Read Online Twice in a Lifetime by Marta Perry - Free Book Online Page A

ill-prepared for the role he had to fill.
    Georgia sat next to her father, her face relaxing when he said something in a low, relaxing tone. For just an instant he envied their closeness.
    “Georgia’s always been her daddy’s girl,” Miz Callie said softly. “She missed him terribly when he had to be away.”
    “Away?”
    “Ashton was in the Coast Guard for thirty years. The boys missed him, too, of course, but it affected Georgia the most.”
    So the Bodines were a military family. That went a long way toward explaining Miz Callie’s reluctance to confide in them about her plans.
    “Tell me, Mr. Harper. Where were you raised?” Delia Bodine’s question, cutting across the table, startled him.
    “Boston,” he said. And not raised so much as thrown out to strive or fail on his own. “I lived there all my life until we moved down here.”
    “Let me think.” She gazed at her husband. “Ashton, do we know anybody in Boston?”
    “There was that Carlton boy who was in Cole’s year at the Citadel. He was from Boston.”
    “Margo Lawton’s daughter married someone from Boston, I believe,” Delia said. “Or Cambridge, maybe. Now, what was his name?”
    He recognized what was going on. His partner had explained to him the particularly Southern passion that could be encapsulated in one question: Who are your family? They wanted to place people.
    Well, they wouldn’t place him, no matter how they tried. “Cambridge is near Boston, isn’t it?” Delia fixed a cool
    stare on him. “Was your home anywhere close?”
    “More cake, Miz Callie?” Georgia reached for her grandmother’s plate.
    Delia broke off her questioning to stare at her daughter’s hand, gasping a little. “Georgia! Your ring! Don’t tell me you’ve lost it. What on earth will James say?”
    Georgia snatched her hand back as if she could hide the evidence. “I didn’t lose it, Mamma.”
    “Well, then, where is it?”
    Delia had forgotten about him. The relief he felt was tempered with regret that his reprieve had come at Georgia’s expense.
    Georgia put down the plate she was holding. “I gave it back to James. The engagement is off.”
    How much it cost her to say that bluntly in front of all of them, he couldn’t imagine.
    “What do you mean?” Delia Bodine looked as horrified as if her daughter had announced that she was taking up bank robbery. “How could you—”
    “Enough, Delia.” Georgia’s father didn’t raise his voice, but it held a tone of command. “We can talk about this later. I’m sure Georgia had a good reason for her decision.”
    Georgia’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “Thank you, Daddy.”
    He’d like to say something comforting, but it wasn’t his place. Maybe the best thing he could do for her was make himself scarce, so the Bodine family could have this out in private.
    “About done, Lindsay?” He slid off the bench. “I think we should head for home.”
    “I don’t want to go yet,” Lindsay wailed. “It’s not late.
    Why do we have to go?”
    He resisted the urge to explain and held out his hand to his daughter. “It’s time.”
    For an instant he thought she’d argue. Then, pouting, she slid off the bench.
    “Say good-night to everyone,” he prompted. “Good night,” she mumbled, gaze on her feet.
    He was conscious of Delia’s critical eye on his child, and irritation flared. She had no right to criticize. Currently, she wasn’t doing such a great job with her own daughter.
    Georgia leaned against her father, and Ashton Bodine put his arm around her.
    Matt said good-night, wondering whether he’d ever have that kind of closeness with his child.

    Georgia stretched, cracking one eye open to glare at the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. She always put the shade up when she slept in this bedroom so that she could see the stars when she fell asleep and be awakened by the sunlight on the waves. But today she could have easily pulled the covers back over her