Carolina Blues Read Online Free Page B

dark face, his flat Philly accent.
Guess you don’t worry about stereotypes, either
.
    Her smile this time came more easily. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
    The letter would keep. Ben wasn’t going anywhere. He wouldn’t be out of prison for at least another six years. She winced.
    “Right this way,” Meg said.
    Lauren followed her down the cozy paneled hallway toward the kitchen. The inn guests took breakfast in the dining room. She hadn’t visited the family quarters before.
    “Wow.” She stopped, taking in the sleek granite counters and warm oak cabinets, the stainless steel appliances and wide-planked wooden floor. Herbs bloomed in pots on the windowsill. Peaches shared a bowl with the mail on the long farm table. “This is really nice. Homey.”
    Meg pulled down two wineglasses. “Well, it’s not your average hotel.”
    “You’re telling me,” Lauren said with feeling. “When I was on my book tour, I was grateful for peanuts in the minibar.”
    Especially on those days when she couldn’t summon the courage to leave her room.
    She pressed her hand under her rib cage.
Breathe in, two, three, four
 . . .
    Her mother wanted her to live at home again. As if being together under one roof would magically return them all to the time when her father was alive, when their family was safe and secure and whole. If Mom had her way, Lauren would never go back to school, never run another errand, never go anyplace where armed men could take her hostage ever again. Barbara Patterson needed to believe that it was over. She wanted to pretend that everything was all right. But her anxious looks every time Lauren left the house pressed on her heart like a bruise.
    Lauren got it. Mom had already lost Dad. She didn’t want to lose Lauren, too.
    But Lauren couldn’t live at home. She couldn’t write. She couldn’t breathe. She felt her world gradually shrinking to the walls of her bedroom, still decorated with the wallpaper border she’d picked out at thirteen, frozen forever on the cusp of adolescence. Swaddled by familiar surroundings, it was too easy for her to give in to her mother’s fears, to sink into the stultifying comfort of childhood. To crawl under the covers and never come out again.
    She’d thought that things would get better once she was back at school. That
she
would be better. But she’d found, to her shame, that she couldn’t handle living alone, either. She had trouble focusing on her dissertation, difficulty sleeping in her tiny apartment. Every creak and car horn sent her bolt upright, gasping for breath.
    Her faculty advisor suggested counseling and then a leave of absence. Her fellow graduate students were sympathetic and then impatient.
    The last time a total stranger had approached Lauren on the street, her friend Brandon had rolled his eyes.
No offense
, he’d said, which was what someone always said when they wanted to say something offensive.
But we’ve all heard it before. Not everybody wants to relive your fifteen minutes of fame over and over.
    Her life had been divided in two, Before and After the robbery, and it felt sometimes as if everyone she loved was on the other side of an unbridgeable chasm with the girl she used to be.
    Lauren watched Meg dig in a drawer. At home, she took care of her mother and Noah. At school, she took care of herself. She still wasn’t used to being waited on. “I don’t want to put you out.”
    Meg dug in a drawer for a corkscrew. “You’re not.”
    “It’s not your job to look after guests.” Or me, Lauren thought. She paid Meg to be her publicist, not her babysitter.
    “Not usually. I’m helping out today while Mom runs wedding errands with Kate and Taylor.”
    Lauren had met Meg’s eleven-year-old niece Taylor. But . . . “Kate?”
    Meg glanced over from opening the wine. “My brother’s fiancée. They’re getting married in two weeks.”
    Meg had two brothers, Lauren remembered.
    Before the robbery, she’d always imagined