How Do I Love Thee by Lurlene McDaniel Read Free Book Online Page B

her forehead, and walked out of the room, leaving her parents to mourn without him.
    The drive home was quick because there was no traffic. He followed the coastal highway under the light of a full August moon. He slowed as he passed her house, stopping just long enough to stare out the car window at the brightly lit widow's walk far above the bluff.Then he saw something move. In the pale bisque-colored light, there were two figures, a woman in a long dress and a girl with long hair. They hovered at the rail like pale white smoke, forms without substance, gazing out at the sea. Brett rubbed his eyes, looked again. The apparitions were gone. He was alone in the moonlight.

Eleven

    rett walked up the hill of the cemetery in the heat of die sun, a book clutched under his arm. Shayla's parents had given it to him after her funeral. They had supposed it was his, probably because he'd once written his name and phone number in it. He was glad to have the book because it had belonged to Shayla, the only girl he had ever loved.
    He'd been at school for weeks now, going through the motions of adjusting to a life without her. His friends had been kind to him, understanding, but Brett knew it would be a very long time before he was ready to merge into the mainstream of high school life.
    At the crest of the hill, he searched the grave markers and found Shayla's in the brightest, sunniest spot on the hill. Despite his sadness, he smiled, knowing that her parents had chosen it on purpose. Now Shayla could rest in the rays of the sun for all time. No need to hide in the night ever again.
    Brett sat cross-legged on the green grass. Soon autumn would be coming, then winter and snow. Being from the Florida Keys, he'd never seen snow, except in movies and on TV. He looked forward to the cold white winter because it would match the way his heart felt without her.
    He opened the book to his favorite poem, began to read to Shayla, and got almost to the end before tears blurred the words and made them unreadable. He shut the book. No matter… he knew them by heart. He touched the hot bronze metal of Shayla's grave marker. Tracing the raised letters with his fingers, he finished the poem for her from memory. He said, “ ‘I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.’”

BOOK TWO
Bobby's Girl

One

    id I tell you that my brother Steve's coming home from college this weekend? “ Bobby Harrod asked.
    Sitting across from him at the library table, Dana Tafoya, Bobby's girlfriend, felt her heartbeat accelerate. “No, you didn't. Why is he coming?”
    “For medical tests.” Bobby tapped his pencil on his open hook.
    Fear shot through Dana. “What's wrong with him?”
    “Don't know. That's why he's coming home. Mom wants him to see a specialist she works with at the hospital.” Bobby gave Danaa quizzical look. “You feel all right? You look pale.”
    Dana forced a smile. “Taco regret from lunch,” she lied. She couldn't let on to Bobby how hard his news had hit her. She wasn't even supposed to know his stepbrother. But she did know him. Two years before, for one magical summer, she'd known Steve Harrod very well.
    “What's his problem?”
    “Bad headaches. Double vision. Dizzy spells. Steve kept quiet about it for as long as he could, but his coach started noticing that Steve's passing was off. He sent him to the team doc, who sent him in for tests at the hospital, but Mom wants him checked here. She says she trusts the doctors here more than in some city three hundred miles away.”
    Steve Harrod was a football legend in their North Carolina town, where he'd played high school ball. He had been offered scholarships to colleges and universities all over the country, but he'd chosen Florida State in Tallahassee. Now, as a junior, he was a contender for die coveted Heisman Trophy.
    Dana asked, “When's he arriving?”
    “Mom and Dad are picking him up at the