The Beginning: An eShort Prequel to the Bridge by Karen Kingsbury Read Free Book Online Page B

to soften his expression. “You don’t know anything about that lifestyle. This way you’ll be safe.”
    From the beginning, her feelings for Ryan were anything but safe. And since her parents’ staff would’ve reported her for having a boy over, Ryan’s idea was perfect from the beginning. “I know of this bookstore. New and used books in an old house in downtown Franklin. It has a reading room upstairs that no one uses. My home away from home.” He smiled at her, and the sparkle in his eyes touched the depths of her soul. “It’s called The Bridge.”
    Molly was intrigued, and from that first study session, The Bridge became a private world for Ryan and her, a hiding place for the two of them. Sure, there were other patrons, but Belmont students didn’t drive that far, and Molly loved the anonymity.
    The store was set up in an old house that once was a hiding place for Union soldiers during the Civil War. The floors were old weathered pine, and the walls and doors had settled so that they didn’t quite line up. The place smelled of old books and rich leather, and Molly loved everything about it.
    The Bridge was run by a man named Charlie Barton, a friend to the people of Franklin. Charlie kept fresh-brewed coffee on a table near the front register where he hung out, quick with the right suggestion of a book or an insightful conversation. Once in a while his wife, Donna, joined him. The couple would sit with Molly and Ryan near the fireplace and listen. Really listen.
    “Tell me about your classes,” Charlie would say. Then he’d pull up a chair as if he had all day to hear details about music lectures and science tests and the English lit reports they were working on.
    Donna would sometimes pull Molly aside. “That boy’s in love with you,” she’d say. “When are you both going to admit it?”
    Molly would laugh. “We’re just friends. Seriously.”
    “Hmm.” Donna would raise her eyebrows. “I guess we’ll see.”
    By the end of the first semester, Molly felt closer to Charlie and Donna than she felt to her own parents.
    “I’m never going back,” she told Ryan more than one afternoon while they were at The Bridge. “They can’t make me.”
    He would grin at her, his eyes shining in a way that stayed with her still. “No one can make us do anything.”
    It took only a few study dates to learn all there was to know about each other. Molly told him things she hadn’t told anyone. How her life back home suffocated her and how she had never considered crossing her parents or disobeying them. She told him about Preston and her father’s corporation and the plans he had for her.
    He was honest, too. “I have a girlfriend back in Carthage.” He watched her, looking for a reaction. “We’ve dated since our sophomore year of high school. Our families attend the same church.”
    Molly felt the sting of the news, but she didn’t let him see. She couldn’t date him, anyway. He would be her friend, nothing more. Knowing about his girlfriend back home only made him safer, giving her permission to get as close to him as she wanted.
    In the beginning, Ryan talked about his girlfriend fairly often. “Her dad’s a farmer,” he told Molly one day when they were studying at The Bridge. “He’s giving her two acres, so later . . . you know, we can live there.”
    Molly nodded, thoughtful. She didn’t look away, didn’t waver in her connection to him. “How will you be a professional guitar player in Carthage, Mississippi?”
    His quiet chuckle was colored with discouragement. “I wouldn’t be. Everyone thinks I’ll come back and teach music at the high school.”
    “What about you?” Her voice grew softer, the quiet of the store’s living room encouraging the conversation. “What do you want?”
    “It’s a good Plan B, teaching music. I like Carthage.”
    It hit her then how much they had in common, their lives already planned out. Suddenly she couldn’t stand the thought. “No,