Read Online That Runaway Summer by Darlene Gardner - Free Book Online Page B

fifteen years younger than his fifty-four, but could have easily passed for thirty. She wore a pale-pink-and-white sleeveless dress that showed off her golden tan and her long legs, made to look longer still by strappy high-heeled sandals. The honey highlights in her shoulder-length brown hair caught the sun as she came toward him.
    Damn, his wife was a beautiful woman.
    Her makeup, not that she needed any, was perfect. Pink lipstick that made her lips glisten and eye makeup that caused eyes she said were too small to appear larger.
    She covered her ears, prompting him to stop staring and switch off the motor. The neighborhood went abruptly silent.
    “Well, that’s better.” She tilted her head, her brows coming together as she surveyed him. He felt a bead of sweat slide down his face. “Are you sure about not hiring a lawn service? I hate that you’re spending a vacation day on yard work.”
    “I’m tougher than I look,” he joked. The truth of the matter was that even with his six-figure salary they needed to save money somewhere with the rate of Arianne’s spending. Besides, he enjoyed working in the yard. Sometimes it even helped take his mind off Jill and Chris. “Speaking of which, you look fantastic. Where are you headed?”
    “Didn’t I tell you?” She patted her already perfect hair into place. “There’s a charity luncheon for the women’s shelter at the Marriott.”
    She probably had told him, but Arianne was always heading off to one function or another. It was hard to keep all of them straight.
    “I’m going to stick around here,” Mark said, then lowered his voice even though there was no one else within sight. “That private investigator’s supposed to call.”
    “He just did,” Arianne said. “That’s one of the things I came out here to tell you. You can call him back any time.”
    Mark had to fight not to rush for the house, so eager was he for the man he’d hired to help him put things right again. “Why didn’t you get him to hold?”
    “He doesn’t have any news.” Arianne’s voice was equally soft, and he felt his chest deflate into what was now a familiar ache. There’d been no breaks in the case since they’d narrowly missed intercepting Jill and Chris in South Carolina. “Although maybe that’s for the best.”
    “The best?” Mark could barely believe he’d heard her correctly. “How could you say that?”
    “Oh, that came out all wrong.” She bit her lower lip with her pretty, straight teeth. “All I meant is that Jill’s better with Chris than I’ll ever be. You know what a hard time he had warming up to me and how he tried his best to break us up.”
    “He’s my son, Arianne,” Mark said firmly. “He belongs with me.”
    “I know he does.” She touched her chest and sighed softly. “Never mind what I said. Of course you feel that way. It was awful of Jill to run off with him like that. I still don’t know what she was thinking.”
    Mark remembered his disbelief when Ray Williams, the guy Jill had been dating, phoned to say she was planning to pick up Chris from summer camp and leave town. The nightmare hadn’t become real until a camp counselor confirmed his daughter had already come and gone.
    “She was thinking she was protecting her brother.” No matter the trouble Jill had caused him, Mark still had a hard time faulting her.
    “Chris doesn’t need protecting,” Arianne said, not for the first time.
    “I know that, and you know that.” Mark didn’t have to add that the social worker who’d investigated the case knew it, too. “Chris can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”
    “Jill must know he has a history of lying,” Arianne said, covering ground they’d gone over before.
    Chris was a good kid, but he’d been crying wolf since his mother’s death. Mark had finally taken his son to a child psychologist, who explained that Chris was trying to get attention.
    Mark loved his son and had tried his best to provide the