Read Simple Riches for Free Online Page A

Androvich Sr. was so proud of his sons, Nicholas and Michael, heirs to five hundred acres of land and Androvich Lumber. This will all be yours one day, boys. Yours and Gracie’s. They’d been standing in the middle of a field, knee-high in clover, the sun fading to pale orange as it drifted behind a blanket of trees. It’s part of you… this land… can’t you feel it pumping in your blood ?
    Nick and Michael had stood side-by-side, watching the sun inch below the trees, the bond between them tightening. Nothing would ever come between them, nothing. Not until Caroline…
    “Dad?”
    Nick blinked, blinked again. “Justin? Where’d you come from? I came out to look for you.”
    “I was here. Behind that tree.” He looked up, squinted. “Are you okay? You looked kind of weird like you were gonna throw up or something?”
    Nick cleared his throat, put an arm around his son. “I’m fine. What are you doing out here all alone?”
    Justin’s shoulders slumped forward a little. “Nothing.” His voice drooped. “Just sittin’.” His gaze shifted to his sneakers.
    “Grandma says you’ve been out here a while.”
    “I guess.”
    “Justin?” His son looked up and Nick saw tears in his blue eyes. Caroline’s eyes. “What’s the matter?”
    “They said”—tears started streaming down his face—“they said Mom killed herself. That she burned to a crisp, like a marshmallow”—he hiccoughed—“all black and that her skin sizzled like bacon.” He buried his face against Nick’s shirt, grief moving through him with the rise and fall of his tiny shoulders.
    “Who said that, Justin?” Nick gripped his son’s shoulders and forced him to look up. “Who son?” He gentled his tone, tried to keep the rage inside. Eight years old was too young for such hard truths. But then, so was thirty-eight.
    “Jerry Toranchi.”
    Figures. The undertaker’s kid. “Well, you ignore him, do you hear me? Just ignore him.”
    Justin swiped a hand over both eyes, sniffed and nodded. “Uh-huh.” His voice wobbled.
    “Good.” Nick put his arm around his son, pulled him to his side. “That’s my boy.”
    “Dad?”
    “Hmm?”
    Justin looked away, past the field, out toward the trees, to the place where sky and land met, blended, joined. “Did she?”
    Nick tensed, forced the word out. “What?”
    “Did she”—his voice fell to a whisper—“kill herself?”
    I can’t do this anymore, Nicky. I can’t do it. I’m falling apart . Caroline’s words filled his head, threatened to make it explode. Nick squeezed his eyes shut, pressed two fingers against his lids. “No, she didn’t kill herself.”
    The boy let out a long breath, as though he was holding it, waiting. “I knew that.” He sounded relieved, almost happy. “Tell me the story about Mom again.” Justin looked up and gave him a timid half-smile, just enough to show the space where his left front tooth belonged.
    Nick drew in a deep breath. “Let’s go sit under the tree.” They took the few short steps to the maple, plunked down, let the bark scratch at them through their shirts. Justin wanted the story, his story again, the one that Nick had been telling him since he was three and realized that Gracie wasn’t his mother and neither was Grandma Stella. It was a beautiful story actually, a fairy tale, embellished with details and happenings that would have pleased even The Brother’s Grimm.
    “Once upon a time—”
    “Not ‘Once upon a time,’” Justin cut in. “That’s for little kids, remember?”
    “Oh, right. When you’re eight, it can’t start that way anymore.” Nick cleared his throat. “Here goes. This is the story of Caroline Ann Kraziak and Nicholas Anthony Androvich. Caroline was a beautiful girl, sixteen when she met Nick, with long blond hair, the color of corn silk and eyes so blue they reminded him of a cloudless July sky.“
    “My eyes,” Justin piped in, sitting up. “They’re like my eyes.”
    Nick nodded. “She