Hold Her Heart (Words of the Heart) Read Online Free

road I was turning on to was Peach Street.
    It was a busy road. Stores and restaurants lined the street. Some of the names I recognized; some I didn’t. Jaylin would be squealing with glee at the sight of so many shopping opportunities. Me? I preferred shopping online. It seemed so much easier. Need something? In just a couple of clicks, it was on its way to your front door.
    I drove down Peach Street until the GPS had me turn right on to Thirty-Eighth Street. There were a few businesses and then a sign for the Erie Zoo. The street became busier but more residential. There were a few nonresidential businesses, a VA Hospital, and then Mercyhurst University. Finally, I turned into a residential neighborhood.
    Piper George might be a bestselling author, but she wasn’t playing lady of the manor. This was a very middle class neighborhood.
    After I’d read the older Piper George books I owned, I’d looked her up on the Internet. She’d done a lot of writing in the last decade. Books I’d never read. Given all her books, I’d expected some kind of gated community or at least a suburban McMansion.
    The neighborhood I found myself driving in wasn’t either of those things. I pulled on to a quiet street. On the south side was a huge, sprawling school with the standard playground next to it. I watched the house numbers on the north side of the street. The GPS alerted me that I had arrived, and I finally pulled up in front of the number Ned had given me. It was a small brick home with a flair of Tudor styling at the peak. Those wooden beams sort of framed it all in. It had a family feel.
    I could have pulled in the driveway, but I didn’t want to announce that I’d arrived. I wanted a moment or two to collect myself before I went over to meet my birth mother.
    I got out of the car and looked at her house.
    Piper George’s house.
    My biological mother’s house.
    It was brick as well but more of a Cape Cod style. It had a large front porch that ran along the entire front of the house.
    I could walk across the small yard and up on that porch. I could just knock and meet the woman I’d spent my life wondering about.
    I could, but I didn’t.
    Instead, I grabbed my small suitcase and went to Ned’s old house and let myself in with the key he had indeed left under the mat.
    The interior was spartan but serviceable. There was a couch, a recliner, and a big television in the living room. I went to the back of the house and found a small but functional kitchen.
    I’d told Ned I was coming today, but he hadn’t asked me about a time so there were no expectations on his part. Even though I’d parked on the street, I was pretty sure he’d see the Ohio license plate on my car and know it was me.
    He said he wouldn’t say anything to Piper until I was ready. And I wasn’t ready yet.
    I walked into the dining room. I could see Piper’s house through the windows. And over a solid wooden fence, I could make out a lot of fading fall greenery spiced up by punctuations of autumnal colors in her backyard.
    Curious, I went upstairs to get a better look.
    I walked into the closest back bedroom, sure that I’d have a better vantage point. I dropped my suitcase on the floor and found a barely clothed man sprawled out on the bed sleeping. Whether he was sleeping soundly or had simply closed his eyes I couldn’t be sure because the moment I spotted him I said, “Oh,” and turned to leave.
    But not before noticing that the boxers he wore were black and covered with little yellow smiley faces.
    “Hey, wait,” Mr. Naked Smiley Face called.
    I rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind me. “I’m so sorry. Ned said no one would be here.”
    I realized I had left my suitcase in the room, but I didn’t go back for it. I mean, I could replace everything in it with one quick Internet shopping trip. I could even break down and go to a store. So I simply hurried down the stairs. I heard the door upstairs open and then footsteps following