Shadow Creek Read Free

her eyes casually absorbing and assessing her surroundings.
    “Here, let me hang that up,” Stuart offered, and the girl quickly removed her raincoat, revealing a slender body dressed in a white T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. A large canvas bag was draped around her shoulder.
    Ellen noted the girl’s long legs, full breasts, and large eyes, which continued scanning the room. Her eyes are definitely her best feature, Ellen thought, noting that the rest of the girl’s face was relatively nondescript, her nose long, her mouth small. Of course it was hard to look your best when you were dripping wet. Ellen decided she was being overly critical, something both sons had occasionally accused her of being. She resolved to be friendlier. “I’ll get you a towel.” She walked to the bathroom, returning with a fluffy white bath towel.
    The girl was already curled up on the sofa, her bare feet propped under her thighs, her wet sandals on the floor in front of her, her canvas bag beside them. Stuart was sitting in the navy velvet armchair across from her, kind eyes radiating grandfatherly concern. He’s always been the nicer one of us, Ellen thought, realizing how much she’d relied on him to smooth over her sharper edges during their fifty years together.
    “This is a beautiful cottage,” the girl said, uncoiling her feet and taking the towel from Ellen’s outstretched hands. “You’ve really done a nice job with it. I love the fireplace.” She began rubbing the ends of her long hair with the towel. “Thank you.”
    Ellen tried not to notice that dirt from the girl’s feet was staining her sofa and that she wasn’t wearing a bra under her flimsy white T-shirt. I’m just a jealous old woman, she admonished herself, remembering when she used to have full, firm breasts like the ones now casually on display. “I’m Ellen Laufer,” she said, forcing the introduction from her mouth. Maybe if she’d been nicer to Katarina, friendlier to all her sons’ wives, she’d have more of a relationship with her grandchildren today, she couldn’t help thinking. “This is my husband, Stuart.”
    “Call me Nikki.” The girl smiled and continued towel-drying her hair. “With two
k’
s. I like that name. Don’t you? You don’t happen to have a hair dryer, do you?”
    “No. Sorry,” Ellen lied, ignoring the questioning look from Stuart. It’s one thing to give the girl a towel and a cup of tea, her eyes told him silently, but enough is enough. And what did she mean by “Call me Nikki”? Was that her name or not?
    “You mean that curl’s natural?” Nikki asked. “It’s gorgeous.”
    “Thank you.” Ellen touched the blond hair she’d spent half an hour fussing over with a curling iron this morning and immediately felt guilty. I should have let her use my hair dryer, she thought. What’s the matter with me?
    “Is that water almost boiled?” Nikki asked.
    “Oh. Yes, I believe it is.” Ellen walked back to the kitchen. The girl certainly isn’t shy about asking for what she wants, she thought, removing a mug from the pine cupboard and searching through another cupboard for some tea bags. She wondered how long they were going to have to play host to this girl, who couldn’t be more than sixteen. Where was her mother, for God’ssake? What had she been thinking, letting her daughter go off camping in the Adirondack Mountains with a young man who clearly didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain? “Which would you prefer, English Breakfast or Red Rose? I have both.”
    “Do you have herbal?” Nikki asked.
    “Actually, yes. Cranberry and peach. It’s my favorite.”
    The girl shrugged. “Okay.”
    Ellen dropped the tea bag into the mug of boiling water, thinking that her mother would be horrified. How many times had she told her that the proper way to make tea was to let it steep in the kettle for at least five minutes? Oh, well. Her mother had been dead for almost twenty years, she thought