Read Online Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story by Maureen Child - Free Book Online

him wanted to enjoy it, wanted to bury his hands in her thick hair and
himself
in her damp heat, he knew damn well that if he ever
did
get her into his bed, he’d lose her.
    He kicked at a rock on the road and sent it skittering into the high grass and wildflowers. Stopping dead, he lifted his head and stared up at the sky, already streaked with color as the sun slowly slid out of view. Clouds drifted, the wind kicked up, and the scent of the nearby lake filled him.
    He should be happy. This house was everything he’d once dreamed of. All he’d wanted as a kid was somewhere to belong. Now he had it and it wasn’t enough.
    He was a part of Chandler and yet separate. Still on the outside looking in, and there was no way past the invisible barriers that shielded him from the rest of the world.
    Of course, he’d erected those barriers himself so he had no one but himself to blame.
    “Small consolation,” he muttered. Reaching up, he pushed both hands through his hair, scraping his fingertips along his scalp, then let his arms drop as he headed for the workshop again. He’d lose himself in work. It was the one refuge he could still count on.
    STEVE SMITH FOR STATE SENATE .
    Jo winced as she looked at the poster tacked up outside Jackson Wyatt’s law office. She studied the face of the man in the picture and fought down the chill snaking along her spine. Her mouth went dry and her palms went damp as her gaze locked on Steve’s image.
    It was as if he were looking right into her soul.
    Smirking at her.
    God, ten years and it was just like yesterday. She could almost smell the stale odor of beer—hear the music pumping through the frat house—feel the wood floor beneath her back—
    “Jo?”
    She heard Jack’s voice as if it were floating up from the bottom of a well. Today drifted into a thick mist as yesterday came sharper, clearer.
    Her breath quickened.
    Her heart pounded.
    The little boy at her side grabbed her hand and shook it. “Jo!”
    As if it were a life rope tossed to a drowning woman, she latched on to the feel of Jack’s hand in hers and used it to pull herself out of her nightmare memories. Blinking, breathing, she looked down into his worried eyes.
    “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah,” she said, trying to convince herself as well as the boy. She’d survived ten years. Ten years of squelching memories, shattering dreams. She wasn’t about to let that man come back and take another bite out of her life at this late date.
    Deliberately not looking at the poster again, she reassured her little brother as she tugged him toward Terrino’s pizza parlor. “I’m fine, Jack.”
    Or she would be, she thought, if she could just pass her final exams next week, stop seeing posters of Steve Smith, keep Nana appeased while she was in town, survive her sisters’ pregnancies, keep herself from falling for Cash Hunter, and find a way to make her little brother happy.
    Sure.
    No problem.
    Nana Coletti was eighty-six years old, four feet nine inches tall, and a whirring buzz saw of activity. The woman never slowed down and didn’t see a reason why anyone else should, either.
    She still lived on her own in the tiny house in Omaha where she’d spent her entire adult life. She knew everyone for blocks around and she was the only person the grocery store would make home deliveries for. She baked on Sunday, did laundry on Monday, washed floors on Tuesday, windows on Wednesday. She volunteered at the local nursing home because she felt “sorry for those poor old people,” and she swore that red wine and olive oil were the secrets to longevity.
    And maybe, Jo thought, she had a point. After all, the tiny woman had outlived most of her friends and still showed no signs of slowing down. Or of mellowing, for that matter.
    “Josefina,” Nana said, sitting in Papa’s favorite chair and smoothing the skirt of her black dress across her knobby knees. “When isa your papa home again?”
    “A couple of weeks, he said.”
    “He