Always Remember Read Online Free

starched white nurse’s uniform slipped into the room and pressed her fingers against the inside of Maude’s wrist. She glanced at her watch, then fixed Nate with a steady look.
    “Back already? Where’s Jessie? Wasn’t she at the airport?”
    Harley Jane Davis. She could either be a guy’s best friend or his worst enemy.
    “Yeah, she was there.” He pushed away from the wall, uncomfortable under the intensity of Harley’s gaze, and hooked his thumbs into the belt loops on his jeans. “Sam, want me to bring Jess back?”
    “Best leave her alone for tonight, boy, but you gotta convince her to stay.” The old man slumped against the backrest, weariness etched across his face. He scraped one hand across his eyes and grasped Maude’s hand with the other. “She’s never said it aloud, but I know my wife. If she has one regret in life, it’s losing Jessie to the city. I’d like to help her go to her Maker in peace.”
    “I’ll do whatever I can to help, you know that, Sam. But I can’t force Jessie to stay if she doesn’t want to.”
    “She has to stay. Her ma...my wife...well, she got a whole heap of reconciling to do. She can’t if Jessie ain’t here.”
    Instantaneous anger fizzled deep inside. “Maude wasn’t the one who left.”
    “Shush.” Harley swatted at him, missed, turned back to her patient and smoothed out the blankets. “You better learn to control your temper, Mister, or I’m not going to let you in here again.”
    “I don’t have a temper,” he muttered. “And you’re too damn sensitive.”
    Turning on his heel, he headed out of the room, silently cursing the woman who followed him out the front door and onto the porch. Harley Davis. Her old man had named her after the beast of a motorcycle he drove around town. Sometimes she was a real pain. She’d known him for too many years, figured she had every right to interfere in his life.
    Like now.
    She grabbed him by the arm before he could escape to find Jessie. “No, you’re the sensitive one, at least when it comes to Jessie.”
    “Drop it, Harley.”
    “Every time anyone mentions her name, every time one of her songs plays on the radio, you go into one of your sulky moods. Poor Sara has to sneak around behind your back just to listen to Jessie’s music.”
    “No, she doesn’t.”
    “Yes, she does. When are you going to quit deceiving yourself, Nate? I saw how much Jessie hurt you when she left. Everyone did. This is a chance for you to close the door on that part of your life and move on.”
    Move on? Where?
    The memories were with him every day and in all the years that had passed, he’d never been able to escape them. He shoved his hands into his pockets and searched the darkness.
    “Why don’t you go find her and offer her a shoulder to cry on?”
    He glanced out at the empty yard. “Anyone ever tell you that you interfere too much?”
    “All the time.” She started for the door, stopped, and patted him on the arm. “Maybe it’s time you both had a chance to say goodbye to the past.”
    Left alone on the porch, he considered all the reasons why he should let Jessie hotfoot it off the ranch, weighing them against the single reason why he had to keep her from doing so. If not for the woman lying inside, he might never have known the love of his child.
    He squared his shoulders.
    One way or another, he’d make sure Jessie stayed. Even if he had to spend every moment of the day — and night — in her company.
    A light in the main house came on. Had she gone to use the phone, maybe call a cab? Nate thumped down the steps of the veranda and headed across the yard.
    Harley was right about one thing. He’d never allowed the anger to heal. This would be the perfect time to find out why she’d made the choices she had. Then, when she left again, maybe he wouldn’t feel like a part of him had gone with her.
    He bounded up the stairs to the front door and entered the house. Silence. He hated it when Sara was gone,