Impervious (City of Eldrich Book 1) by Laura Kirwan Read Free Book Online

normal, well-adjusted, all-American guy. With a wonderful little family. In a wonderful little town that was his refuge from whatever domestic nightmare he’d grown up in. His hasty arrival in Eldrich and his stammering references to his father suggested a troubled start in life.
    And it hit her. The war. What her mother—what her subconscious , Meaghan corrected herself—had been trying to tell her. Did she hear somewhere through the years that her father was working with refugees? Given his age, maybe Jamie was a refugee? From somewhere like Bosnia or Kosovo? One of the countries in the post-Yugoslavian mess? The timeline fit.
    That had to be it. She had found a highly dramatic way to put some disconnected bits of memory about Matthew and Jamie together. That meant her dream was not an omen of incipient dementia. She breathed an internal sigh of relief. Her mother delivering it and telling her to give her father a break was nothing more than familial guilt for not having been a better daughter.
    Jamie’s English was flawless American and his name sure didn’t sound eastern European. But dropping the accent and picking up a quintessentially western name—honestly, James Smith? He might as well be named John Doe. Both acts fit a traumatized kid fleeing an ugly civil war and a messed-up family life.
    He didn’t mention any other family and Meaghan knew well enough not to ask. She’d ask Russ for the details over dinner.
    Jamie looked at his watch. “It’s after five. Gotta pick up the kids from day care.” He handed Meaghan a business card with his cell number and told her to call him if she needed anything, asked her to give his best to Russ and Matthew, and hurried out the door. She hobbled over to the window to watch him go. He got into a minivan—of course, Meaghan thought, I bet it’s full of stale Cheerios, broken toys, and softball equipment—backed with care out of the driveway and drove down Holly Lane.
    Well, good for him, she thought. To get out of whatever post-Soviet hellhole he’d been born into and build himself a nice little life here in Eldrich. The perfect little American dream. Somebody ought to have one. She was glad it was him.
     

Chapter 7
    M eaghan tried at dinner to push Russ for details about Jamie’s past, but he and Matthew were reticent, to say the least. She could barely drag speech out of them at all until she’d finally dropped it and changed the subject.
    What were they not telling her? Was Jamie here illegally maybe? His father was wanted for war crimes? What was the big secret?
    Meaghan resigned herself to waiting for now. In another week she’d be neck deep in office gossip and would hear all the ugly details soon enough.
    By the next morning, the swelling in her toe had subsided enough so that Meaghan could wear flip-flops. Right after breakfast, Russ and Matthew trekked off to the hospital in Williamsport, for Matthew’s weekly session with Becky, the occupational therapist. Meaghan was left alone for the first time in her new home.
    With no Internet connection for her laptop and the cell signal still spotty, she used the landline phone in the kitchen. She scheduled her storage pod to be dropped off on Thursday despite resistance from the Williamsport trucking company that now had it. At first, they flat out refused to drive to Eldrich, despite its inclusion on the service area map on their website. Meaghan changed their minds by informing them what she did for a living, reading them the part of the contract about delivery, and threatening to call the corporate office.
    Then she called the city’s human resources department about filling out her employment paperwork. A motherly woman named Gretchen told her not to worry about it yet. She advised Meaghan to get settled in at home and they could take care of it all next week.
    That was all she could do with a sore foot and no Internet. The day yawned ahead of her, empty. The pace of small town life would take some getting