Heartbreaker by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online

older woman said forcefully.

    “To what end, Marge?” Tellie asked. She felt old, tired, worn-out. “Can you make him love me?
    Because that isn’t ever going to happen. I thought he was just a carefree playboy who liked variety in his women. But it’s not that at all, is it?” She sat back in her chair, her face drawn and sad. “He blames himself because the woman he loved died. He won’t risk feeling that way about another woman, setting himself up for another loss. He thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy because she killed herself.”

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    “And all along, it was our father who did the dirty work.” Marge’s eyes were thoughtful. “I noticed that he seemed haunted sometimes, absolutely haunted. And I’d ask him if anything was wrong. He’d just say that people had to pay for their sins, and he hoped his punishment wouldn’t be as bad as he deserved. I didn’t know what he was talking about, until today. I suppose he was afraid to tell the truth, because he knew he’d lose J.B. forever.”

    “You couldn’t have blamed him. Whatever he thought of the woman, it was J.B.’s life, and his decision.
    The old man couldn’t live his life for him.”

    “You didn’t know him, honey. He was just like J.B. There’s the wrong way, and there’s J.B.’s way.
    That was Dad, too.”

    “I see.”

    Marge reached across the table and held her hand. “I’m sorry you had to find it out like this. I told J.B.
    we should tell you, but he said—” She stopped suddenly. “Anyway, he wouldn’t hear of it.”

    Tellie knew what Marge had avoided saying, that it was none of Tellie’s business because she wasn’t family. She smiled. “Don’t pull your punches. I’m getting tougher by the day since I graduated.”

    “J.B.’s helped, hasn’t he?” she said with a scowl.

    “He can’t change the way he feels,” she said wearily. “If he was going to fall head over heels in love with me, it wouldn’t have taken him seven years, Marge. Even now, I’m just a stray that he took in. Well, that you took in,” she corrected. “J.B. decided that both of you would take care of me, but you’d do the daily work.” She laughed. “And it’s just like him.”

    “It is,” Marge had to admit. She squeezed Tellie’s hand and then let go. “Maybe it isn’t a bad thing that you know the truth. It helps explain the way he is, and why there was never much hope for you in the first place.”

    “Perhaps you’re right,” Tellie agreed. “But you mustn’t ever let J.B. know. Promise me.”

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    “I’ll never tell him what you know, Tellie,” Marge agreed. She hesitated. “What is Grange like?”

    “Mysterious,” she replied. “Dangerous. Nobody knows much about him. They say he was in Special Forces.”

    “Not in the Mafia?” Marge replied dryly, and she wasn’t totally kidding.

    “He said that his sister’s death took him right out of drug use and gang participation, although he told me at first that it was a friend and not himself,” she replied. “The tragedy saved him, in fact. He felt guilty, I’m sure, when he realized that she died partially because J.B.’s father threatened to put him in prison. The awful thing is that he didn’t know that until three weeks ago. I expect he’s hurting as much as J.B. did when he read the letter his father left him.”

    “That was another bad month, when J.B. got that letter attached to Dad’s will,” Marge said. “He got extremely drunk.” She frowned. “That was the year before you graduated from high school, in fact. You came over and took a gun away from him,” she added, shocked at the memory. “I yelled at you, and you wouldn’t listen. You went right into his den, poured the bottle of whiskey down the sink with him yelling curses at you, and then you took away the pistol and