The Comeback Girl by Debra Salonen Read Free Book Online

before.”
    Donnie used a washcloth and towel to freshen up. Before leaving the bathroom, he checked out the reading material in a basket near the toilet. A Rolling Stone magazine with Lenny Kravitz on the cover. A couple of copies of Sports Illustrated and a Musician’s Friend catalog. The last had two dog-eared pages. Obviously Zach’s choices.
    So. He’s interested in guitars. Just like Lucas, Donnie noted. I wonder if he plays.
    “Hi, again,” he said, looking around as he walked into the living room. “You’ve done a nice job in here.” A rainbow-hued mobile in one corner was a bit New Age for his liking, but the dozen or so cream-colored pillar candles and profusion of plants made the area look peaceful and welcoming. There was no television, he noticed.
    “Thanks. I call it feng shui on a budget,” shesaid, returning from hanging her son’s jacket in the front-hall closet.
    “Feng shui. I’ve heard of that. It’s a kind of mushroom, right?”
    She looked momentarily at a loss until she realized he was teasing. Her laugh spiraled around him in a cascade of color and light that sent him careening into the past. It made him yearn for a time—a feeling—that lived all too vividly in his memory. He’d loved her once, with a purity and sweetness that had known only hope and boundless possibilities.
    But that had ended. They’d gone their separate ways and there was no changing that. He was poised for the future, and he wasn’t going to blow it this time.
    “Zach mentioned something about a call,” Donnie said, feeling the need to make small talk.
    “Ida Jane couldn’t remember how to find Jeopardy on the new satellite dish Jonathan installed. Andi was asleep—wiped out from her doctor’s appointment—and Jonathan was at a meeting, so Ida called me.”
    “Kristin to the rescue.”
    His tone must have come off less neutral than he’d intended because Kristin tilted her head in question. “Is something wrong?”
    Yeah. Everything. “Nope. Everything’s peachy.”
    Her lips flattened as if trying not to smile. “Me, too. If you overlook the guillotine hanging above my head.”
    For a moment, he was tempted to tell her about his dilemma.
    But before he could open his mouth, Zach walked out of the kitchen to Donnie’s right. Suddenly grateful that he hadn’t spilled his guts, Donnie looked at Kris and said, “Do you have those cards and flyers?”
    Kris walked directly to a small, antique desk with curved legs and a matching chair upholstered in dusky-gold silk. The upper part of the desk sported a row of cubbyholes along the back. The desk had been in the triplets’ study room at the bordello.
    Donnie remembered the room well. It was where he and Kris had made love for the first time. Each a virgin. Each nervous, needy and certain their love would last forever.
    “Did you used to date my mom?” a youthful voice asked. The tone held enough hostility that at first Donnie was afraid the boy had read his mind.
    “Yes,” Donnie answered.
    He heard the boy’s implied question as well. To ask it would have left Zach vulnerable. Exposed.
    “I was a year ahead of your mother in school. She was a cheerleader, and I played football. We went steady for a couple of years. Right, Kris?”
    She nodded, but looked too surprised to speak.
    “Then I went off to college, and your mother discovered I wasn’t the only fish in the sea.” He tried to keep his tone light, but the look on Zach’s handsome, troubled face made him feel like a jerk. The boy deserved the truth, but Donnie wasn’t surehow much Kristin had told him or wanted him to know.
    “You broke up, and she got together with my…dad?”
    Donnie wasn’t sure why Zach had chosen to include him in this discussion. He looked to Kris for guidance.
    “Are you sure it’s not you? That you didn’t knock her up and for some reason she’s not telling you?”
    The question hit Donnie hard. If only…
    “Zachariah Sullivan,” Kristin said