium