Heartbreaker Read Free Page A

not see. As Lynn watched, it dove beneath the surface with scarcely a ripple, its sleek brown body disappearing from view.
    Enchanted by the display, Lynn stepped from beneath the overhanging foliage into a scene of breath-stealing beauty. A wide creek, its water a deep green, flowed over smooth stones toward a rocky staircase some fifty yards away. There it tumbled for nearly twelve feet into a noisy, misty froth of white before continuing its quiet journey down the mountain.
    Perched on boulders overlooking the waterfall were two slender, jeans-clad teenage girls. A third, blond and petite and laughing, was thigh-deep in the center of the stream just above the waterfall, legs braced apart, blue Tshirted back resting securely against the white Tshirted chest of a tawny-maned, bronzed-skinned pretty boy.
    Rory and Jess Feldman. Lynn’s eyes narrowed. Despite all appearances to the contrary—she was a hair taller than Lynn now, and her childish wiriness had recently been augmented by budding curves—Rory was still a child at fourteen. A boy-crazy child.
    Jess Feldman, on the other hand, was no boy. He had to be at least thirty. And, unbelievably, the no-good so-and-so had his arms around her daughter.

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    F OR A MOMENT Lynn did nothing, just watched in silence as her fingers curled into fists at her sides.
    Jess Feldman’s big, tanned hands covered Rory’s smaller ones. He guided her in slowly arcing overhead and then snapping a thin bamboo fishing pole. The neon-green line looped and sang as it spun out. With a splash the sinker struck the water about twenty feet from the pair and promptly sank.
    The girls on the rock applauded. Laughing, Rory turned in Jess’s arms to say something to him, saw her mother on the bank, and froze. Following her arrested gaze, Jess glanced around, discovered Lynn and his brother, and waved.
    Nonchalantly. Friendly-casual. Like there was nothing in the scene to upset the mother of the innocent child in his embrace.
    “Jess is good with kids,” Owen said comfortably in her ear.
    Lynn registered that remark with disbelief, never taking her eyes off the pair in the water. “Good with kids” was not how she would have described Jess Feldman’s demeanor.
    “Rory—and the other girls—are not kids. They’re teenagers. Young women,” Lynn said sharply, and beckoned to her daughter.
    Rory scowled. Lynn steeled herself for an embarrassing scene if she insisted Rory come out of the water. She wondered, as she so often did these days, just when this hell-bent on self-destruction nymphette had replaced her sweet child.
    The change had happened overnight, it seemed. When Lynn thought about it she sometimes conjured up visions from the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Maybe an alien had taken up residence in Rory’s body while the child lay sleeping.
    The idea was almost comforting. At least it would absolve Lynn of any blame.
    The noisy clang of metal on metal reverberated in the distance: the dinner triangle. Lynn had seen one of the men unpack it earlier.
    “Chow!” Owen cupped his mouth to bellow at his brother, who grinned, gave him a thumbs-up, said something to Rory, and deftly reeled in his line. Shouldering the pole, Jess held Rory’s arm above the elbow as the pair clambered from the water. Lynn moved toward them. Owen followed.
    “Thanks, Jess,” Rory said with an adoring glance upward when they reached the bank. The other girls—Rory’s best friend, Jenny Patoski, and her second-best friend, Melody James—slid down from their perch to crowd around the two. Jenny was taller than Rory, with curly black shoulder-length hair, big chocolate eyes, and fine features. She was a pretty girl, prettier than Melody, whose light-brown hair was as long and straight as Rory’s but who was unfortunately afflicted with a largish nose and smallish eyes. But even Jenny was not, Lynn thought loyally, as pretty as Rory—especially when Rory was beaming, as she was now.
    “You’re