Trouble Don’t Last Always by Francis Ray Read Free Book Online Page A

permission and she’d never give it.”
    “Don’t bet on it, Adam. She’d fight until her last breath to keep you from the slightest harm, whether that harm was caused by you or another source.”
    Jonathan’s deep bass voice grew quieter, yet infinitely more terrifying. “Insisting you stay by yourself in this huge house is insane. How the hell do you plan to find your way downstairs to the kitchen when you can’t find your way around this room? What would you do if you were to fall and seriously injure yourself? I tell you what you’d do: not a damn thing, because you couldn’t see how, and that’s exactly what I plan to tell your mother.”
    Rage mixed with fear propelled Adam to his feet. “You bastard!”
    “Never said I wasn’t,” Jonathan said calmly. “Your mother is outside this room worried to death. I don’t care what you think of me, but she’s suffered enough. She’s not eating and Kristen tells me she’s not sleeping.”
    “Once she returns to San Francisco, she’ll be fine,” Adam said, aware of his mother’s concern yet unable to reassure her. How could he when fear was his constant companion just as guilt was?
    “You don’t believe that lie any more than I do. Your mother hasn’t ever been nor will she ever be that shallow. She loves with all her heart. And now her heart is breaking because of you.”
    A heavy weight on his chest, Adam slumped back in his chair. He and his mother had always been close. His father had been a busy gastroenterologist and raising Adam and Kristen had fallen to their mother. She’d never faltered or complained. Losing her husband, their father, five years ago was hard enough on her. Now this.
    “I don’t want her here.”
    “I can understand your reasoning, Adam.” Jonathan’s voice gentled. “Eleanor probably understands it, too. All she wants is to be sure you’re taken care of. How that’s accomplished is up to you.”
    Adam’s head came up, hope surging through him. “Then why put her through a painful court battle?”
    “You’re slicing her apart. What’s one more cut?”
    Adam flinched. His mother loved deeply and completely. She was fond of telling one and all that her children were her greatest accomplishments. And she’d walk through fire for him and Kristen.
    Head bowed, Adam braced both arms on his thighs; his wrists and arms dangled over his knees. “How long will it take to hire someone?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Adam was already shaking his head. He wanted the women gone today. Especially Nicole. Each time he heard her voice, the shame and humiliation of that night he came home from the hospital and they went to bed together came rushing back. “There was a woman just here.”
    “She left running.”
    “Find her; then all of you can leave.”
    “Aren’t you forgetting one thing?”
    Adam’s mouth flattened into a hard, narrow line. “Please.”
    Jonathan laughed, a robust, hearty sound that easily rolled from his deep chest. “That was nice, but unnecessary. I’m used to your high-handed way of ordering other people around. Comes from being the top in your field.”
    Adam flinched again. Once he had been the best.
Once.
No more.
    “I meant, aren’t you forgetting the young woman may not want to come back?” Jonathan explained.
    “Then you’ll have to convince her otherwise, won’t you?”
    Adam couldn’t see the smile on Jonathan’s ebony-hued face but heard it in his voice. “I guess so.”
    Their questions tripping over one another, the women swarmed around him as soon as he closed the door to Adam’s room.
    “Is he all right?” Eleanor asked, pushing ahead of her daughter and Nicole.
    “Did he hurt himself?” Kristen asked, her eyes teary.
    “Can I go in?” Nicole wanted to know.
    Jonathan’s gaze stayed on Eleanor. Hope, fear, desperation shimmered in her deep amber-colored eyes. He’d give anything, do anything, to keep the hope alive.
    “We’ll talk