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

Pain crowded out the shock on her face. Her mouth opened and closed, but no other sound emerged.
    â€œJenn?” The irritating form of her name shielded him. Pissed him off. “What—”
    â€œI…I stopped by to see if I could help—”
    â€œNitpick is more like it,” a craggy voice grumped from behind her. Unsteady footsteps shuffled toward the door. “Years of no one giving a damn what goes on in this house, now it’s like a parade traipsing through here.”
    Neal braced himself, locking onto Jenn’s stare to keep his feet planted on the porch, instead of beating a path back to his car. Dread was too tame a wordfor the half-anxious, half-nauseous queasiness flooding his system as the door was yanked from her grasp and flung wide.
    â€œWho the—” His father’s tirade froze in midsentence when he caught sight of Neal.
    Neal couldn’t believe the man standing in front of him was his father. Unkempt beard, bloodshot eyes. The wasted pallor of someone who’d been bingeing on whatever vice drove him to not giving a shit the fastest.
    â€œYou son of a bitch,” his father spat out. Then the man squinted an accusing glare at the stunned woman wringing her hands between them. “You little—”
    â€œJenn has nothing to do with me being here.” It made no sense that Nathan would think she had, but rushing to Jenn’s defense was as instinctive as breathing in the impossibly fresh scent of her hair, taking her essence into his lungs when what he craved was to have her back in his empty arms.
    He reached toward her, wondering if some truly lost part of his mind had conjured her up. When she edged out of his grasp, he yanked his hand back, disgusted with himself.
    Get a grip! You’re scaring her to death.
    â€œI had no idea Jenn still lived in Rivermist,” he said. Keep looking at the old man . “Let alone that she’d be… Exactly what is she doing here?”
    â€œDriving me crazy, with all her harping, that’s what she’s doing. You here to take a crack at what’s left?”
    Jenn’s shoulders straightened as she built up steam to respond. Neal braced himself for another blast of her sweet voice. He finally looked her way again, forcing down his need for her. Forcing his “nothing gets in” expression to stay put.
    Her eyes filled with tears, striking him even harder than her voice had. She shoved her hands into the pockets of well-worn, lovingly fitted jeans, stared at the ground for a beat, then glanced back up with a broken smile.
    God, that smile.
    â€œI should be going,” she said as she escaped back down the shadowy hallway, toward the kitchen he’d once eaten in every morning. Her absence made it both possible and painful to breathe again.
    â€œYou got somethin’ to say?” his father demanded. “’Cause I’ve had just about enough of—”
    â€œBuford called me.” Neal refocused on his one and only reason for being there. “You look like hell, and the man’s worried.”
    Why bother with pleasantries? Whatever this moment was going to be, he’d known a warm reunion wasn’t on the menu.
    â€œYou volunteering to babysit, too?” His father straightened to his full height for the first time, a good inch taller than Neal. He raised a shaking handto push at the slimy hair falling into his eyes. The man smelled like a three-day binge. “You ready to give me your version of how much I got to live for?”
    Nathan braced a shoulder on the doorjamb and winced against what looked like a whopper of a hangover.
    Or was it?
    How much I got to live for…
    Neal looked to where Jenn had disappeared. Replayed the disjointed conversation spoken around him in the last few minutes.
    She had been helping his father out around the house, but from the looks of the dust and cobwebs coating everything in sight, not for terribly long. And