The Sweetest Love (Love Conquers All Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

here soon.” Kissing her fingertips she touched the image of Abby’s face. “I love you.”
    Sniffling and lifting her hand to wipe away a tear, a smile curved her lips. In her heart she could hear her friend’s childhood voice. “I love you, too, Foxy Roxy.”
    Putting on her pumps, she gathered up her purse and empty shopping bag and stood up. Shoving her things under one arm, she brushed dirt and grass from her skirt. Closing her eyes, she said the prayer she always said before leaving the gravesite. Thank you Lord, for giving me Abby. Even if it was for only a little while.

Chapter 5
    Adam sat in his black Lexus listening to a popular R & B radio station as he watched her walk up the gravel pavement. He wondered aloud, “Why does she have a shopping bag?” He probably wasn’t the only one who wondered why someone would bring a shopping bag to a cemetery.
    Stepping out of the vehicle, Adam followed at a distance. Leaning against a wide tree trunk, he watched as she sat on the ground, tenderly touching the headstone and wiping away a tear.
    A sad smile curved his lips when she propped the doll against the pink marble. Abby sure loved her dolls. On more than one occasion he’d threatened to behead every last one of them if she didn’t stay out of his business.
    The heavy ache in his chest made it difficult for Adam to breathe. Although he viewed her as a brat that came along, bumping him out of an only child status, he really did love her. Guilt began to surge through him. He resented her when she became sick, taking their parents’ attention, seemingly leaving him in the background. At the time he was too young to understand the seriousness of her illness. All he cared about was shooting hoops with his friends, and chasing after girls like any red-blooded, testosterone-crazed teenage boy.
    Initially he was glad when his sister met a new friend willing to play with her, not caring that she was sick. Finally, there’d be someone else to cater to his little sister. Maybe she would spend some nights with her new friend, giving him the respite he needed. All that changed, though, when Roxanna was always underfoot. It wasn’t that she was a bother, per se; she was just one more child all up in his space, getting his parents’ attention.
    Over the years, he thought about tracking her down to apologize for his behavior all those years ago. He hadn’t fully understood how she was a ray of sunshine to his slowly dying sister. How Roxy had befriended her when all the other kids taunted Abby with, “You have the druggy disease.”
    Roxy hadn’t cared what the other kids said about her friend. And it didn’t bother her one bit that the other children had shunned her for becoming Abby’s buddy.
    Adam could feel his anger rising. He’d gotten into so many fights when the rumor started circulating that his mother was shooting up heroin during her pregnancy with Abby. The family knew the source of the ugly rumor. Kat – the heifer two doors down – told the lie after his father had rebuffed her advances.
    True, Kat was a drop-dead gorgeous woman who was capable of snagging any man she wanted. Adam and every other boy in the neighborhood had a boyhood crush on the bombshell. He watched as men were hypnotized by the sway of her curvy hips. The lust in their eyes revealing their imaginations of just what one night with her would be like. And when she turned on that come-hither seductive smile, men fell at her feet, not caring about the destruction that would follow. Adam, however, noted that his father was different; he was immune to Kat’s charm, and that pissed her off.
    His anger dissipated as his thoughts turned back to Abby. He remembered the day his parents had brought her home from the hospital. He didn’t know if he should be happy or sad about her arrival. But after taking one look at her tiny sleeping face, he fell in love with the newborn babe.
    Everything was going just fine. He actually enjoyed being a big