Today's Reading
Zoey watched the change come over John-Parker Wisdom. Disbelief. Grief. Anger.
"She can't be." He jerked up from his near-comical position on a couch that needed to be in the dumpster. She'd see it gone soon. Him, too.
"I'm sorry to be the bearer of such news." Very sorry. The last thing she'd needed was for John-Parker Wisdom to show up now.
What were the odds?
Mamie had waited years for this man to come back. So why now? Now that it was too late for him to do anything but cause trouble.
"What happened?" His expression was stricken, his gray eyes haunted. "She was always so vital."
Zoey battled against feeling sorry for him.
"How long since you've seen her, John-Parker?"
"Fifteen years."
"When was the last time the two of you spoke?"
He sighed. Pinched his bottom lip. "Fifteen years ago."
Exactly the reason he should turn his big truck around and head out of Rosemary Ridge. Though not the only one.
"You haven't spoken to her or kept in touch since you left here fifteen years ago."
Her derisive words weren't a question. They were an accusation.
Some of Aunt Mamie's "kids" sent cards or emails. Some had even returned for a visit. But John-Parker Wisdom hadn't been one of them. Zoey knew because, in her final year, Mamie had worried about him the most.
"I should have, but I needed to..." He shook his head, leaving the thought to dangle in the tense air separating them.
Needed to what?
He gazed up at the high dingy ceiling, his handsome face tragic.
Even though Zoey didn't want to notice, the man was good-looking.
He was dressed well in upscale Western style, more like a Dallas businessman than an actual cowboy. He held a white Stetson in one hand. Not a bedraggled work hat, but a pristine Stetson a Western man would wear for dress-up. His brown hair was neatly cut and groomed. A shadow of dark scruff outlined his lower face.
Except for the wide scar running across his thick left eyebrow like a two-lane highway, his sculpted face was near perfection.
Pretty is as pretty does.
Zoey practically heard Aunt Mamie speaking in her ear. And her aunt was exactly right.
John-Parker Wisdom might look good on the outside, but his actions had left him woefully lacking.
Where had he been all this time?
And what right did he have to show up now?
Boys like him had taken everything Aunt Mamie had had to give, stolen her adult years, her money, her chances at marriage and a family of her own. They were selfish street rats Mamie had prayed for and grieved.
This one in particular.
Why, Aunt Mamie? Why him?
“Was she sick?” His glazed eyes, the color of a cloudy morning, stared unseeing at the squeaky ceiling fan. Five blades emitted a rhythmic squeak as they rotated a lazy breezeless circle. “I don’t remember her ever being sick.”
Zoey wanted to say her aunt had died of a broken heart, but instead she named the diagnosis. “Cancer.”
His teeth bared in a hiss. “I hate cancer.”
She scoffed. “Welcome to the universe.”
Her sharp tone brought his gaze back to her.
“How long was she sick?” he asked as if the thought of Mamie suffering brought him pain. She could credit him for the compassion if little else.
“Over three years, but she didn’t tell anyone until the last year when she was too weak to foster her boys any longer.”
This excerpt is from the ebook edition.
Monday we begin the book The Burning of Rosemont Abbey by Naomi Stephens.
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