Dear Cupid Read Online Free

as pixies, but Linda’s healthy tan and blond hair contrasted sharply with her son’s milk-white skin and jet-black curls. As for their laughter, the sound made her smile. Since moving to the lake, Dylan had slowly started coming out of his shell.
    “Speaking of people who look chipper,” Linda said to Kate as she straightened. “You’re sure looking better today. Yesterday, when you picked Dylan up, you looked ready to collapse.”
    “I felt ready to collapse, and still do,” Kate admitted as she headed for the kitchen area of the rustic fishing cabin that had been in Jim’s family for generations. Linda and Jim had even lived in it for the first few months of their marriage, until Jim finished building his bride a more suitable house up the hill. Since then, Kate had rented the cabin and been thankful for a place she could afford, no matter how small. “So, how about joining me on the deck for some iced tea?” she asked.
    “As long as I can sit down to drink it.” Linda sighed with one hand at the small of her back, making her pregnant stomach protrude.
    “Me too,” Dylan said. “I’m tired of sitting around inside.”
    “Hmmm, I don’t know.” Kate studied him. His breathing still sounded wheezy to her. She picked up the peak flow meter, which sat on the counter next to his numerous medicine bottles. The plastic tube allowed her to monitor the air flow to his lungs. “Let’s see how you’re doing.”
    With a dramatic sigh, Dylan came over and blew three times as hard as he could into the mouthpiece. Turning the tube sideways, Kate noted the final reading. “Sorry,” she said, trying not to look too worried at the low number. “Not quite good enough to go outside in all those yucky pollens.”
    “Oh, Mom!” He slumped in disappointment. “Staying inside is boring.”
    “How about I let you play Goosebumps on my computer?” she offered.
    His eyes brightened. “You mean it?”
    “You betcha. But only while Linda and I are visiting. Then I’ll need to get back to work. Okay?”
    “Hot dog!” He dashed toward her bedroom with enough enthusiasm to make her laugh. Her smile faded, though, as she remembered how he’d struggled for every breath the night before.
    “I never should have left him,” she whispered, turning to fill two glasses with iced tea. “I know how any stress can trigger an attack.”
    “Ka-ate.” Linda sighed in exasperation. “You’re beating yourself up for nothing. He was fine while you were gone. Really.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked, desperate to allay her guilt.
    “I swear,” Linda insisted. “When I picked him up from school, you’d have thought the kid was on vacation. We stopped for burgers on the way home. Then he and Jim spent the evening in the workshop doing he-man stuff with hammers and saws.”
    “Saws?”
Kate’s heart dropped. They’d let a seven year-old boy who couldn’t tie his own shoes near finger-severing blades? And all that sawdust? No wonder he’d had an asthma attack.
    “Would you stop it?” Linda gave her a stern look. “You keep saying you want Dylan to live a normal life, then you turn right around and try to seal him in a glass bubble.”
    “You’re right,” she said, trying to convince herself. “I just ... worry.”
    “I know.” Linda’s look turned sympathetic. “But Dylan is going to be fine, and it’s far too pretty a day to waste on worry.” Taking one of the glasses, Linda led the way to the back deck.
    The warm spring air flooded Kate’s senses as she followed her friend outside. Sunlight dappled the stretch of land that sloped down from her cabin to the water’s edge. Beneath a stand of oaks, a herd of deer munched on acorns and stripped the lower branches bare.
    Settling in one of Jim’s handmade wooden chairs, Linda propped her glass on her rounded belly, let her head fall against the chair back, and sighed in relief. “So, you want to tell me about your meeting with Gwen?”
    Instantly deflated,