Marta Perry Read Free

here to moon after you again, he might as well go back where he came from.”
    “Don’t be silly.” That came out too sharply. “You know all that was over a long time ago.”
    “You shouldn’t have talked to him at all.” Her mother sank onto a kitchen chair, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “It gives me one of my headaches just to think about Zach Randal, right at my front gate, looking like some kind of a hoodlum.”
    Zach had looked a bit rough around the edges, hadn’t he? That had always been part of the allure, Meredith supposed. It was classic, a good girl like Meredith King falling hard for the boy who was bad to the bone, or so people said. And Zach, with his disdain for small-town attitudes, had seemed to enjoy shocking the denizens of Deer Run. If he wasn’t cutting school, he was sauntering in late. And he’d been quick with his fists at the slightest opportunity.
    “I understand he’s a police officer now,” she said, opening the refrigerator door to shield her face while hoping to head off some of the inevitable speculation.
    “I suppose he told you so, and you believed him. Just like you always did.” Her mother’s voice went up an octave, and she stopped massaging her temples to clutch at her chest—never a good sign. “You believed him no matter what we said, causing your poor father so much grief.”
    Tears spurted from her mother’s soft brown eyes, and her words came in little gasps. She was working herself into a state of hysteria, and if Meredith didn’t intercede, she’d end up with a frantic call to the doctor, insisting she was having a heart attack.
    “Now, Mother, that’s all in the past. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. Zach is only here for a few days, and then he’ll be gone and we’ll never see him again.” Her heart seemed to lodge a protest at that, but she kept going. “I’m sorry his return upset you, but it doesn’t need to. Why don’t you come upstairs and have a nice rest before supper?”
    Still soothing, Meredith led her mother gently to the stairs. They’d played this scene so often she knew it by heart. First it had been Daddy doing the soothing and comforting, and now it was Meredith’s job.
    Keeping her voice calm, her touch gentle, she guided her mother up to her bedroom, pulled the shades, tucked her under the coverlet. Experience had taught her that it was useless to try and reason with her mother—she was no more amenable to reason than the average two-year-old. And too much emotion led inevitably to the racing heartbeat that frightened her mother as much as it did Meredith.
    According to the doctors, her mother’s atrial fibrillation was not nearly bad enough or frequent enough to require anything other than the mild medication she was on. Their assurances had never comforted her mother.
    Finally, after repeated promises that Margo would never be subjected to the sight of Zach Randal again, Meredith was able to get away. An easy promise to make, wasn’t it? It was hardly likely that Zach would care to confront Margo King after what she had done to him.
    Meredith had barely reached the kitchen when she heard a tapping on the back door. Through the window she spotted Rachel, who’d probably cut across the back lawn between their houses in the shortcut they’d developed in the past few months. The elderly Amish seamstress whose small house sat between the two didn’t mind their frequent trespassing.
    Meredith opened the door with a sense of relief. Here was someone she could confide in without the need to protect her feelings.
    Rachel came in, handing her a package as she did so. “This was on your back porch.”
    Meredith glanced at the label as she led the way into the kitchen and sighed. “It looks as if Mother has been watching the Shopping Channel again. I can’t seem to convince her that we can’t afford every little thing that appeals to her.” She’d have to have another of her futile talks with her