Read Online While She Was Sleeping... by Isabel Sharpe - Free Book Online Page B

player bum, came from money? “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    Melanie grimaced. “I had some adolescent idea that I wanted you to trust me no matter who the guy was.”
    “Aw, Mel…”
    “I know. I have to earn the trust. And I will. You’ll see.”
    Alana murmured encouragement, feeling uneasy. She hated hearing her sister talk about her as if she were an ogre parent. But maybe she acted like one. She’d certainly felt often enough as if she had to be one. “Is that why neither of you is worried about the ‘between jobs’ thing?”
    “Yup. He doesn’t need a job to begin with.” Melanie fished a cottony piece of white bread out of a plastic bag and dropped it into the toaster. “You should see his house in Whitefish Bay. Only a block from the lake and about a bajillion bedrooms.”
    “Ah.” Alana smiled weakly, feeling sick. She’d treated him like a loser down to his last dollar.
    No, wait, he’d acted like one.
    Why?
    She rinsed the now bright-white sink and dried her hands. The answer was obvious. And painful. Because she’d assumed. Judged. Jumped to conclusions about his character and motivations. And in return for that favor, he’d played her like a banjo.
    Ouch.
    “He was a successful lawyer, but had health issues, so he chucked it.” Melanie grabbed the barely browned piece of toast from the toaster and smeared it with sweetened peanut butter, leaving the crumb and peanut-butter gobbed knife sticking out of the jar. “He promised himself he’d take six months off to rest, then start on something less driven. I guess his dad and brothers are all workaholics and Sawyer felt like he was turning into all of them.”
    “Oh.” What else could she say? Money didn’t guarantee good character, but this man wasn’t who she thought she’d met. Lawyer meant graduate degree. Most of Melanie’s boyfriends thought junior year of high school was plenty of education. Her sister would have it made if her plans went through and she and Sawyer ended up together. Not that money was the most important thing, but security…she and Melanie would never, ever take that for granted, even after so many safe, good years with Gran and Grandad.
    “Sawyer has three older brothers, Finn, Tom and Mark.” Melanie bit into the toast, crunched happily, looking excited and starry-eyed. “Guess what author his dad was into?”
    “Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain.” Alana drank the last of her coffee and decided she’d better eat something to settle her churning stomach. Not peanut butter and tissue paper-white bread. “Do you have any bran cereal?”
    “Do I look like someone who has bran cereal?” Melanie pretended to be insulted. “You want prune juice, too, granny? Guess what. Don’t have that, either.”
    Alana stalked to the cereal cabinet. She liked high-fiber breakfasts because she stayed full longer and had less trouble keeping her weight in check. She wasn’t like Melanie who could eat sticks of butter all day long dipped in chocolate batter and deep-fried and not gain an ounce.
    “Lucky Charms? Cocoa Puffs?” She stared in exaggerated horror, pushed boxes aside. “Oh, thank God, Raisin Bran.”
    “Raisin Bran?” Melanie frowned, mouth full of peanut butter. “Better check the expiration.”
    “December of this year. It’s fresh.” Alana got down a blue-rimmed bowl, pulled open a drawer for a familiar spoon. It felt good being in this house again; it felt like home. “Maybe one of your old boyfriends was a closet bran-eater.”
    “Maybe.” She shrugged as if she thought it extremely unlikely. “So when are you leaving?”
    “Want me out of the way before you jump Sawyer, huh.” The joke came out more bitterly than she’d intended; she dumped too much cereal in her bowl and had to put some back. She knew she was intruding on Melanie’s life, but her sister’s impatience to get rid of her hurt.
    “No, I know you’re anxious to get to Florida, and since you get now that Sawyer