The Black Widow. BEVERLY BARTON

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter 3

       Robby Joe smiled and held open his arms. She went flying into his loving embrace, feelings of pure happiness enveloping her. He was the most important person in the world to her. He was the man she loved, her future husband, the father of the children she would have one day.

       When she was with Robby Joe, she felt that nothing bad could ever happen to her again, that all the bad things in her life were behind her forever. Their June wedding was only a month away, an elaborate affair that his mother had insisted on paying for, even down to helping Jordan pay for a beautiful wedding dress that she otherwise couldn’t have afforded.

       With her arms wrapped around Robby Joe’s neck and her head resting against his shoulder, Jordan sighed with deep contentment. Sunlight struck the one-carat diamond on her finger. Gazing at her engagement ring, she thought about the night this past October when Robby Joe had proposed. A starlit night, a carriage ride, a declaration of love.

       “I love you,” she whispered in his ear. “I love you so much.”

       “I love you, too,” he told her.

       Jordan closed her eyes, savoring this moment of pure joy.

       Suddenly, she could no longer feel Robby Joe’s arms around her, couldn’t feel his warmth and his strength.

       “Robby Joe?”

       When she opened her eyes, she found herself all alone. She held up her left hand. Her engagement ring sparkled on her third finger.

       She heard someone weeping, soft, mournful sobs. Who was crying and why? Something terrible must have happened. Someone was very sad.

       “Robby Joe, where are you? Do you hear that woman crying? Why is she crying?”

      Jordan woke with a start, gasping for breath, her heart racing and perspiration dampening her skin. She opened her eyes and tossed back the covers. Her bedroom lay in semi-darkness, the only illumination coming from the mellow glimmer of moonlight shining through the French doors leading to the balcony. She swung out of bed, slipped her feet into the quilted satin house shoes in front of the nightstand, and reached for the satin robe lying across the antique cedar chest at the foot of the mahogany sleigh bed.

      The pain radiating from deep inside her seemed as immediate and potent as it had the day she and Darlene buried Robby Joe. Twelve years ago.

      Jordan unlocked the French doors, opened them, and stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the back courtyard and the rose garden. After yesterday’s heavy rain, the earth smelled rich and fresh, and a hint of gold overspread the dark sky, a prelude to the approaching dawn.

      She hadn’t dreamed about Robby Joe in a long time, not in years. But she supposed that Dan’s recent death and funeral had reawakened long-buried memories in her subconscious. Like so many of her memories, those of Robby Joe were memories of happiness that had ended in sorrow. Sometimes it seemed that her life had been little more than a series of tragic events.

      Watching her mother dying a little each day with the cancer that ravaged her body would have been traumatic for anyone, but for a child of ten, it had been devastating. During that final year, she had been the glue that held her family together. She, a mere child, had been the one who had comforted her dying mother and consoled her grief-stricken father.

      And then less than two years later, when Daddy had brought home a new bride, a woman as different from her own mother as night is from day, СКАЧАТЬ