Orchard Grove Read Online Free Page A

then, neither was love. Not by a long shot.
    Desire…
    A desire like I’d never known before or, more accurately rendered, hadn’t known in quite a while. It was as if I’d caught a virus and no matter how hard I tried to shake it, it just wouldn’t exit my blood and bone. In a word, I wanted Lana like I wanted no one else.
    And as I finished my second drink of the morning, I’d decided enough was enough.
    No more creepy spying.
    I was either going to do the right thing and pull myself away from this luscious woman and force myself to get back to work. Or, I would do the wrong thing by hobbling outside on my crutches and introducing myself to her, naked face to naked face. My gut told me that the former would have been the most sensible, most responsible decision, and one that just might have saved our home from entering into foreclosure. That same gut told me the latter would be like opening a can of venomous snakes or, in Biblical terms, like taking a huge, near-choking bite of the forbidden Orchard Grove fruit. It was that wrong.
    Naturally, I chose the latter.
     
     
    T he brutal truth: I looked like shit.
    For sure I smelled like it too.
    In the six weeks since my “comprehensive foot reconstruction surgery,” or so the doctors called it, I’d only bathed three times since the act of setting myself down into a tub of hot water was a project that required so much strength and balance, I couldn’t possibly do it alone. That meant enlisting Susan. While she portrayed someone who was always willing to help, it was just easier to let the bathing go, opting instead for sponge baths. Take it from a scriptwriter, portraying the willing wife and actually wanting to be the willing wife are two different things entirely.
    But even when I did bathe, I had to be careful. From what the doctors told me, getting any water on my incisions would mean infection. I also had a six-inch stainless steel rod that had been drilled through the bones of my index toe. A full inch of the rod now stuck out of the toe. One day when I was finally healed, the doctor would grab hold of the one inch piece of rod and yank the entire length out with a pair of common constructer worker pliers. In the meantime, should the rod become bent or misaligned in any way, it would not only cause severe pain, but it would require a second surgery to straighten it out.
    No two ways about it: I was housebound, and smelly, and for good reason.
    In the bathroom, I shaved and gave myself a sponge bath. Slipped into a fresh, plain black T-shirt and put on a pair of clean Levis. For footwear, a single, brown leather, Tony Lama cowboy boot on my left foot while the bandaged wounds and the exposed rod on my right foot were covered with a thin black sock and a knee-high, Velcro-strapped walking boot. Stealing a look at myself in the mirror, I smiled. It might have been the first smile I’d seen on my face in ages (who looks at their face all that much when they’re not content?). Maybe my house was about to be foreclosed on, and maybe I wasn’t working, and maybe my wife and I had drifted apart, and maybe I was in a great deal of pain all the time, but a big part of me felt like a teenager again.
    “ Here’s Johnny ,” I said to my reflection. And then, for the first time in a long time, I made my way out of the house.

S he lies back on the chaise lounge, feeling the sun soak into her face and her naked breasts, and she once more wonders how she got back here. To this place that holds so many horrid memories. Why purposely seek out a house that’s been built on the property where you were hunted like a wild animal by a monster who called himself your stepfather?
    The answer is simple. This is no longer the place where she was hunted, but instead the place where she became the hunter.
    Sure, she sees herself as a girl running desperately through the trees trying to hide from the step-monster. But she also feels empowered. She beat the son of a bitch and now, by