Marta Perry Read Online Free

nonsense. But it certainly was haunted by memories.

CHAPTER TWO
    M ARGO SLIPPED AWAY from the kitchen door, her terry-cloth slippers making no sound at all. But she wouldn’t be heard in any event. Meredith had gone out on the back porch with her friend. She’d never know her mother had been out of bed at all.
    A lady doesn’t eavesdrop. It wasn’t polite. But what was she to do when her own daughter kept secrets from her?
    Margo’s anger flickered as she made her way up the stairs, her hand on the railing for support. Really, Meredith should have better sense, but it certainly wasn’t her fault. No one could say that Margo hadn’t done her best to raise her only daughter properly.
    It was a mother’s duty to protect her child, even when that child was an unmarried woman of thirty. She winced, Meredith’s age reminding her uncomfortably of just how old she was. Still, her friends assured her she didn’t look a day over fifty.
    Margo padded into her bedroom, sending a satisfied glance at her image in the mirror. Like a Dresden doll, her father had said of her the evening she’d gone to her first dance. Certainly the boys had agreed. She’d had her pick of boyfriends. If only she hadn’t imagined herself in love with John King....
    She fluffed up her pillows and settled back against them, frowning a little. The issue now was Meredith, and how she could be protected from her weakness where Zachary Randal was concerned.
    Good riddance to bad rubbish—that was what people had said when he’d left town all those years ago. Margo had bathed in a glow of righteousness for weeks over her role in making his departure come about. Zach had left, and Meredith had been protected from him. Goodness only knew what might have happened if Margo hadn’t intervened when she did.
    She’d been so sure the incident was closed after all these years. Who could have imagined that Randal boy would dare to show his face in Deer Run again?
    Her breath came too quickly, and Margo forced herself to relax. She mustn’t upset herself or she’d bring on one of her attacks, and then she wouldn’t be able to do anything to save Meredith from herself.
    Meredith was still in danger of succumbing to Randal’s dubious attractions. Margo didn’t doubt that for a minute. There was simply something about one’s first love that blinded one.
    She glanced at the silver-framed photo of John that stood on the bedside table. John hadn’t liked having it taken—some silly hangover from his Amish upbringing. But she’d had no patience with that foolishness and had insisted.
    Enough of thinking about the past. She had to decide what to do now. Meredith and Rachel had brought up two distasteful matters in their private little chat.
    Why were they so fascinated with Aaron Mast’s death? It had been an accident, pure and simple. Everyone knew that. As for Sarah asking Meredith to look into it—well, that was just ridiculous, and no more than one could expect from her husband’s relatives.
    Meredith couldn’t possibly know anything about what happened the night Aaron drowned in the pond. She hadn’t even been at home. She’d spent the night with another of John’s numerous cousins, at his insistence. If Margo had had her way, Meredith would have had no communication with those people. But John, usually so compliant and eager to please her, had stood firm on that subject.
    Margo sifted through memories. Odd, how some incidents formed landmarks in a person’s mind. She remembered that night clearly because of what had happened early the next morning. She’d gone downstairs to find Bill Kramer, his fishing rod still dangling from his hand, pounding on the back door and insisting on using the telephone because someone was dead in the pond.
    Margo pulled the silky comforter up to her chin. The accident had probably happened in the late evening, people had said. Meredith hadn’t been home, thank goodness. John hadn’t, either. He’d gone back to the