The Heart Remembers Read Free Page B

woman,” said Jim dryly, as though with mental reservations. “A trifle odd, perhaps; though nothing dangerous. I mean you mustn’t mind if she behaves a little—well, peculiarly. The Durands have always been laws unto themselves.”
    As though there could be no argument against his plan for her, Jim was driving on, not looking at her, and Shelley was passionately grateful for the chance to pull herself together, to regain her composure before she had to face him, to talk to him.
Selena
Durand!
And her heart whispered, shaken, “So soon? Is it going to be this easy?” And she knew, with a little sick feeling, that it wasn’t—it couldn’t be! Not after all the bitterness, the heartbreak, the tragedy—not after fifteen years!
    She tried to still her agitation by observing the little town as they drove through it; marking the bank that was the nearest building to the
Journal
office; opposite it one of the “business establishments” she’d been told about and which proved to be a “mercantile business” that, judging from the display piled in its windows and in front, sold practically anything and everything necessary for the maintenance of life. There was the “New York Department Store,” small and grimly determined, with its “stylish” dresses and its stout work-clothes jumbled in a hodge-podge in its one window.
    There was very little life apparent at that hour of the afternoon. A few people lounged on the front porch of the “mercantile”; a hound dog or two was asleep in the shade; a lean, hungry-looking sow, with half a dozen pint-sized progeny scrambling and squealing at her heels, crossed the road in front of them, and Jim swerved obligingly to miss the littlest one, the “runt.”
    There was a gaunt-looking building that wore its faded sign, “Harbour Pines Naval Stores; Post-Office; Groceries; Gas and Oil,” in two sections, since the building was too narrow for it all to be on one line.
    But though Shelley was trying to calm herself by looking at the town, her mind was still in a confused jumble. To go with him into Selena Durand’s home! To be accepted there as a guest! Could she do it, without betraying herself and her precious secret? The very fact that her reason for being there was a secret, and that it must remain a secret, was her only hope of accomplishing her purpose.
    For fifteen years, she had built her plan so carefully. For even as a child of eight, she had known that some day she must come back there and do this thing. And now that the time had come, now that her plans were working out so smoothly, she was offered the “hospitality” of the one home in all the village that she had thought would be closed to her. Of course, if Jim had guessed that her real name was not Shelley Kimbrough at all—she jerked her thoughts back and reassured herself. Legally, it
was
Shelley Kimbrough. She had been formally and legally adopted by Aunt Jane and that gave her the right to the name.
    â€œI’m sorry that the prospect of being a guest in my home depresses you so terribly,” drawled Jim as they left the last tidy little house behind and once more the giant pines swallowed them up. “But you needn’t look as if you were being marched off to be hanged.”
    â€œOh, please,
please
,” she was honestly contrite. “I’m sorry that I’ve been so rude. I think it’s grand of you to take me in, and I appreciate it terribly; it’s only that I felt I had imposed on you so much, and all that. I do appreciate everything you’ve done—truly I do!”
    Jim took his eyes off the road long enough to look down at her and to nod curtly, before he started the car again.
    Shelley looked with keen interest as the station wagon drove on through the little town. Harbour Pines’ Main Street was a brief thoroughfare, bordered for a block or so with so-called