Read Whisper of Revenge (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 4) for Free Online Page A

kissed me .  The giddy knowledge kept running
through her head.  He did.  He kissed me.
    Uh huh.  On the cheek.  Gently, comfortingly.  And then
she’d stood there gaping.  She hadn’t felt all the agonies of a teenager when
she was one, but now...
    Hannah groaned.  Thank heavens she wasn’t far from Not a Bit
of Trouble Daycare, where she left Ian every morning.  She knew he was
basically happy here, but they were both looking forward to the start of
kindergarten this fall.
    The deadline for parents to pick up their kids was six, and
she pulled up with only five minutes to spare.  Ian erupted into her arms the
minute she stepped in the door.
    “I thought you were never coming!”
    Crouching, she gave him a big squeeze.  “Have I ever not
picked you up?”
    He giggled.  “No, but you’re late.”
    “I know I am.”  She kissed his freckled cheek and rose to
her feet.  After thanking Jolene, the daycare director, she and Ian walked out,
hand in hand.
    Skipping, he said, “I bet Jack-Jack is worried, too, ’cuz
we’re late.”
    Jack-Jack had probably been too busy chewing up shoes and
dish towels and chair legs to notice his people were a few minutes late. 
Hannah could only pray their elderly next-door neighbor didn’t decide to
rescind her offer to puppy-sit during the day.  Jack-Jack, named for the boy in
one of Ian’s favorite movies, The Incredibles , had made some progress on
the potty-training front, but it was slow going.  Or fast going, on Hannah’s
part.  She was constantly snatching him up and racing for the back door.  Edna,
she knew, wasn’t anywhere near as quick, which undoubtedly meant more
accidents.
    At least Ian had been dissuaded from naming the poor puppy
Hiccup, after the dragon in How to Train Your Dragon , his number one
favorite movie.  It was actually Hannah’s favorite, too, of the animated films
that he watched over and over and over, but the name seemed undignified for a
dog.
    Even before she’d closed the garage door at home, Ian raced
across the lawn to Edna’s.  Seeing his energy and joy smoothed the jagged edges
of her own mood.  Ian was everything important to her.  She would never
understand why Grady didn’t feel the same.  Part of her was grateful – shared
custody would have meant losing so much time with Ian.  But it hurt answering
his questions about why he never saw his dad.  She saw how he looked at the
fathers who picked up and dropped off their kids at the daycare, the fathers
snapping photos at the birthday parties Ian attended.
    Jerk , she thought.  But he was busy with his
three-year-old daughter, and Ian had told her recently after talking to his dad
on the phone that Grady’s wife was pregnant again.  Hearing how subdued Ian
sounded, Hannah wanted to kill her ex-husband.  She wondered sometimes whether
he would have felt different if Ian had looked more like him and less like her
– but thinking that stung on a different level.  Nice to know he had rejected
her so thoroughly, he’d had to include the son who carried her genes.
    By the time she reached her neighbor’s front porch,
Jack-Jack had spilled out to wrestle on the front lawn with Ian.  The puppy
yapped nonstop and Ian giggled as he rolled on the grass.  Edna, who had to be
seventy-five if she was a day, stood on the porch smiling.
    “Oh, to be young again!”
    Hannah had to laugh.  “No kidding.”
    She listened to tales of Jack-Jack’s exploits – he’d only
peed on the floor twice, and all he’d destroyed was an oven mitt Edna had
carelessly dropped while she was baking.  She sounded indulgent.  Hannah had to
hug her, even as she made a mental note to buy her a new oven mitt tomorrow.
    Her neighbor’s kindness, her son’s exuberance and the
boundless enthusiasm of the plump, soft, wriggly puppy ensured she was no
longer thinking about Elias by the time she let them all into their own house. 
She had everything she needed right here.
    Her eye fell on the