Where My Heart Belongs Read Online Free Page A

weather. Sunshine always worried about what might crawl out from under the bench and would plead to sit on her father’s lap. As the years went by their father made updates to the cave, but it was never a place Sunshine wanted to stay for long. Even now, the sight of the door peering out from the mounded ground gave her the shivers.
    Turning back to the house, Sunshine made her way to the kitchen table. Twelve years ago this had been the scene of her departure. She remembered her arrogance . . . her lack of love . . . her bitter hatred.
    My dreams had seemed so important then. I thought I knew best—thought I knew it all. But I hurt so many people with my selfishness .
    She sighed and rubbed her hand atop the smooth, but dulled, wood. Sunshine sat back and looked around the room. Kathy had changed very little. Of course, Sunshine had no way of knowing when their mother had passed away, but she was glad Kathy had left things much as they had been. There was a palpable sense of her mother in the room, in the furnishings she had chosen, in the colors she’d painted the walls.
    Mom, if I’d only known . . . She forced the thought away. I cannot do this. Lana said it would serve no purpose. I cannot make up for my deeds or change the choices I made in the past. I can only work on the present .
    Kathy stood in silence outside her father’s room. She knew she needed to go find her sister and prepare the sofa bed, but in her heart she wrestled with the need to be kind for her father’s sake and the need to guard her heart—for her own sake.
    Her chest still ached from the emotion of seeing her sister standing there when she opened the door. The first year after Sunshine had gone, Kathy fully expected to open the door to just such an event. Then another year passed and then three and five and ten. Kathy had stopped believing Sunshine would ever return when the tenth year passed. That was the year she’d started using Sunshine’s bedroom for storage.
    It had started out innocently enough. Her father had wanted Kathy to locate some old photographs in the attic, and the heat of summer had made it impossible to work in the cramped, sweltering place. Her father had suggested they bring down everything in the attic and put it in Sunshine’s room to make it easier and cooler for Kathy to process. The boxes of memories and old tidbits from the past were still taking up space in her sister’s room. Kathy had meant to deal with them—especially since the farm was to be sold. Of course, so far, there’d been no buyers. At least none who were willing to take the farm as a complete package. Kathy pushed aside her concerns. She couldn’t fret about the sale of the farm and deal with Sunshine at the same time.
    “I suppose now I have to deal with her room,” she murmured. After all, if Sunshine planned to stay very long, she’d need a proper bed and privacy.
    Pushing off from the wall, Kathy decided it was time to deal with the situation at hand. She went upstairs to the linen closet and pulled down fresh bedding. As an afterthought, Kathy also grabbed an extra fan, remembering how Amy . . . Sunshine . . . had liked to have a fan running while she slept. The house had never been equipped with air-conditioning, and the nights were very warm during the long humid summers.
    She thought of having to face her sister and momentarily panicked. A kind of war raged inside with a bitter, angry woman who seemed years beyond her age on one side, and a frightened—no, terrified—girl who had been forced to assume too much responsibility, too soon, on the other. Neither one offered Kathy much hope or comfort.
    Her arms began to ache from holding all the stuff. There was no sense putting off the inevitable.

T HREE
    “SUNSHINE?” KATHY PEERED IN from the kitchen door.
    “Call me Sunny. Everybody does these days.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me,” Kathy muttered. “I have the sofa made up for you.”
    “Can you sit with me for a minute,