Abound in Love Read Online Free Page B

plan—a life.”
    He
spread his hands wide.  “What do you do?  The kids need me.  I can’t turn my
back on them.  They’re family.”
    Laura
stiffened.  Was he suggesting she had turned her back on her family?  He
apparently read the flash of self-awareness in her eyes.
    He made
a conciliatory gesture.  “Hey, don’t even go there.  I was not meaning
you’ve turned your back on anyone.”  He briskly shook his head.  “The idea that
you haven’t done right by your family is preposterous.  I know you keep in
touch with the kids.  They talk about you constantly.  You make it a point to
make them feel important.”  He sighed again.  “Frankly, it’s probably more than
Candace could ask, considering…”
    “She
made my life a living hell.”
    “Well,
there is that,” he said morosely.  “Do you think you can forgive her?”
    Laura
waved a dismissive hand.  “Ah, we were kids…”
    Thomas
wasn’t fooled.  “Laura, she was awful to you.  I know it, you know it.  What’s
more, she knows it.”  He was quiet for a moment.  “It really was good of you to
come.”
    She
shrugged. 
    Thomas
burst out in laughter, and she gave him a questioning glance.  “Do you remember
how Pastor Scott always said that God has a sense of humor?”
    Laura
nodded.
    “Well,
I don’t think it’s any accident our little Krissy is not only the spitting
image of her Aunt Laura, but she’s the same little serious thinker, with more
common sense than kids twice her age, and with a deep-seeded compassion for her
fellow man.  She’s an old soul—just like you were.”
    “Poor
little kid.  May as well pull her out of school now and home school her.  I’d
hate for her to have to live through a high school experience similar to mine.”
    “She’ll
be all right,” he said.
    “How
can you be sure?” Laura asked.
    “She
has Kenny, whereas you had…”
    “Candace.”
    “Candace
does love you,” he said.  “I do know that.  Frankly, I think she envied you so
much, that she…”
    “Candace,
envied me?” she interrupted, incredulous.  “Uh, no.”
    “Oh,
yes, she did.  You were always your own person.  You’d stand with any underdog,
without fear about how it would reflect on you to go against the group.”
    “Hence,
I became the underdog.”
    “Oh,
no, that’s not true.  You were never the underdog.  You were an independent
thinker, who was strong enough in her convictions to avoid peer pressure—even
from your own sister.”
    “Well,
that’s one way of looking at it,” Laura sighed.
    “I am
sorry for what Candace put you through.  I wish I’d been there to intercede.”
    “I know
you do.  But by the time I was a freshman in high school, you were a senior and
focused on getting into college.”  She gave a shrug.  “It’s all right.  We’re
all adults now.”
    Thomas
watched her sympathetically.  “Laura, it’s not all right.  Thanks to our
sister, you hightailed it out of here so fast, you left our heads spinning.  I
often wonder if things would have been different, had Candace treated you
differently.”
    “Ah,
who knows?” she said with a wave of her hand.  She really didn’t want to talk
about this any longer.  To do so forced her to revisit old hurts, and made her
feel like the sad, inadequate girl she’d been.  “I’m afraid I’m starting to
experience a bit of jet lag.”  She yawned.  “I think I’ll go to bed.”
    “You’re
sharing your old room with Krissy.”  He smiled.  “I did mean to replace your
old mattress, but…”
    “Don’t
worry about it.  It isn’t as if you don’t have more important things to worry
about.”
    “We’ll
see if you’re still singing the same tune in the morning,” he said with an
exaggerated wince.  “But try to sleep well.”
    “You
too.”
     
    *** 
     
    Laura
tiptoed into her bedroom, attempting to avoid the boards in the hardwood floor
she remembered as being particularly squeaky.  She managed