Come Morning by Pat Warren Read Free Book Online Page A

dark-haired boy about five years old sat atop a Shetland pony in a fenced corral. It was a summer scene, very simple, with blue sky, puffy white clouds, and high, green mountains in the background. On the child’s face was a look that could only be described as pure joy as he leaned forward slightly, his small hand buried in the pony’s shaggy mane.
    Slade remembered that pony. His father’s boss, the man who owned the electronics firm Jeremy Slade had worked for, had had a big ranch with lots of horses not far from the small California town where they’d been living. He’d also had a son just a little older than Slade and had often invited Jeremy’s family over for barbecues. His father had been so proud that Slade hadn’t been a bit afraid of the pony, had in fact loved every minute of riding him. He recalled begging his father to buy him a pony, too, unaware at five that their residential neighborhood was no place for a horse.
    “One day,” Jeremy had promised, “I’ll get you a horse all your own.” But he never had. Just one of many broken promises, including the one that had hurt the most: “I’ll always be here for you, son.”
    Walking to the window, Slade watched the afternoon sun highlight a boat with billowing yellow sails bobbing along on the waves. The scene could have been a picture postcard, and probably had been. He could readily see why his dad had chosen this place to live. What he couldn’t figure out, had never been able to understand, was why Jeremy had suddenly taken off, leaving him and his mother, just like that.
    Turning, he gazed around his father’s perfect house with carpeting thick enough to sink into, the kind of furniture he’d seen before only in model homes and hotel lobbies, and artwork undoubtedly worth a frigging fortune.
    There wasn’t one damn thing left to do, not a wall to repaint or a doorknob to repair or a dust mote that dared enter. He who’d never known a stable home, who’d scarcely lived in one place for longer than a year, ought to be grateful, Slade thought. This was a house such as he hadn’t figured in his wildest dreams he’d ever live in—and it was all his.
    The trouble was, he didn’t feel he deserved this house, or the paintings, or even the big-bucks bank account. His father hadn’t loved him enough to stay, to help raise him, to guide his formative years. So why should he accept all this from him now?
    Slade had systematically schooled himself through the years to hate the man who’d left him and Barbara high and dry like a sailboat twisting in the wind without a rudder. He’d convinced himself the man didn’t deserve his absentee love for what he’d done. He’d told himself repeatedly to stop thinking of Jeremy Slade, to stop hoping he’d return one day, to forget him and put him out of mind. It was so much easier to hate than to hurt.
    It hadn’t worked. Denial, the AA people were so fond of saying, is a nice place to visit, but no place to take up permanent residence.
    What to do now? was the question.
    Absently, he strolled to the cut glass bowl on the table and reached for a lemon drop, popping it in his mouth. He didn’t really want to go back to California to live among the memories that kept him awake nights. He could sell everything here and move to … to … where? He’d visited a lot of places, but had never particularly longed to live in any one of them.
    Drawing in a deep breath, he strolled through the rooms aimlessly. He could stay here, he supposed. Nantucket was about as beautiful a place to live as any he’d seen. The way the lawyer had explained things, with this inheritance, Slade would never have to work again, especially if he was prudent about selling his father’s remaining paintings, all carefully stacked in Jeremy’s storage room upstairs. They’d be even more valuable once the news spread throughout the art world that Jeremy had died.
    But he couldn’t just sit and be a beach bum at thirty-six. He’d