Whispers of the Heart Read Online Free Page A

promise.”
    “Where exactly are you going that has to take eight weeks, anyway?”
    “You’ll laugh.”
    “Now, that’s an odd thing to say.”
    “You will.”
    “Well, fine! Tell me, I’ll laugh, and then we can finish our conversation like the grown-ups we pretend to be.”
    “Cute.”
    “Yes, I know. Peter told me how cute I was last week, but I won’t go into details.”
    “A dude ranch, okay?” Kat blurted out.
    “A dude what?”
    “There’s a ranch out west that caters to extended vacations for people wanting to get away from city-life; to experience the life of a cowhand.”
    “Out west. Cowhand.” Janet shook her head as if it would help the information fall into the correct mental location and thus make sense to her. It wasn’t working. Instead, she pinned a Kat with perplexed stare.
    “Oh, stop looking at me like I’m the one with no brain. It’s just a dude ranch.”
    “A dude ranch.”
    “Yes, a dude ranch,” Kat sighed, wondering why she’d even bothered telling her friend, especially when that friend also happened to be her publisher. She should have known that Janet would receive her announcement with sarcasm. “I figure the fresh air and sunshine will do me good.”
    “I thought you were over your loss, Kat,” Janet said, leaning back in her chair and eyeing her friend with concern. “Are you saying now that you aren’t? I mean, the man that killed your family is serving twenty-five years for vehicular manslaughter, his trucking company paid you a bundle in restitution...”
    “And your point is?”
    “My point is that all of that, plus time, was supposed to bring you closure. And now you’re telling me that you need to get away for, not a normal two-week excursion, but eight, whole, freaking weeks.”
    “Why is it that you sound upset, Janet? I mean, the last I looked this was still my life, you know.”
    “Yes, well, when you write a potential best-seller, it becomes my life. At least until I get your book mentioned on every airwave, flying off virtual bookshelves, and as the subject of conversation around every water cooler in every office in America. But I can’t very well do that if you aren’t here to cooperate with my efforts.”
    “Wow, Janet,” Kat said in exaggerated awe, “that would sound extremely egocentric if I didn’t know you so well.”
    “It’s not being egotistical to want to see you become the successful writer I know you can be. Now if I added that the more successful you are, then the richer I become, then you could accuse me of being self-centered, selfishly motivated...”
    “Oh! Do stop being so melodramatic, Janet, I’ve been writing nearly non-stop for the last two years. I’m ready for a break, okay? And you’re probably right about my taking my computer, so you know that it will in all probability be a working vacation...”
    “Are you sleeping well?”
    “Of course I am!”
    “Then your desire to get away...”
    “Hasn’t got a damned thing to do with Robert, the children, the murder trial...”
    “This is the second anniversary of their death,” Janet said softly.
    “Ah, hell, Janet,” Kat sighed, “you had to bring that up, didn’t you?”
    “So you are running from ghosts?”
    “If I said yes, would you drop it?” Janet didn’t answer immediately and Kat sighed again, “I’m tired, Janet. I’m just tired, is all.”
    “But eight weeks?”
    “Yeah, eight weeks.”
    “That’s tantamount to a publicity death sentence in the world of publishing. Still, if you gotta go, you gotta go.”
    “Yeah, I gotta go.”
    Janet sighed, “I’ll do all I can to keep your name in the minds of readers everywhere until you get back, but do me a small favor, okay?”
    “Which is?”
    “Get yourself laid while you’re gone.”
    “You really are a piece of work, you know that?”
    “Yeah, Peter told me that too, or did he say I have a nice piece of...”
    “Alright, Janet, that’s enough.”
    “Want me to have him write