Petite Madeleine: Drew's Story (Meadows Shore Book 3) Read Free Page B

same phrase again and again, thank you for coming .
    The wake began at two in the afternoon, and at eight o’clock that evening, when her parents dragged her from the room, there was still a line out the door and a long queue of cars waiting to enter the parking lot.
    “He looks awful,” she said to her mother on the way to the car. “I’ve never seen him like that. He barely acknowledged me. I expected him to be sad, maybe even angry. But he looked empty. Like all the life’s been sucked from his body.”
    “I don’t think he’s gotten to anger yet, Cassia. I think he’s lost. Sometimes the brain shuts itself off because the pain is too much to bear. He needs some time.”
    He barely acknowledged me. Funny she’d thought of herself in his darkest hour, because when disaster fell at her doorstep, the last thing she considered was herself.
    She took a slow, deep breath, letting her fingers graze her left breast. There would be no dinner tonight. Not with him. Tempting as it was, she wouldn’t go there. Couldn’t go there. The look of horror on his face when he heard her story would be too much for her soul to bear. His strong features twisted and contorted, not knowing what to say to her. No one ever knew what to say.
    She wanted him to remember her the way she’d been when he held her in his arms after loving her—whole and unscarred.
     
    * * *
     
    “Hey, it’s me,” he said into the phone.
    “Sorry about the game.”
    “You’re probably an Orioles’ fan,” he muttered.
    “Yankees, still, always. My loyalty doesn’t waver, but I am partial to any team who puts them in a better playoff position.”
    “Well that certainly describes the Blues tonight,” he groaned. “How about some dinner?”
    “It’s late. I can’t tonight.”
    “It would certainly improve my mood. It’s the least you can do after we put your team in a better position to play into October.”
    “You don’t fool me. It’s the first week of the season, far too early to know who’ll still be playing in the fall. You’re not too down to go out?”
    While the Orioles whacked one ball after another off the Blues’ young pitcher, it had barely registered with him. All he could think about was Cassie. There would be plenty of time tomorrow to think about tonight’s shellacking. “Didn’t you just say it’s early in the season? How about dinner?”
    “It’s too late for me tonight. Maybe next time the Blues are in town.”
    “That won’t be until the middle of the summer. I can’t wait that long, Cassie. And anyway, you’ll hate it.”
    “I’ll hate it?”
    “Yup, because I have your phone number now, and I’ll pester you until I drive you crazy.”
    She didn’t answer right away, and he expected her to turn him down. He was already preparing to plead his case, when she surprised him. “Tomorrow, the game’s earlier. It won’t end quite so late.”
    His spirits soared. “Crabs and blueberry pie on Fenwick Island?”
    “Nope. Zucchini blossoms. I know just the place.”
    He chuckled. She was having dinner with him, that’s all that mattered. Those zucchini blossoms could be stuffed with gizzards for all he cared.
     
    * * *
     
    When the team was on the road, Drew spent a lot of time in hotel rooms. It had never bothered him. He fell into bed exhausted from traveling, and the long days and nights at the ballpark. Sleep usually came quickly. But tonight the bed was too hard, and the room was too hot for sleep. Cassie was just across town, yet he missed her more than ever. She’d looked like an angel today, a gift from the gods.
     
    When he finally drifted off , he was sitting in his freshman seminar at Brown, Greek Mythology, gawking at the hot brunette walking toward him wearing a bright pink tank top and a little skirt that swished against her thighs. She had on flip-flops, and her shiny, painted toenails matched her shirt and made his blood flow south. Pulling his gaze up, he followed the skinny straps from