Read Online She Loves Me Not by Wendy Corsi Staub - Free Book Online Page A

decade she’s known her sister-in-law, Leslie has been through at least four The Ones.
    But Rose has to admit, this time it seems like the real thing. Leslie doesn’t have a diamond ring yet, but she swears Peter is saving for one. And they have a deposit on a wedding hall in Great Neck.
    The wind gusts again. Rose turns toward the house with a shiver. On her way toward the steps, she remembers the mail and heads to the box instead.
    She can’t help feeling a little uneasy as she opens it today.
    And when she spots several red rectangular envelopes inside, her stomach turns over. Pulling them out gingerly, she turns one over . . .
    And sees that it’s addressed to Miss Jenna Larrabee, in her mother-in-law’s distinctive handwriting.
    The second card is for Leo.
    The third, for Rose herself.
    Valentines, undoubtedly.
    She smiles and goes into the house at last, unaware that she is being watched by two pairs of eyes.
    C hristine watches her neighbor disappear inside, puzzling over Rose’s journey around the perimeter of the house. She seemed to be looking for something.
    Maybe she dropped something, or one of the kids lost a mitten, or—
    Or maybe you really need to get a life.
    Maybe Ben is right. Maybe she should be volunteering at a senior citizens’ home or something. When the highlight of her afternoon is the next-door neighbor’s return, something is obviously missing in her life.
    Well, no kidding. You know something is missing . . . and you know what it is.
    A baby.
    Christine stares vacantly into the snowy yard, reliving the confrontation she had with Ben late last night, before he went storming out of the house. She fell asleep and never heard him come home or back to bed. She stirred only when she heard Ben leave for the train as dawn’s light filtered in through a crack in the bedroom drapes.
    Apparently, he isn’t too sick with the flu to commute to a grueling day at the office—only too sick to cuddle with his wife.
    He called to check in from work just past noon, as he often does. She didn’t pick up. He left a message on the answering machine: “Christine? Christine? Are you home? Where are you?”
    Let him wonder.
    Let him worry a little.
    But he probably won’t. Ben isn’t a worrier. Even in the darkest days last year, he remained steadfastedly—almost irritatingly—optimistic. He went to work and he ate three square meals and he slept soundly through each night, while Christine’s world was caving in all around her.
    It must be nice, she thinks, gazing out the window. It must be nice not to—
    A sudden flicker of movement catches the corner of her eye.
    Startled, she turns her head toward the Larrabees’ yard. Something is stirring in the dense evergreen shrubbery in the far corner.
    A squirrel?
    A bird?
    No, something larger.
    Christine swears she can see the silhouette of a human figure there amidst the branches.
    Her heart begins to pound.
    Are her eyes playing tricks on her in the fading afternoon light?
    Why on earth would anybody be lurking in the neighbors’ rhododendrons?
    She closes her eyes, rubs them, and looks at the spot again.
    This time, it’s empty.
    Good, Christine thinks, relieved—before she notices that the boughs are still swaying gently, and there’s no breeze.

Chapter Three
    P ulling into the parking lot of her Patchogue apartment complex at last, Leslie searches for Peter’s red truck.
    There it is, parked at the far end, which means he hasn’t been waiting here long. The spots closest to the building entrance fill quickly, especially in lousy weather like this.
    Sunrise Highway is slick tonight; what is normally a fifteen-minute drive back from Laurel Bay took her twice as long. Eager to see Peter, Leslie had to fight the urge to step on the gas and venture out into the passing lane to sail by the slow-moving traffic on the right. There was a time, not so long