Blue by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

lot better than my sleeping bag.” He couldn’t understand what had happened to him, and why she had appeared to shower bounty on him. It was beyond his wildest imagination. But he was going to enjoy it while he could. She watched him slip under the covers, and then she turned off the lights and went to her own room to change and read for a while in bed. It was strange how comforting it was to know that there was someone in the apartment with her, another human presence, even if she couldn’t see him from her bedroom, but she knew he was there. She peeked out once, and saw that he was sound asleep, and then she went back to bed, smiling to herself. It had turned out to be a very nice Christmas Eve after all, the best in years. And for him, too.

Chapter 4
    Ginny was making herself a cup of coffee the next morning, when Blue wandered into the kitchen, still wearing her pajamas, and looking like one of the Lost Boys from
Peter Pan.
She turned and smiled when she saw him.
    “Did you sleep okay?” she asked him.
    “Yeah, like a baby. Did you wake up really early?”
    She nodded. “I’m still on some other time zone. Are you hungry?” She hadn’t stopped feeding him since they met, but he looked as though he needed it, and he was a growing boy.
    He looked embarrassed when he answered. “Kind of. But I’m okay. I usually only eat one meal a day.”
    “Out of necessity or choice?”
    “Both.”
    “I make fairly decent pancakes, and I have some mix here. Do you want some?” She had bought it one day in a fit of nostalgia and never used it. She tried not to think of the Mickey Mouse pancakes she used to make for Chris. The last time she’d made pancakes had been for him. She knew she’d never make the Mickey Mouse ones again.
    “That sounds good,” Blue admitted, and she got out the mix and made them for him. She had butter in the freezer and maple syrup in the cupboard. And when they finished them, she called Becky to wish them all a merry Christmas at the house in Pasadena. Alan answered and she talked to him for a few minutes, and then Becky got on.
    “Should I speak to Dad, or will that just confuse him?” Ginny asked her sister. She wasn’t sure her father would know who she was, and if he did, she didn’t want him to get upset, asking her to come out.
    “He’s a little scrambled today. He keeps thinking I’m Mom, and that Margie and Lizzie are you and me. He won’t know who you are on the phone, or even if he saw you today.”
    “That must be tough to deal with,” Ginny said, feeling instantly guilty that she wasn’t there.
    “It is,” Becky said honestly. “What about you? What are you going to do today?” She could only imagine how rough Christmas was for her, with no one to spend it with, and the ghosts of Christmas past.
    “I think I’m going to spend it with a friend,” Ginny said pensively. She had told Blue he could use the shower, and she could hear him in her bathroom. She was going to run his clothes through the washing machine and dryer in the building, so he’d have clean clothes.
    “I thought you didn’t have friends in New York.” Becky sounded puzzled. She had given up encouraging Ginny to meet people—she never did and didn’t want to. She said she met enough people on her assignments and didn’t need to know anyone in New York, since she was always there so briefly, only weeks. And her situation was always too hard to explain. She didn’t want anyone’s pity, nor to share her story with them. It was none of their business, and you couldn’t have friends if you weren’t willing to be open with them, which she wasn’t. She was sealed tight like an oyster. She had said more to Blue about Chris and Mark than to anyone in years.
    “I don’t have friends here. I just met him,” Ginny said vaguely.
    “A guy?” For an instant, Becky was shocked.
    “Not a guy, a boy,” Ginny explained and wondered if she should have.
    “What do you mean, ‘a boy’?”
    “He’s