The Good Neighbor Read Online Free Page A

his arms around my waist, both of us gazing into the mirror. He looked gaunt, with new worry lines next to his eyes. He’d been working too hard, not sleeping enough.
    “I’m well enough to help you now,” I said, reaching up to touch the stubble on his cheek. “You don’t have to take care of everything.”
    “I don’t mind. Doc said you need to rest.”
    “We can still make decisions together.” But he was right. I barely recognized my reflection in the mirror—sallow skin, sunken eyes, limp hair. In the author photo printed in my books, my shiny hair bounced around my shoulders and I looked radiant, alive.
    “We need to decide where we’re going,” Johnny said.
    “Home. I want to go home.” I leaned back against his chest, an ache of nostalgia in my bones.
    Johnny kissed the top of my head. “We can’t sleep in the ruins.” But I wanted to. By sheer force of will, I would make the ashes rise and reconstitute themselves into the familiar objects of home.
    I turned to gaze up into his eyes. “I know it’s going to be hard, but—”
    “We can start again in a new place,” Johnny said. “We could move to that town that gets rain year-round. Forks, where they filmed those vampire movies. It’s so wet there, nothing ever catches fire.”
    “You’ve got obligations. The clinic.”
    “I’ll move the clinic.”
    “Your patients can’t move with you. They rely on you.”
    “Shhh.” Johnny touched his finger to my lips. “Let’s talk about this later. For now, I’ve got us a rental on the other side of town.”
    “So that’s where you’ve been all day.”
    “Not all day.”
    Close up, his face came into focus—his thick lashes, the barely noticeable white birthmark on his forehead, the stubble on his jaw.
    “How did you find a place so quickly?”
    “I ran into Maude. She was out hosing debris off her lawn. She said Eris Coghlan owns a rental across town. You know, the Realtor? So I gave her a call. Turns out she has a cottage, half-furnished but unoccupied. We can move in anytime. It’s on a quiet dead-end street.”
    “You’ve been there already?” My head began to spin again. Johnny worked so efficiently. Usually, I appreciated knowing he’d covered all the bases. I was thankful for a place to stay, so why did uneasiness tug at me? Perhaps because Johnny and I were homeless, forced to rely on the kindness of strangers.
    “I checked out the cottage, yeah,” he said. “It’s small, but it has a certain charm. After we stop by Sitka Lane, I’ll drive you out there. You can take a look and decide for yourself.”
    “I’m sure it will be perfect,” I said. The sanctuary would be a blessing. Change was born of necessity. I had to be practical now.

CHAPTER FIVE
    On the drive back to Sitka Lane, I watched pedestrians strolling along the brick sidewalks of Waterfront Road, peering in shop windows and sipping iced coffees, as if their lives would always be normal. Dry leaves skittered along the gutters, maples turning deep shades of gold and crimson. Autumn was showing off, but sooner or later, autumn would turn into winter, and the trees would lose all their leaves.
    Johnny drove west through the old part of town, populated by Victorian homes built during the heyday of the timber industry a century earlier. At nearly seven o’clock, the moon rose behind us, the sunset a smudge of pink across the western horizon. As Johnny turned onto Sitka Lane, my heart fluttered with nervousness. What would remain of the two houses? Johnny parked at the curb and held my hand.
    The damage was worse than I’d expected. How could this horrible mess have once been our home? Blasted-out windows, blackened siding streaked with water damage, the roof caved in. The yard resembled a garbage dump surrounded by yellow FIRE LINE tape. The stink of burned wood and fabric remained in the air.
    Next door, only a shell of the Kimballs’ house remained. Two suited investigators picked their way through the