69 INCHES AND RISING Read Online Free Page A

the most wonderful woman in the world could possibly get a man who had just lost the other most wonderful woman in the world. His heart was dripping his mother’s blood and it was filling his soul to the brim, yet he found it within himself to speak. “When my father died, I didn’t know if I would ever recover from the loss of a loved one. Indeed, I really didn’t know how to. I knew soon enough that I could learn, but learning meant being taught and being taught meant doing things their way, not mine. I like doing things my way, Serena. Not having to answer to anyone but my readers is how I like it but even some of them are nuts and I mean crazy as all shit.”
    Serena wrapped her arms around Jonathon’s waist and leaned into his back, feeling his toned body under his gown and the beat of his heart against hers.
    Jonathon thought about the crazed fan who threatened to blow him to bits then continued speaking. “I never told anyone but the police about something that happened a long time ago and it was soon after my first novel came out and I prayed I would never have to deal with them again. The police, that is. Prayers, however, aren’t always answered. In fact, I wonder if they’re ever really answered at all.”
    Serena felt a growing unease. “What happened, Jonathon? Was it the police on the phone?” She tightened her grip around his waist and he held her hands in his.
    “It’s my Mom,” he replied. “She’s dead. Murdered, in fact.”
    Tears escaped Serena’s eyes and they rolled gently down the sides of her face. Her heart rolled over in her chest and tapped her soul on the shoulder. The end has come and it’s time to go, it seemed to say. She knew it hadn’t and she knew it wasn’t but it felt like it. It felt like someone had just popped a great big party balloon and let all the air out. Time to go home kids. There’s blood on the floor.
    Jonathon sighed. “Someone shot her.” And suddenly there was a whole lot more blood.
    Serena had never known anyone who died, not even of old age when the body has lived all it can and then it’s time to let go. She tried thinking of what it would be like to be shot and could only come up with those cheesy old westerns with plenty of bullets and not one drop of blood being shed as Indians fell off their horses and landed on the ground. Then they got up and did it all over again in the next scene and again not one drop of blood was shed. She just couldn’t bring herself to think of what it would be really like to have a bullet pierce your skin at great speed then rip your insides to shreds before you either bled to death or lived the rest of your life crippled because the bullet cut a chunk out of your spine on its way through.
    The phone rang again and Jonathon ignored it. All he did was look out the window at the stars that twinkled and the moon that shone and the bats that flew across the night sky in search of fruit to munch on and dead bodies to feed on. “Not much I can do about it now I’m afraid, so they might as well stop ringing.”
    The angel looked in at them and watched as the love between a man and woman deepened and the connection between them grew. She knew in her heart she couldn’t take one without the other and it was probably best to leave them both alone. But life has never been short of moments that make us cringe and the chances it gives us one after the other aren’t always fair. We can only make the most of them even if they aren’t what we hoped for or thought they would be. “I’ll have to take you both,” the angel said. It was all she could do.
     
     
    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    J onathon stood over the kitchen bench now and poured himself a cup of tea. He looked over his shoulder at Serena who was sitting on a stool at the other end of the bench. She was wiping away the tears that had refused wholeheartedly to stop. He turned back to the cup and stirred some milk into it. Black became white and nothing else mattered now