Between Us Girls by Sally John Read Free Book Online Page A

goofy is that?” She drew a deep breath, her smile and twinkle fading. “Especially since I haven’t really slept in almost six months.”
    â€œSix months?”
    â€œThere was a tornado.” She inhaled again deeply and blew out loudly. “My house is gone and everything I owned. Well, except for my bicycle because I rode it to work that day, and that’s where I was when the tornado struck. It didn’t hit the restaurant or the town, for that matter. I live—I lived on a farm.”
    A tornado? The poor child. “I’m so sorry. You and your family weren’t harmed?”
    â€œNo. I mean, I wasn’t. I don’t have any family. No siblings or cousins. My grandparents are gone. My mother died three years ago. There were only the four of us.”
    â€œNo dad?”
    â€œUh, my mom, uh, wasn’t sure who he was. He was just passing through town. She was only eighteen.”
    Oh my! “I’m so sorry. But you had friends to help you after the tornado? A special young man? Oh, dear. I’m snooping. Bad habit.”
    â€œThat’s okay. I think I need to talk. Friends, yes. Special guy, no.” She grimaced, as if to say there had been one at some point and that it had not ended well.
    â€œThese past months must have been about the worst in your life.”
    â€œYeah.” She breathed out the word, as if grateful for Liv’s two cents’ worth of sympathy. “I’d say the worst. So, you see? It doesn’t make any sense why I could sleep here right after I lost everything again. But then, nothing has made sense since the instant I stuck my foot in the ocean and felt like I’d come home. Everything about San Diego is familiar. Even the freeways. Back home, Valley Oaks doesn’t have one stoplight and the highways are two-lanes through farmland. The very first day I got here, I zipped along six lanes of traffic as though it were old hat and I drove straight to the Seaside Village beach without taking one wrong turn.”
    Liv held the teacup to her mouth to hide a smile. On second thought, Jasmyn Albright was not in the least bit mousy.
    â€œThen my things were stolen, but I was rescued and treated like a princess. I didn’t even have to ask for cream for my coffee. It was right there in the fridge. Poof! Like magic. And I slept for the first time since my house was crushed into a pile of matchsticks. To tell you the truth, it’s getting a little scary. And I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”
    â€œMy goodness, that is a curious chain of events, isn’t it?” Liv set downher cup on the small table between the chairs and cleared her throat. “Why did you choose the Seaside Village beach over the others?”
    â€œI read about it online.” She shrugged. “It sounded like the prettiest one.”
    â€œI think it is. Well. Would you like my take on things?” She had learned to ask permission. In her crazy coot days she’d had a tendency to jump in with both feet and splash others who did not want to get wet. They seldom came back for more.
    â€œOkay?” Jasmyn’s voice went up as if she asked a question.
    Liv heard it as assent, though, and measured her words. If she said that the Holy Spirit prompted her to stand at the gate yesterday so that she would see Jasmyn in distress and be able to help, the girl might run off. If Liv explained that she had walked through Cottage Eleven, sprinkled holy water around, and prayed for Jasmyn to feel like a princess in it, the girl would hightail it out of there for sure.
    Liv chose neutral territory. “Life is a mystery, and it hardly ever makes sense. All I know for sure is that you ended up here when you needed help. And it was Labor Day when no one was working, and we could easily pool our resources. Coco, by the way, donated the cream. She insisted that you have it because she uses it in her coffee.”
    Jasmyn gave