Key to Love by Judy Ann Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

to the mailbox.”
    He thought she didn’t hear him at first. Eyes glued to her work, she gnawed on her lower lip, concentrating on untangling the cords. They looked like a heap of spaghetti to him.
    He was wrong.
    “Nine minutes, Fisher. You’re wasting precious time. Keep talking and you’ll be running barefoot.”
    ****
    Much to Elise’s surprise, Lucas returned shortly, dressed in a pair of sweat shorts, tee-shirt and a worn pair of running shoes. His face was as gray as the shorts he wore.
    “Take it easy, okay?” he begged, coming to stand beside her where she was fiddling with the buttons on the answering machine.
    She smiled. Little did he know she had already decided to cut him a break whether he deserved it or not. She remembered how sore her muscles used to get when she didn’t run on a regular basis. As for the hangover, she couldn’t quite recall what he was feeling. She hadn’t had one of those in years. But then, she hadn’t had dinner or drinks with anyone significant from the male species for so long she’d forgotten what alcohol tasted like.
    The trail Elise selected ran along the edge of a pasture and up a small hill into the woods, circling the house and ending at the back door. With Bess trotting merrily ahead of her, she took off, choosing a pace slower than she normally ran.
    “So this is how you keep in shape?” Lucas asked through a painful groan. “I thought you were one of those fitness club freaks.”
    “With my job? Get real. I’m in the office six days a week, sometimes seven.” She ventured a glance at him. For someone whose face now matched the greening pastures, he was making a valiant effort to keep up with her. “I finally did buy a treadmill for those days when I can’t get outside or when I get home late and still want to exercise.”
    She stopped at the edge of a lower field to open an iron gate, shooing Lucas and the dog through. “So tell me about Todd.”
    “You’re going to make me talk and run?” His voice rose an octave in disbelief.
    “I never said torture would be easy, Fisher.”
    The gate clicked shut and she trotted off again. She smiled when she heard a stream of expletives follow her. Glancing back, she watched him stubbornly fighting to force his unsteady legs into action.
    “When did Todd’s mother die?” she asked when he finally caught up and was running beside her.
    “When Todd was two. She had a fatal heart attack. Mike and Carol had him later in life. She was thirty-five or so. Carol had been warned against getting pregnant, since she’d had heart problems as a kid. But they wanted a child so desperately, she decided it was worth the chance.”
    “Mike was a cop?” She slackened her pace.
    He geared down to match it. “Yeah, he was doing undercover work in New Castle. After Carol’s death, he played the single parent role for about a year, and then hooked up with his second wife, Clarisse. It was a match made in hell.”
    “Clarisse?” She pushed a tendril of hair from her eyes that had come loose from the braid.
    “I don’t know if it’s her real name or one she just decided to use. Anyhow, Clarisse despised the time Mike was away from home. She liked her nightlife, and Todd was always in her way. Mike came home one night unexpectedly and found some sleazebag in his bed and the rest is history. He filed for a divorce, asked for a transfer, and moved here with Todd. He’d been here less than a year when he was killed in a car accident. Hey, can we take a breather before I pass out?”
    She stopped beside a stone wall separating the field from a long, narrow pasture with a trail leading to the wooded knoll above the house. “All right, we have to cross here anyhow.” She scrambled up and sat down on a flat, lichen-covered rock. He hoisted himself up and sat beside her, dangling his long, athletic legs over the edge. Color had begun to come back to his face.
    “So you moved here to get the child,” she said matter-of-factly.
    He