Into His Keeping Read Free Page A

folding her into his world. She was his woman. His girl from the first day she’d stepped into The Connersville Major Department Store.
     
    Holdin became the center of Jill’s world in ways that were movie cool, right down to being the type of glossy yet rugged good-looking that graced the pages of GQ . Last year, as a senior in high school, he’d been the star quarterback of the football team, he’d lettered in both track and football. His easy personality made him popular no matter where he was and he made her the instant queen of his world.
     
    She’d learned that Holdin was taking a year off school to work because his father thought he needed to know what it felt like before going to college. Besides, his dad had been a stock boy in this store before he went to college and considered it a building block to settle the boy down and show him the value of an education. Holdin said his dad was trying to scare him into taking his future seriously and understanding what he’d end up doing for the rest of his life if he didn’t.
     
    Privately, Jill was pretty sure Holdin didn’t need the scare tactic, but she was glad he was there instead of in his first year of college somewhere. The reasons she was there were much more complicated. Not that she told him that. Her story was well rehearsed and he’d not pressed her on it. When they were alone together, they usually had other things to do.
     
    She’d never know if she’d made the right choice. Not telling Holdin the truth about her life was probably what sentenced her to the last fifteen years of loneliness. At the time, it had seemed like the only choice. Experience had taught her there was seldom only one choice in anything. At the time, her father had been so paranoid, so protective. He had reason to be just that, but at eighteen, she really should have made some choices for herself. She’d thought she was protecting Holdin with her silence. Perhaps she had managed to give him the gift of safety. Look at what he’d become without her.
     
    Again in that familiar booth, the past evaporated and Jill reluctantly let it go to focus on the present. She looked up to see the man-child striding back to her from the soda fountain counter. He was now the center of her world. He was the reason she was here on what could only be called a desperate mission. So much like his father , Jill mused as he slid the tall fountain glass of water in front of her. The boy naturally took charge where he could. Strong and tall, he would be the image of his father’s genetic blueprint in a few years.
     
    “Here’s the ice water. Are you sure you don’t want to sit in the corner booth? It’s not so bright. Right here by the window is too much, Mom.”
     
    “No. This is fine. Really. I’m fine. A few minutes and we’ll go get a motel room. If you go look in aisle four, I bet they still have an excellent selection of hot rod magazines. I’ll be all right in a minute.”
     
    “I can sit with you. I’ll look at the magazines later. It’s no biggie, Mom.”
     
    “Right. How cool is that? Sitting with your mom. Go on.”
     
    His chuckle was too deep for a fourteen-year-old and his legs too long as he turned and strolled away in a rolling gate. Jill watched him go, partly to keep her head turned away from the afternoon sun streaming in the wide windowpane beside her and partly because she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
     
    Fear settled into the booth with her as he disappeared out of the little soda fountain that was still part of the old-fashioned department store. Hopelessness whispered around her, bringing the shadows that refused to recede. They were her constant companions and never seemed far away these days. These few short days that pressed down on her. Time was her enemy. Each hour that slipped away was a loss she couldn’t recover.
     
    Jill remained turned away from the window, shielding her sensitive eyes from the sun. She sat there a moment, looking down at the