You Don't Know Me Read Online Free

like privacy and retreat and hideaway .
    He still couldn’t believe he’d finally talked Nelda McIntyre into parting with the place. That’s what years of Sundays singing ancient hymns at the senior center could do for a man’s career. And reputation.
    Most of those old folks grew up with his grandfather, his uncles, his cousins, and remembered when the Decker name meant success, even honor.
    He intended to bring that back.
    For a moment more, Nathan watched the waves crash on the rocks below the cliff that dropped straight down some twenty feet. The violence of waves against the rocky shoreline had the power to trap him with their rhythm—the sound of the surf hitting the cliff like a punch, deep inside the gut of the rocky wall. The giant gulp as the water rushed away only to hurl itself again against the rocks. Over and over, never ending, until he could feel it pulsing within him, a heartbeat of doom, reminding him of who he was, imprisoning him inside the Decker legacy.
    It had taken him thirty years, but with this mayoral race, he’d break free from the current of shame and failure.
    Nathan took a few more pictures of the tall cement beams that comprised the shell of the massive great room, then moved to capture the building’s layout, how it curved along the shore like it belonged there. A cement shell, really, a dream unfinished by Nelda’s husband, a man taken before his time.
    The right owner simply needed the vision to see beyond its legacy to the potential.
    Nathan crunched across the gravel driveway and climbed into his used Ford Focus. He’d purchased it for the gas mileage, no frills, something Jason and Colleen could drive. Someday, he intended to get something fast and shiny. Maybe after he got Jason, Colleen, and Henry through college. And after he replaced Annalise’s beater SUV. And his mother could use a new deck after forty years of living in the same tiny bungalow.
    But someday.
    He glanced at the dashboard clock as he turned around for the trek up the long dirt drive to the highway. Annalise had mentioned something about Henry’s soccer practice—he’d wanted to stop by. But he needed to log in these pictures, get them up on the Net before Colleen’s volleyball game. Still, a sudden longing to see his wife, maybe spend five minutes holding her hand while watching their son, churned inside him, rearranging his plans.
    He’d stop by, say hi, then pop into the office to post the listing.
    His campaign depended on his selling this property and digging his bank account out of the red. Thankfully, Annalise had no idea how far he’d plunged them into debt or she’d start talking about working at the nursing home again. Not that he’d mind the extra paycheck or her having her own career, but she loved her volunteer work at the school, around town at the Goodwill, the blood drive, and on the theater board, and she liked being able to attend the kids’ events, go to lunch with the soccer moms, hit the gym.
    And he loved giving her the freedom to do it. Sometimes, when he saw her wave to him from the stands at the volleyball games, in front of the entire town, looking pretty with her long blonde hair and incredible blue eyes, that old feeling swept through him.Disbelief that he’d married so well. That God had given him the most beautiful woman in Deep Haven. It was all he could do to keep up with the grace, to be the husband he’d pledged to be. Honestly, she probably deserved better, but he wouldn’t tell her that.
    All he wanted was to do right by her. To grow old with her.
    Most of all, to never end up like his old man.
    Nathan pulled out onto the highway and turned on the radio, catching the local broadcast. Vern and Neil, the sports jockeys, were on, giving a pregame analysis of tonight’s volleyball game. They mentioned Colleen and her spike, the stats of the team.
    He punched the gas, glancing again at the time.
    The soccer players were just winding up the post-practice pep talk when