Love Hurts Read Online Free Page B

an hour hadn’t even passed since they’d gotten started. Mel was obviously impatient to show off her pièce de résistance. Anna scanned the room for her sister. She found her in a group of couples, standing with Gregg’s arm around her. Anna’s shoulders slumped when she realized she couldn’t reach Jilly in time. She stared at Jilly’s face as she listened to Mel introduce the painting.
     
    The room took on an expectant hush as Mel spoke. Anna felt only dread. Not only for Jilly’s reaction, but her own. What would it do to the carefully walled parts of her heart to be confronted with her mother’s passion?
     
    “And now may I present—” Mel whipped off the cover and the entire room drew breath as one.
     
    Mamma had done it again. There was no question the painting was a masterpiece, but her heart squeezed tighter and tighter, and she struggled to breathe around the knot of it. Her head whipped up at the scream and she stepped forward instinctively to protect her sister, her foot crushing the glass she didn’t even realize she’d dropped.
     
    “Jilly,” she whispered.
     
    Cliff’s arm came around her. “You okay, Anna? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong with Jilly?”
     
    Anna looked up at him, his face shadowed with concern. Anna pulled herself together, refused to look at the painting and rushed across the room to her sister.
     
    Jilly stared at the painting, her mouth a stark O, tears streaming down her face. “No, no,” she whispered.
     
    Anna pulled her into her arms and tried to turn Jilly away from the painting, but she was as immovable as stone.
     
    “Jilly, please,” Anna whispered, “Honey, don’t look at it.”
     
    With Anna’s words, Jilly’s limbs came unstuck and she thrashed in her sister’s arms. “What is that doing here?” she shrieked. “Who brought that disgusting thing to my town?”
     
    The people around them shrank back until she and Jilly stood alone, like they had a contagious disease people were terrified of catching. Where’s Gregg?
     
    “Please, Jilly. It’s okay, let’s just go.”
     
    Jilly slipped out of her arms as if she’d become thin as paper. She sank to the floor, crying deep, wrenching sobs. Anna couldn’t think what to do. Then Gregg appeared. Without a word, he leaned down, scooped Jilly up in his arms, said, “Come,” to Anna and led them to the car he’d parked in front of the building.
     
    Anna opened the back door and he set Jilly inside. She immediately curled up on the seat, still sobbing. Anna climbed into the front and Gregg pulled away as soon as her door shut. She leaned her head back against the seat, tears welling up, and tried not to think of the scene they’d just left behind. She tried not to think about what the town would now think of her and Jilly. She tried not to think of what Mel would say tomorrow. Drive, Gregg, drive. Keep driving and let’s not ever come back.
     

Chapter 3

    Jilly hadn’t slept the entire night, although Gregg finally drifted off around two a.m. She lay on her back, her muscles aching from hardly moving all night. She kept going over the scene at the gallery and her first sight of the painting. She knew instantly, without even seeing the signature, that it was Mamma’s work. Only after she registered the artist did she see the actual scene. There were little girls, holding hands, the smaller one blonde, and the dark-haired girl pointed at something in a tree. The girls were her and Anna. That was when she screamed and Anna came running.
     
      Jilly looked toward the sun streaming around the curtains. Matthew would be up soon and wanting his breakfast. Her heart stuttered and thudded. It’s starting again. Why did she have to come back into our lives?
     
    Gregg muttered and stirred beside her. Jilly shifted away from him, her muscles protesting. She eased out of bed and stepped silently across the plush carpet. She inched the bathroom door shut and leaned back