Heart of the Night Read Free Page A

the A.M . You’ve been listening to Foster and Lloyd, the Judds, and T.G. Sheppard. Stick with me at 95.3 FM, WCIC Providence, kickin’ back now to an old favorite by John Denver.…”
    She sighed, willing herself right into the speaker, through the wires and transmitters, and into Jared Snow’s soul for a minute. He was so calm, so together. If only she could be that way. But her stomach was twisting, and her hands would have been shaking if they hadn’t been clutching her legs so tightly.
    And Will, bless him, was sound asleep in the bedroom.
    She knew how he did it. He took pills. And maybe rest was what he needed more than anything. His world was crumbling around him. The pressure was extraordinary. The Vandermeers had been a viable force in Rhode Island circles practically since Roger Williams had established the state. Will had been born wealthy, he was used to being wealthy, and he couldn’t conceive of life any other way.
    Megan could. Her father had been a truck driver. He had died when she was two, after his truck went off a bridge in an ice storm. Her mother had gone to work, but there was not much money in unskilled labor, even less once the bills had been paid. By the time Megan turned fourteen, she was working to help out where she could, but theirs had been a losing battle. Any raise in pay that either of them received was promptly eaten up by a hike in the rent or in the cost of gas or clothing or food. Money slipped through their hands like water rather than accumulating and then working for them, as Megan’s mother would have had it do. Money bred money, she told Megan, and she only had to point across the bay to Newport to illustrate her point. “Those people don’t work,” she had said. “They invest their money, reinvest the profits, and live off the interest. That’s the way I want to live. That’s the way I want you to live.”
    To that end, she had applied Megan to the prestigious Amsterdam Academy in Bristol. Judged bright and ambitious by the admissions department, Megan was accepted on full scholarship. Her mother had figured that three years among the East Coast elite would open doors for Megan. She had long since realized that her own salvation would come through Megan’s.
    While at the academy, Megan befriended the cream of Newport society and long after graduation, her friendship with the Smith girls endured. It was at a grand party on the Smiths’ front lawn that Megan had been introduced to William Vandermeer III. Though he wasn’t Newport, he came close. When Megan married him, both mother and daughter moved into the elegant Vandermeer mansion on the East Side of Providence.
    We almost made it, mama, Megan thought, and began a rapid rocking back and forth.
    â€œTakin’ it slow and easy in the wee hours at 95.3 FM, WCIC Providence, where the country sounds are always cool. That was John Denver, and this is Lee Greenwood. Jared Snow here, in the heart of the night, I’m listenin’ with ya.…”
    Her rocking became less frenetic as she took a breath, let it out in a shaky sigh, then looked at the wall speaker as though it were the matching face to the voice she’d heard.
    She wasn’t in love with Jared Snow. She loved Will. But just then Jared was the one who gave her what she needed. He was an escape from the tension that constantly gnawed at her, a breath of stability in a shaky world.
    With her eyes closed, she continued rocking. The music from the radio washed over her as the water from the jacuzzi should have done, and beyond the music was the memory of Jared Snow’s voice. She let it take her from one song to the next, clearing her mind of everything but the dream it embodied. Comfort. Security. He seemed to offer so much, but as the minutes passed, the feeling faded as the rest of her dreams had already done, and she was bereft. Suddenly the porcelain beneath her felt cold. Pressing her