Montana Love: Multicultural Romance by Cassandra Black Read Free Book Online Page B

you for a fine meal,” Dex said.
     
    “You cooked it,” Cynthia smiled. 
     
    “Well, thank you for your hospitality, then,” he corrected looking over at Carson. The boy was fighting hard to hold back his tears.
     
    “Call me if you need me to come back over,” he whispered.
     
    “He’ll be okay,” she whispered back.
     
    “Good night, Cynthia,” he said.
     
    Goodnight,” she said, watching his hulking frame fill the doorway as he stepped out onto the porch.
     
    Carson sat on the stairs to the second landing just inside the screen door to wait for her.
     
    Dex turned back.  “Do you want get out a little tomorrow?” He asked. “You know, see a little of the area?”
     
    She was doing it again. Cynthia blushed. “Sure, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
     
    “Okay,” he said. “It’ll be after the work day.  I’ll pick you both up at five thirty tomorrow evening?”
     
    “Sure, that’ll be just fine,” Carson said, suddenly clinging to Cynthia’s leg from behind. “Just fine.”
     
    They both laughed as Carson ran up the stairs to his bedroom, content now.
     
    “That’ll be just fine,” Cynthia echoed. “See you tomorrow.”
     
    Dex tipped his hat a little and headed down the porch stairs, a big smile on his face.

Chapter 12
     
    After letting Carson play in the bathtub in a mountain of bubbles, Cynthia helped him into his pajamas and tucked him in his bed.  She laid back next to him and read him two bedtime stories from the shelf of books in his room.
     
    As she was reading to him, her mind kept flitting back to the old Bel Air newspaper clippings that had fallen out of one of the children’s books tucked toward the back of the bookshelf.
     
    Mother of Accident Victim Suspected of Killing Son-In-Law
     
    Her eyes had scanned the article as Carson was flipping through the pages of one of his children’s books.
     
    Apparently, Thelma’s grandmother Laura, her mother’s mother, had been a suspect in Thelma’s father’s death.   The newspaper article highlighted the fact that Thelma’s father had died in the same way as her mother had; a car accident, faulty wiring.  The article also reiterated that Theodore Thaxton, III had also been a suspect in his wife’s death years ago, but no charges were ever filed.
     
    Cynthia thought back to the disdain she remembered seeing on Thelma’s face on the rare occasions when she spoke of her father back in undergraduate school.
     
    She also found it odd that her friend wanted nothing to do with going to her father’s funeral after he was killed several years later.  It was even more peculiar that Thelma wanted nothing to do with her father’s money -- until after he was dead.
     
    Like a boomerang, the conversation they’d had walking from the campus library all those years ago came to mind:  “I don’t want anything from him, at least not while he’s still alive and kicking,” Thelma had said. “What I wanted he took from me a long time ago.”
     
    Cynthia had dismissed it back then, but she remembered the coldness in Thelma’s eyes for a long time.  Something wasn’t right. Maybe her Grandmother Laura had killed him; to avenge her own daughter’s death.   Thelma did seem to have a surreal closeness to her grandmother. Cynthia remembered that very well, because she used to speak of her Grandmother Laura as if she were her mother, and not her grandmother.
     
    ***
     
    Before she could finish reading the last bedtime story, Carson was fast asleep. Cynthia gently kissed him on the cheek and lay back next to him.
     
    Without meaning to, she dozed off too, waking in the middle of the night to the sound of crickets in the woods. 
     
    Slipping off the bed, she planted another soft kiss on the child’s head and eased out of the room.
     
    After a quick shower, she slipped into a soft, cotton short-set nightie and sauntered into the living room. Her mind flitted to the old newspaper clippings and then to