What the Heart Wants Read Online Free Page A

perfectly styled. In fact, Laurel had never seen Sarah’s mother when she hadn’t been perfectly turned out. Tonight she had on jeans, mocs, and a loose peasant blouse. On anyone else, the outfit would look casual. On her, it looked haute couture. Maybe it was the bangle bracelets and hoop earrings. Maybe it was Marilyn Bridges.
    Laurel had regarded Mrs. Bridges as her second mother, and she knew Sarah’s house as well as she knew her own. Of course, it had been more fun across the street. Mama and Gramma, who were always hanging around when Sarah visited, preferred that she and Sarah play indoors, usually with dolls or at quiet board games, but Marilyn Bridges encouraged them to go outside and bounce on the trampoline, splash in the big backyard pool, or wave green-and-gold pompoms and shriek out Baylor football cheers.
    Mrs. Bridges readjusted her grip on her grandson and raised a hand to her mouth like a megaphone. “You’ll never see it in the dark! Get another one or wait till tomorrow!”
    Eric reached down and lifted up the missing ball. “Found it!”
    Luke cheered and Mrs. Bridges applauded from the porch steps.
    After high school, Sarah went off to the University of Texas to play softball for the Longhorns while Laurel traveled just down the road to Baylor to major in music and pick up a teaching degree, but they’d stayed in touch. Sarah, who’d apparently slept with every straight guy at UT, discovered her birth control had failed her the semester before she graduated, and asked Laurel to be maid of honor at her hurry-up wedding. Four years later, Sarah, pregnant with her second son, was the honor attendant when Laurel, the world’s oldest virgin, married Dave Carson.
    The little redhead whimpered and began moving restlessly in his grandmother’s lap. After a few minutes, Mrs. Bridges stood up and took him and Luke inside.
    Sarah looked toward the door and removed her mitt, but Eric thumped the ball into his glove a couple more times. “Aw, Mom, stay out with me. We don’t have to go in now.”
    Sarah shook her head. “Sorry, hon, but you know how cranky Baby gets at this time in the evening. It’s not fair to palm him off on your grandmother.”
    She started toward the house, then suddenly turned around as if she’d just had an idea.
    â€œOkay, Eric, just one more.” She edged backward toward the house, which made Eric take a position nearer the street to face her.
    â€œThink high!” She lifted her arm and hurled it forward.
    Eric leapt up, but the ball sailed far above his head.
    Laurel lost its arc in the darkness, then was surprised to hear something land with a plop scarcely five yards in front of her.
    In a flash, Sarah, dodging a minivan that came to a screeching halt to accommodate her, ran across all four lanes of Austin Ave. She bent down to pick up the ball, gave Laurel a quick smile, breathed out a quick “Hi!” then raced back across the street and motioned to her son. “Come on, hon. Time to go in.”
    After hanging back for a resentful second, Eric trudged after his mother, closing the door behind him. The yard lights went out.
    Laurel blinked into the darkness. What was that all about? Was Sarah losing her touch—or had she deliberately overthrown the ball as an excuse to cross the street and reestablish contact?
    *  *  *
    Jase drove slowly down the road, searching for his old home.
    He knew twilight was a great equalizer, but the neighborhood sure looked a lot better than it had ten years ago when he’d come back to town after Growler fell into the Bosque River after a night of heavy drinking and drowned. In fact, it looked downright respectable—without a single junk pile, broken-down car, or scavenging dog pack in sight.
    Thank God that Lolly would never know the squalor he’d grown up in. “Poor but honest” was the picture he’d always painted of his