Read Online The Prodigal's Return by Anna DeStefano - Free Book Online

away here ever since.”
    â€œYou responsible for my brain tumor, too?” Not a flicker of emotion colored his face. “Why do you want to buy more trouble? The way I hear it, you’ve had enough of your own to last you a lifetime.”
    â€œYes, I have.” The hollowness inside Jenn threatened to consume her. Without missing a beat, she shoved the emotions back and refocused on the job she had to do here. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, sitting in this house, day after day, hating yourself and everyone else in the world. You used to be part of this community. Now no one even knows who you are. No one knows you’re sick.”
    â€œI don’t care what anybody else knows. I haven’t wanted a thing from this town for years.”
    â€œThat’s good, ’cause I don’t see anyone else beating down your door but me.”
    â€œThat’s true enough,” he said with a wry chuckle. A spark of interest lit his bloodshot eyes.
    She hid her smile of relief and played the game. “Let’s just say I owe you. If you’ve got to hate someone for what happened to Neal, why not give yourself a break and hate me for a while. Put me to work, let me help you out around here. You can beas grumpy and impossible to get along with as you like.”
    He thunked his beer to the table. His half-drunk beer, she noticed.
    â€œYou want me to let you keep bothering me, because I hate you? You want to come over here and work yourself to death cleaning up this mess, and all I have to do in return is treat you really, really badly?”
    â€œYep.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair.
    She was biting off an enormous responsibility. As if tailing Traci Carpenter wasn’t enough to keep her busy.
    Have you completely lost your mind?
    â€œWhat’s the catch?” Lawyer’s eyes drilled her.
    Jenn’s blood chilled at the suspicion she saw there. Hard work and putting up with his attitude were a small price to pay for the chance to shine a little light back into this man’s life. Even if it meant spending more time in this place, with the past echoing even closer now that she was inside.
    â€œThe catch is, you have to start taking care of yourself.” She gave him her negotiating face. Every social worker had one. “And the drinking stops. Where are you going to find a better deal than that?”
    He picked up the beer again, eyeing its contents. Then with a wicked grin and a flick of his wrist, he hurled the can toward the trash. Beer sprayed themand the wall, then it seeped onto the floor as the can came to rest.
    â€œIt’s an idea I could warm up to.” He leaned back, crossing his arms in a pose exactly like hers.
    â€œThen we have a deal?”
    She refused to wipe at the alcohol trickling down her hair and face. Refused to sink into the denial crying deep inside her. Nathan Cain couldn’t be dying. He just couldn’t. Instead she held out her hand. Each moment here, with memories of Neal lurking from every shadow, would be agony. But she’d find a way to make this work. Just like she’d somehow make sure things worked out for Traci.
    What would a few more ghosts from her past hurt? Bring ’em on! She was suddenly spoiling for a fight.
    â€œDeal.” He swung his arm wide, clasping her hand in a viselike grip. “Sounds like more fun than I’ve had in years.”
    Â 
    N EAL STARED IN DISBELIEF at the house he’d grown up in. Decay shrouded everything in sight, more than living up to Buford’s warning about his father’s lifestyle. His gaze dropped again to the footprints forever preserved in concrete at his feet. Two pairs of footprints, one set large and square, the other smaller and clearly more feminine, left in the drying cement on a steamy summer afternoon years ago.
    His and Jenn’s last summer together.
    The concrete was cracked and