Read Online The Invitation by Jude Deveraux - Free Book Online Page A

Chandler, were terrorizing each other and making enough noise to cause an earthquake, but there was no sign of Billy. His mother, calm in the midst of chaos, saw Jackie and pointed to the side of the porch.
    She found Billy there, sitting alone, reading a book about airplanes, and as Jackie looked at him she thought that maybe she did love him just a little bit. When solemn little Billy, who rarely smiled, saw her coming toward him, his face lit up with joy. “You never come to see me,” he said, and the way he said it made her feel guilty. Maybe she’d been too hard on him. After all, they’d had some laughs together.
    He looked at her suitcase. “You’re going away with them, aren’t you?” There were tears in his voice.
    â€œYes, I am. And you’re the only one I’m telling. I left my mother a note.”
    Billy nodded in an adult way. “She wouldn’t want you to go.”
    â€œShe might make me stay.”
    â€œYes, she might.”
    She was used to his old man ways, but she could see his sadness. Reaching out her hand, she ruffled his dark hair. “I’ll see you around, kid,” she said and started to turn away, but Billy flung his arms around her waist and held her tight.
    â€œI love you, Jackie. I will love you forever and ever.”
    Dropping down on her knees, she hugged him back. Then, holding him away from her, she smoothed back his hair. “Well, maybe I love you a little bit, too.”
    â€œWill you marry me?”
    Jackie laughed. “I’m going to marry some fat old man and go see the world.”
    â€œYou can’t,” he whispered. “I saw you first.”
    Standing up, Jackie looked down at him, at the tear streaks down his cherub cheeks. “I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you again someday, kid. I’m sure of it.” Even Jackie didn’t believe those words; she planned to leave this one-horse town and never return. She was going to see the world! On impulse, the way she did most things, she pulled her blue and gold school pin from her blouse and handed it to him. What did she need with a pin from a nowhere school in a nowhere town?
    Billy was staring so hard at the pin in his palm that he didn’t realize Jackie had started to walk away, walk at her normal pace, which was closer to a run. “Will you write to me?” he called, racing after her, trying to keep up but failing.
    â€œSure, kid,” she called over her shoulder. “Sure I’ll write.”
    But of course she never did. In fact, she hadn’t thought of Billy more than half a dozen times over the following years, and then only when she was with a group that was laughing and comparing small towns. To the accompaniment of raucous laughter, she’d tell the story of little Billy Montgomery who had plagued her from the time she was twelve until she’d escaped at eighteen. A couple of times she’d wondered what had happened to him, but she knew he had the Montgomery money and connections, so he could do anything he liked.
    â€œProbably married now and has half a dozen kids,” some guy said once.
    â€œNot possible,” Jackie said. “Billy’s just a kid. I used to change his diapers.”
    â€œJackie, I think you ought to do a little arithmetic.”
    To her horror she had realized that “little” Billy Montgomery was about twenty-five years old. “You’re making me feel old,” she’d laughed. “It couldn’t have been more than three years since I left Chandler.” She groaned when Charley reminded her that they had been married for seventeen years.
    So now, many years after she’d left Chandler, she was standing face to face with the little boy who had flung himself on her and sworn that he’d love her forever. Only he didn’t look too much like the little boy she remembered. Six feet one if he was an inch, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, very