Read Online The Rhythm of the August Rain by Gillian Royes - Free Book Online Page A

lived under a tarpaulin in the roofless lobby for two months last summer.
    A brave woman, or perhaps only a woman with nothing to lose, she’d stood up to Eric and Shad when they’d confronted her under the tarp, and needing the money to replace the thatch roof on the bar, Eric had ended up renting the island to her. When she’d left, he’d felt all life go out of the ruins, missed knowing he could row out to see her, missed the flickering light of her lamp he’d watch from his verandah as she moved around at night, cooking or getting ready for bed. He’d yearned for her every night ever since, thought about her as the waves crashed on the cliff beneath the porch, each tremor sending him deeper into reverie. Grieving her nightly had been the only reward to his day.
    Now everything was about to change. The island was going to go through a transition and Simone was coming back—to meet Shannon and Eve. He exhaled the Canadian maple, picturing the two women sitting in the bar, Simone on his right and Shannon on his left, civilized darts flying between them, and him, of course, skewered in the middle.

CHAPTER SIX
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    S hannon stood up from the breakfast table. “Are you going over to your dad’s today?”
    â€œBoring.” Eve was still in her nightclothes, the T-shirt she’d had on the day before and a pair of stretched-out cotton pants she always wore to bed. Her iPod was sitting on the table next to the glass of orange juice, her only concession to breakfast.
    â€œIt’s up to you.” Her mother took a last sip of her coffee. “I’m leaving in a few minutes. Maybe you can do something with Casey.”
    The wounded look was back. “I don’t know these people. You can’t just bring me here and dump me—”
    â€œI couldn’t leave you in Toronto either.” Shannon picked up the two cameras on the table and slung them over her shoulder.
    â€œYou’re always leaving me in Toronto. I don’t know what’s so different this time.”
    â€œYou can’t be trusted this time .” To hell with the counselor. Into her safari-jacket pockets Shannon dropped a small tape recorder and her cell phone. She was getting tired of measuring her words. She had a job to do, two jobs if she had to find out about this Katlyn woman, and Eve needed to know that.
    â€œI’ll play games on my iPad,” Eve grunted.
    â€œOr help your father in the restaurant.”
    â€œBabysitting an old man all day? I don’t think so.”
    â€œWell, you choose. I have to work.”
    â€œWhen are we going home? If it’s more than a week, I’ll kill myself.”
    â€œI told you, I don’t know yet. I have a lot of work to do and we’ll go home when it’s done—and stop being so dramatic. You know how many kids would love to be in Jamaica?”
    â€œWhen are you getting back?”
    â€œProbably midafternoon.” A horn tooted outside. “That’s Shad and the taxi driver.” Shannon planted a kiss on Eve’s cheek. “Be good, or at least be nice.”
    On her way through the living room, Shannon looked off at the morning-hazy mountains and bays stretching in front of the verandah. She was glad to leave her daughter’s sourness behind. If she could help it, she wasn’t going to let Eve interfere with her pleasure at being back on the island and back in Largo—a change she’d needed more than she’d realized. She’d told Jennifer and Lambert the evening before that she was feeling her shoulders slowly descending.
    â€œI’d forgotten that, whenever I’m here, I become like a Jamaican, kind of relaxed and easygoing,” she’d said, knowing it was a half-truth, knowing she couldn’t completely relax around Eve or Eric.
    Cool morning air greeted her on the verandah. At the top of the driveway a small, red sedan with shiny rims sat waiting, Shad waving out