Sanctuary by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

she stared at it she realized that was as much unpacking as she could handle. Jo looked at the suitcases lying on the lovely bedspread. The thought of opening them, of taking clothes out and hanging them in the armoire, folding them into drawers was simply overwhelming. Instead she sat down in a chair and closed her eyes.
    What she needed to do was think and plan. She worked best with a list of goals and tasks, recorded in the order that would be the most practical and efficient. Coming home had been the only solution, so it was practical and efficient. It was, she promised herself, the first step. She just had to clear her mind, somehow—clear it and latch on to the next step.
    But she drifted, nearly dreaming.
    It seemed like only seconds had passed when someone knocked, but Jo found herself jerked awake and disoriented. She sprang to her feet, feeling ridiculously embarrassed to have nearly been caught napping in the middle of the day. Before she could reach the door, it opened and Cousin Kate poked her head in.
    â€œWell, there you are. Goodness, Jo, you look like three days of death. Sit down and drink this tea and tell me what’s going on with you.”
    It was so Kate, Jo thought, that frank, no-nonsense, bossy attitude. She found herself smiling as she watched Kate march in with the tea tray. “You look wonderful.”
    â€œI take care of myself.” Kate set the tray on the low table in the sitting area and waved one hand at a chair. “Which, from the looks of you, you haven’t been doing. You’re too thin, too pale, and your hair’s a disaster of major proportions. But we’ll fix that.”
    Briskly she poured tea from a porcelain teapot decked with sprigs of ivy into two matching cups. “Now, then.” She sat back, sipped, then angled her head.
    â€œI’m taking some time off,” Jo told her. She’d driven down from Charlotte for the express purpose of giving herself time to rehearse her reasons and excuses for coming home. “A few weeks.”
    â€œJo Ellen, you can’t snow me.”
    They’d never been able to, Jo thought, not any of them, not from the moment Kate had set foot in Sanctuary. She’d come days after Annabelle’s desertion to spend a week and was still there twenty years later.
    They’d needed her, God knew, Jo thought, as she tried to calculate just how little she could get away with telling Katherine Pendleton. She sipped her tea, stalling.
    Kate was Annabelle’s cousin, and the family resemblance was marked in the eyes, the coloring, the physical build. But where Annabelle, in Jo’s memory, had always seemed soft and innately feminine, Kate was sharp-angled and precise.
    Yes, Kate did take care of herself, Jo agreed. She wore her hair boyishly short, a russet cap that suited her fox-at-alert face and practical style. Her wardrobe leaned toward the casual but never the sloppy. Jeans were always pressed, cotton shirts crisp. Her nails were neat and short and never without three coats of clear polish. Though she was fifty, she kept herself trim and from the back could have been mistaken for a teenage boy.
    She had come into their lives at their lowest ebb and had never faltered. Had simply been there, managing details, pushing each of them to do whatever needed to be done next, and, in her no-nonsense way, bullying and loving them into at least an illusion of normality.
    â€œI’ve missed you, Kate,” Jo murmured. “I really have.”
    Kate stared at her a moment, and something flickered over her face. “You won’t soften me up, Jo Ellen. You’re in trouble, and you can choose to tell me or you can make me pry it out of you. Either way, I’ll have it.”
    â€œI needed some time off.”
    That, Kate mused, was undoubtedly true; she could tell just from the looks of the girl. Knowing Jo, she doubted very much if it was a man who’d put that wounded look in her eyes. So