See Megan Run by Melissa Blue Read Free Book Online

similarities between your
mother and yourself than you’d like to admit."
    "Besides height and hair color?" Megan
attempted to joke. This was the one relationship she didn’t need
strained. She opened the oven and slid the pie next to the other
one, which was already starting to golden.
    "You’re not going to get the house if you
keep this up."
    Megan leaned forward and gripped the edge of
the counter. "How can you say that, when you know how much the
house means to me?"
    "That’s how." Jane shook her head. "Thank you
for helping me, but I think I can do the rest." Megan lifted her
chin at the formality. Jane sighed and reached for her hand.
"You’re stubborn, and I can understand you not wanting to kowtow to
what you see as demands. I’m asking you to open your mind, just a
little. You might be surprised."
    "Well, it’s starting to feel like a
lecture."
    Jane’s stern features softened. "Because it
is." She waved her hand at Megan. "Now get out of my kitchen. I’ve
got some cooking to do."

Chapter 5
     
    Two lectures in one day had to be a record
for Megan. She had an hour to kill before dinner. There wasn’t any
hesitation when she walked out the door, and she fought the urge to
break into a run. The spring air felt cool against her warm skin.
The buzz of bees mixed with the scent of freshly cut grass welcomed
her. Megan took a moment to take it in, and the tightness in her
shoulders loosened almost automatically.
    She kept going, past the rock marking where
her one-time pet had been buried, past the bench marking the first
time she’d kissed Aiden. Megan kept going until she reached the
tree at the edge of the lake, where she plopped down and leaned
against the trunk. The bark bit into her back, but it was a
welcomed comfort.
    She closed her mind off, not wanting to
rehash the recriminations from either her best friend or her
surrogate mother. They believed her mother had transformed into a
better person and Megan should forgive Nicole for past
transgressions. To her, they might as well have asked a sloth to
move faster. Forgiving Nicole wasn’t going to happen today, and
possibly not in this century.
    Megan tried again to clear her thoughts. The
last time she felt this conflicted she’d had acne. She took in
another breath to relax. This time it worked, but once her mind
settled, like whispers in the wind thoughts of Aiden filtered
through. Had he forgiven her? She tried to remember him. He’d been
gangly, closer to geeky than anything else, in junior high.
    Most people hadn’t known his bad-boy streak
then. They didn’t know he was the one who thought to toilet-paper
Ms. Lettie’s house when she refused to give out candy that
particular Halloween. When he hit high school and puberty at the
same time, the whole town got to know how much of a hell-raiser he
could be. Just like his daddy, they had said. His charm and that
smile had shaved off plenty of days in detention.
    Everything changed when his father died. The
bad-boy role no longer appealed to him as much, but he still held
onto it and to her like an anchor. Around that time, Shep came into
the picture, and then she left. No, Megan wouldn’t take blame or
responsibility for leaving him. He’d turned out fine.
    How many sweethearts got married and stayed
married? The promises he’d made were those of an adolescent boy
dreaming hazy fantasies. Even then she knew reality blew those to
hell and always left you to pick up the pieces. The laugh escaped
before she could catch it. She’d been eighteen. Her breasts still
defied gravity and eating chili dogs covered in jalapeños never
woke her up in the middle of the night thinking she’d die. What she
had done couldn’t compare to how her mother had treated her.
    "What’s so funny?" The voice reached to her
from her past. Megan’s eyes fluttered open to see Aiden. Figures.
When you are thinking of the devil, he usually shows up.
    "Thinking how different things used to
be."
    He made a noncommittal