Read Erica Spindler for Free Online

equalizer.
    â€œAnd I’m one of their own,” she said.
    â€œIt’s true, then? You’re back to stay?”
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    â€œThat’s the buzz. I thought it was wrong.” He shrugged. “But you never know.”
    â€œMeaning what?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
    â€œAm I making you uncomfortable?”
    â€œNo, of course not.” Annoyed with herself, she dropped her arms. “I had dinner with your parents tonight.”
    â€œAnd Matt. Heard that, too.”
    â€œI thought you might have been there.”
    â€œSo they told you I was living in Cypress Springs?”
    â€œMatt did.”
    â€œAnd did he tell you why?”
    â€œOnly that you’d had some troubles.”
    â€œNice euphemism.” He swept his gaze over the facade of her parents’ house. “Sorry about your dad. He was a great man.”
    â€œI think so, too.” She jiggled her car keys, suddenly on edge, anxious to be inside.
    â€œAren’t you going to ask me?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIf I talked to him before he died.”
    The question off-balanced her. “What do you mean?”
    â€œIt seemed a pretty straightforward question to me.”
    â€œOkay. Did you?”
    â€œYes. He was worried about you.”
    â€œAbout me?” She frowned. “Why?”
    â€œBecause your mother died before the two of you worked out your issues.”
    Issues, she thought. Is that how one summed up a lifetime of hurt feelings, a lifetime of longing for her mother’s unconditional love and approval and being disappointed time and again? Her head filled with a litany of advice her mother had offered her over the years.
    â€œAvery, little girls don’t climb trees and build forts or play cowboys and Indians with boys. They wear bows and dresses with ruffles, not blue-jean cutoffs and T-shirts. Good girls make ladylike choices. They don’t run off to the city to become newspapermen. They don’t throw away a good man to chase a dream.”
    â€œHe thought you might be sad about that,” Hunter continued. “She was. He hated that she died without your making peace.”
    â€œHe said that?” she managed to get out, voice tight.
    He nodded and she looked away, memory flooding with the words she had flung at her mother just before she had left for college.
    â€œDrop the loving concern, Mother! You’ve never approved of me or my choices. I’ve never been the daughter you wanted. Why don’t you just admit it?”
    Her mother hadn’t admitted it and Avery had headed off to college with the accusation between them. They had never spoken of it again, though it had been a wedge between them forever more.
    â€œHe figured that’s why you hardly ever came home.”Hunter shrugged. “Interesting, you couldn’t come to terms with your mother’s life, he her death.”
    She jumped on the last. “What does that mean, he couldn’t come to terms with her death?”
    â€œI would think it’s obvious, Avery. It’s called grieving.”
    He was toying with her, she realized. It pissed her off. “And when did all these conversations take place?”
    Hunter paused. “We had many conversations, he and I.”
    The past two days, her shock and grief, the grueling hours of travel, the onslaught of so much that was both foreign and familiar, came crashing down on her. “I don’t have the energy to deal with your shit, even if I wanted to. If you decide you want to be a decent human being, look me up.”
    One corner of his mouth lifted in a sardonic smile. “I didn’t answer your question before, the one about my opinion of the local buzz. Personally, I figured you’d pop your old man in a box and go. Fast as you could.”
    She took a step back, stung. Shocked that he would say that to her. That he would be so cruel. After the closeness