That Wintry Feeling (Debbie Macomber Classics) Read Free Page B

means of the post office.
    “You do that,” he shot back.
    His eyes seemed to bore into her back as she moved across the parking lot. Hating that he was watching her, she opened the passenger side of her car and climbed inside, scooting across the narrow enclosure. She couldn’t leave the airfield fast enough, her tires spinning as she rounded the corner and merged with the street traffic.
    Her fingers were trembling by the time she pulled into the parking lot at the school. If the meeting had gone poorly, it was her fault. She should have left her opinions out of it. Everything had been fine until she’d impulsively overstepped the boundary.
    Looking at Grady Jones was like looking at her father. Not that there was any striking physical resemblance. Her father had died when Cathy was sixteen, yet she hardly remembered his physical features. She had a vague image of a tall, lanky man who drifted in and out of her life at inconvenient intervals. Donald Thompson had been a workaholic. Her mother had recognized and accepted the fact long before his death. And in reality little had changed in their lives after he was gone. He was so seldom home for any lengthy period of time that life went on as it had in the past.
    Grady Jones showed all the symptoms. He was never home when she phoned, no matter how late. He worked himself hard and probably expected as much from those he employed. The lines of fatigue had fanned out from his eyes as if it had been a long time since he’d seen a bed. If he continued as he was, he’d probably end up like her father. Dead at fifty-five. Why the fact should bother her, Cathy wasn’t sure. Personally, she didn’t care for the man. Striking good looks didn’t disguise the fact he was ambitious, selfish, and hard-nosed. She preferred a man who was kind, sincere, gentle. A man like— Her mind stopped before the name could form.
    “You’re back already?” Linda greeted her as she stepped into the school. “That didn’t take long.”
    “I didn’t imagine it would,” Cathy said, the inflection in her tone voicing her sentiment. “Grady Jones is a busy man.”
    Linda nodded knowingly. “Relax a minute. There’s no need to hurry back, Tom’s takingover for you. I bet you didn’t eat lunch.”
    “No,” Cathy admitted, “I haven’t.”
    “I could use a break myself. I’ll come with you.” A smile formed in Linda’s large brown eyes. The two women had been instant friends. Although they’d met only two months before, it was as if they had known each other for years. The contrast between them was impressive. Linda was barely five feet tall, a cute, doe-eyed pixie. Her laughter was easy, her nature gentle. Linda had met her husband, Dan, through the personal column, naturally, and they had been happily married for seven years. The only gray cloud that hung over her friend’s head was that Linda desperately wanted children. The doctors had repeatedly assured them there was nothing wrong and that eventually Linda would become pregnant. Once Cathy had overheard someone ask Linda how many children she had. Without so much as blinking, Linda had looked up and replied three hundred. By all accounts she wasn’t wrong. As the school secretary, Linda did more mothering in one day than some mothers did all year.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” Linda asked, as she sat at the table they had occupied that morning.
    Cathy took the sandwich from the bag she’d brought with her that morning, examining its contents as if she had forgotten it was bologna and cheese. She knew that one look at her face and Linda knew everything had not gone as she’d wanted. “I blew it, plain and simple.”
    “He agreed to the tests, didn’t he?”
    Miserably, she nodded, shoving the bread back inside the brown paper sack. “He agreed to the tests, more or less, but I may have alienated him forever. I think it would be best if any future communication with Grady Jones were handled by mail.”
    “Don’t