The Perfect Letter Read Online Free

personally.”
    â€œI don’t. Since in all other ways your brother is a perfect gentleman, I have to assume this is a minor character flaw. I can live with it. I’ve known men with worse, believe me.”
    â€œSo,” said Bennett, “you’ve never been back to Texas, in all this time?”
    â€œMy grandfather died my freshman year of college, and though he left me some money, he willed the property and the horse business to my uncle and his family, who moved into the place not long after the funeral to keep things running. I always got along with my uncle Sonny and aunt Becky and my cousins, but I never wanted to be an imposition, show up like I thought I owned the place. I send Christmas cards and call on birthdays, that kind of thing, but with my grandfather gone, it was always easier to stay in Boston over the school breaks. I wasn’t dying to go back anyway.”
    â€œAnd you have your life here,” said Bennett. “Your friends, your career.”
    Leigh grinned. “That, too. You can take the girl out of New York, but . . .”
    Bennett held up her glass for a toast. “Well,” she said, “I’m glad to find out my Oliver Twist assumptions were all wrong. I hated to think of you begging for gruel and walking barefoot through the snow.”
    â€œThere’s no snow in Texas,” Leigh said.
    â€œIn my imagination there was.” Bennett smiled. “It did make for a good story, though, didn’t it?”
    â€œPlease, miss, may I have some more?” Leigh said, and she held out her champagne flute for the waitress to fill.
    It wasn’t until the flight attendant woke her twenty minutes outside of Austin, asking Leigh to return her seat back and tray table to their full upright positions, that she started to feel the first real stirrings of dread. Outside the window she could see the gray waters of Lake Austin tucked between the dark green hills of East Texas, the rough shape of the city center, the golden dome of the capitol glinting in the sunlight. Austin had gone through something of a renaissance in the years she’d been away, and now it was the cultural capital of the Southwest, epicenter of a thriving music, art, and lit scene. The People’s Republic of Austin, some called it. She hadn’t laid eyes on the place since that miserable day in February when she’d taken the late flight back to Boston after burying her grandfather. Ten years. She’d always assumed she’d come back sooner than this. Funny how time got away from you. Time . . . and guilt.
    Leigh wouldn’t let herself think about that—not yet. She was Scarlett O’Hara, back at Tara. She’d think about it all tomorrow.
    By the time the plane pulled up to the gate and she was able to turn on her phone, she had four text messages from her best friend, Chloe Barrett. THE SECURITY GUYS AT THE AIRPORT ARE HOTTT!!! wrote her friend, and afterward WHEN ARE YOU GETTING HERE? I’M RUNNING OUT OF LIQUOR, followed by WHAT, COULDN’T SPRING FOR WI-FI ON YOUR SALARY? and finally I’M YOUR BAGGAGE. COME CLAIM ME. CAROUSEL 4.
    This last made Leigh snort out loud, so that the passengers all standing around her waiting for the plane door to open stoppedto stare at her—at the young woman in the designer-label jeans and bag, her long, dark hair cascading in perfect waves to her shoulders—who’d made such an inelegant sound. No matter how long it had been since they’d seen each other, Leigh and Chloe always managed to pick up right where they’d left off. Like high school all over again. More than anything or anyone else, it was Chloe whom Leigh had come to see. Her friend had been begging for years for her to come home, but there was always something holding her back. An exam to take. An internship to complete. A book to launch. When the invitation came from the Austin Writers’ Conference a few months ago, Chloe told