A Daughter's Story Read Online Free Page B

packing so much as a toothbrush.
    She kept one at her mom’s. Along with pajamas and changes of
clothes. Maybe she should go back. It made sense to go back. What was one more
night going to hurt?
    She could start her new life tomorrow. Right after she changed
the locks on her doors.
    And what if Rob was at her townhome tomorrow, waiting for her?
What if he tried to change her mind? There she’d be, going straight from her
mother’s house back to the secure life Rob offered her—albeit a life spent
putting up with Rob’s philandering ways.
    No, she couldn’t go to her mother’s. She couldn’t show up at
home tomorrow, the same woman she was today—the woman who hadn’t been exciting
enough to hold her man’s interest.
    She couldn’t go home as the woman who settled for safety and
security.
    If she was going to change her life, it had to be tonight. She
had to take a chance. To do something, anything, that wasn’t her norm. She had
to be someone different.
    Switching from her MP3 player, which was loaded with
classics—soft and soothing music that was there to relax her after a day with
rambunctious high schoolers—Emma stopped at the first satellite radio station
that was blaring a beat.
    The LED dash display broadcast the song title and artist in
little green letters. She recognized neither and turned up the volume. She’d
drown out her thoughts. And if she ever found a song she knew, she’d scream the
words at the top of her lungs and pretend that she was singing along.
    * * *
    T HREE HOURS INTO Friday
evening, Chris was on his third drink. He wasn’t drunk, but even the ageless hag
at the bar was beginning to look a little better.
    Awaiting his turn on the piano, he listened to his competitors
pounding the keys of the baby grand on the raised carpeted dais that was the
restaurant’s centerpiece. The dais turned; the tables surrounding it did
not.
    The gleaming black instrument shone under professional
spotlights and was the only furniture on the stage.
    Chris’s number in the single elimination competition was up
soon. He’d won the last draw of the night, which meant that he’d be up against
the pianist voted by preselected judges as the best of the bunch. Chris liked
the spot because he could stay onstage after he’d finished his set and play for
as many hours as it took to wipe away the tension from the past week.
    He didn’t need another win. He needed relaxation. He needed
peace.
    He needed to forget the grieving faces of those who’d loved—and
lost—a man of the sea.
    * * *
    T HE PLACE SMELLED as heavenly as
she’d remembered—a mixture of spices, freshly baked rolls and prime cuts of
steak marinated in Citadel’s secret sauce. Locals didn’t usually patronize the
glitzy establishments on the tourist strip in downtown Comfort Cove, but a son
of one of the teachers at school had played in a piano competition there a
couple of times and Emma had accompanied the divorced mother on both
occasions.
    Now, sitting alone at the bar—something she’d never have
considered doing before—she sipped a glass of white wine and concentrated on
convincing herself that she could stay right where she was at least until she
finished her drink.
    Making deals with herself.
    If she stayed fifteen minutes, she could make a trip to the
ladies’ room to reassess.
    If she stayed half an hour, she could think about getting a
table. Maybe even order something to eat. If she made it an hour, she’d have to
call someone—her divorced teacher friend, probably—and let her know where she
was.
    If she had more than two glasses of wine she’d call a cab.…
    To take her…where?
    Raising the heavy crystal glass to her lips, she gulped. She’d
figure that out later. There were plenty of hotels downtown.
    And because she paid her credit card off every single month,
she had plenty of limit to cover whatever exorbitant fee they’d charge.
    She’d show Rob.…
    No. She was there to show herself something. To save