Reflections of Yesterday Read Online Free Page B

her over the threshold. Drunk with happiness, she’d looped her arms around his neck and kissed his face until he demanded she stop.
    “Just where are you taking me?” Angie had murmured, playfully nibbling on his earlobe with her teeth.
    “To the master bedroom, where else, Mrs. Canfield?”
    Angie tossed back her head and laughed. “Oh Simon, I do love you. I’ll make you the best wife in all of South Carolina.”
    “I’m holding you to that,” he said, and kissed her until she was weak with longing. His tenderness had brought tears to her eyes as he unbuttoned her blouse and slowly slipped it from her shoulders. Her long hair fell forward as she bowed her head. Tears filled her dusky, dark eyes.
    “Angie, what’s wrong?”
    “Nothing,” she whispered. “I love you so much. It’s just …”
    “What?” Gently, he had brushed the hair from her face and kissed the corner of her eyes, stopping the flow of tears. “Angie, I’d do anything in the world for you.”
    “I’m being silly to cry over a piece of paper. I don’t need it. Not when I have you. But, Simon, do you think we’ll forget our anniversary?”
    “I’ll never forget anything about you, or this night,” he vowed. Straightening, he had taken the knife from his pocket and crossed the meadow to a huge pecan tree. It stood regal and proud, the tallest tree on the edge of the clearing. With painstaking effort he’d engraved the date and their names in the bark. The tree would stand for all time as their witness.
    A distant sound of a barking dog shook Angie from her reverie. The tree. That was what was missing, gone. Sadness overwhelmed her when she located the stump. From the look of it,the tree had been crudely chopped down years ago. Simon had done this, cutting her out of his world as ruthlessly as the ax had severed the life of the mighty pecan. It shouldn’t hurt this much, she told herself. But it did. The pain dug as deep as the day Simon’s mother had come to her with the money.
    Her legs felt as though they would no longer hold her upright, and she slumped down, sitting on the stump as the strength drained from her. Gone was the outrage, vanishing as quickly as it came. Her tears were those of sorrow for what they had lost. There was no more fight left in her. Simon had appointed himself judge and divorced her with an ax. If their marriage had been a document instead of bark, she at least would have had the advice of counsel. Without conscience he had cast their love aside as though it had no meaning.
    A dog barked again and the sound was noticeably closer. Brushing the hair from her forehead, Angie straightened. A black Labrador raced into the clearing, barking, his tail and ears alert.
    A sad smile touched Angie’s eyes. “Oh Blackie, is it really you?” Simon had trained the dog from a pup.
    The angry dog ignored her, intent only in voicing his discovery.
    “Blackie, don’t you remember me?” Crouched as she was, Angie held out her hand for him to smell. Blackie had once been her friend as well.
    “That isn’t Blackie.”
    Simon’s gruff voice from behind startled Angie. She sprang to her feet, her eyes wide and fearful as they fell on the rifle in his hands.
    “This is Prince, Blackie’s son.” He lowered the gun at his side so that the muzzle was angled toward the ground.
    Prince continued to voice his displeasure, but one sharp word from Simon silenced him.
    “What happened to Blackie?”
    “He died,” Simon answered starkly.
    “I’m sorry … I know how much you …”
    “You’re trespassing.”
    The sun was high enough now so that it invaded the clearing, its brightness peeking through the limbs and bathing the earth with a gentle glow.
    “Am I?” she asked, in a voice so soft it could barely be heard. “Once it was my home.”
    “Don’t try to make this place something it wasn’t.” A withdrawn look marked his features. His calm declaration chilled her more than angry words. “There was only