Strangewood by Christopher Golden Read Free Book Online Page B

going to regret it in
the morning. It can be really uncomfortable, and sometimes it's better to
leave, and see how things shake out later."
    "So why didn't you leave?" Emily asked, guarding
her emotions better now.
    "Isn't that obvious. I didn't want to go. Is that
okay?" Joe asked hopefully.
    "That's very much more than okay," she replied.
    "So you don't regret it?" he asked.
    The question lay there between them for a few seconds, and
Emily flashed on the nuns walking around her eighth grade school dance telling
the girls and boys to leave room between them for the Holy Spirit. She almost
chuckled, but stopped herself. Joe would probably misinterpret that. And she
found herself wanting to be very careful what she said next.
    "Em?" he prodded, brow furrowed, and sat up on his
knees in bed to look at her.
    She liked that it all seemed so important to him. It had
been so long since she was with a man other than Thomas, since she'd even been
in the race, that she'd been terrified. She remembered the mind-bending gender
games of her singlehood, and not at all fondly. Being with Joe was a relief. She'd
lucked out.
    So far.
    "No," she said finally, and with a gravity that
seemed to alter even the temperature of the room. "I don't regret last
night, or that you're still here this morning. It feels . . . frighteningly good
just to lay here with you."
    "I can hear that 'but' coming a mile away," Joe
said grimly.
    "But," Emily said, and smiled wanly, "I'm a
lady with a lot of baggage, you know? Thomas is going to be a part of my life
as long as I live, even if I want to kill him sometimes. He wasn't just my
husband, he was my best friend as well. And he's the father of my son. He's
going to be around, whether I'm pissed at him or still love him a little, a
state that changes from day to day, that's not going to involve you. That's a
part of me you can't ever touch."
    Emily stared at him.
    "Well, you're not beating your chest and doing a Tarzan
yell, and you're not running for the door, so I guess that's a good sign,"
she said after a moment.
    But it was Joe's turn to be quiet now. His eyes flicked back
and forth, looking for something in her face that she wasn't sure he'd find. Then
he looked down at the bed and took a breath. The sun had stretched across the
entire bed now, and the way he held his head, his gray eyes were in shadow. He
rasped his knuckles across the scraggle of overnight beard on his chin.
    When he finally looked at her, Emily felt, for a dangerous
heartbeat, that she could love Joe Hayes if he played his cards right. Dangerous
because she'd never been very good at card games.
    "Emily, sweetie, listen," Joe said. "We're
still in chapter one of this thing, whatever it might become. Me? I want to see
where the story goes. What happened in the last book doesn't interest me
outside of what it contributed to making you the amazing woman I believe you
are."
    Emily smiled broadly, wrapped the sheet around herself and
got up from the bed, leaving Joe naked behind her.
    "Whew," she said, without turning. "I'm
trying to play it cool, here, Mr. English Professor, but that's about the
smoothest line I've ever heard. I hope it isn't just a line, though, Joe. See,
my world is pretty much Nathan Randall right now. That little boy is my entire
heart and soul, and the idea of letting somebody else in, somebody whose
presence is likely to have an effect on him one way or another . . .”
    "It's no line, Em," Joe said confidently. "And
it's up to you to decide how much of our relationship Nathan sees, or even
knows about. It's your play all the way."
    "Well, when you put it that way . . .” Emily let her
words trail off and turned to face him. She let the sheet fall to the floor and
stood before him, naked in the sunlight, overcome with the eroticism of it. She
hadn't stood so naked, so vulnerable in front of anyone for years. There was a
fear in it, and a freedom as well. And she revelled in it.
    Emily took two steps and leaped onto