When Venus Fell by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

I turned the photo over and read in Mom’s handwriting:
Dear Olivia, I’m going to bring my girls to meet you and yours as soon as I can coax Max away from his nightclub. Venus always asks me when she can meet “her” Gib. I promise we’ll visit someday. You have blessed us with a friendship we cherish. I think of your family as our own special angels
.
    Gib cleared his throat. “My aunt says it’s time you made good on your mother’s promise to visit.”
    I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly I heard the muffled sounds of angry men arguing inside a trailer across the lot. Grateful for the distraction, I pulled a small can of pepper spray from my shorts pocket and set it on the table. Gib’s dark gaze shifted to the trailer. The look in his eyes transformed his expression to one of deadly calm. Chilled, I sat there studying him. “Cheers,” I said finally, and gulped a deep swallow of wine.
    He didn’t stop watching the trailer until the noise faded away. Then he exhaled, blinked, and returned his attention to me. “The pepper spray won’t do you much good,” he said, “unless you’re about to cook dinner for me.” He frowned at my ridiculous lipstick-sized canister.
    “It works well enough. If you spot a biker with a purple ponytail coming this way, let me know. He has a drug habit, and he’s a little too obnoxious when he’s wasted.”
    He craned his head, staring past me suddenly. He was like a hawk. He didn’t miss a sound, a movement. The soft hum of the RV’s electrical system serenaded us. A long cordran from the air conditioner to a post in the ground. “What’s that light in the window?” he asked. “Did you light a candle?”
    I swiveled to look, then faced him again. “My sister did it. She likes candles. Aromatherapy. She says the scent helps her headaches. I say they make our camper smell like soap.”
    He didn’t laugh. I studied his straight-backed posture with a sinking heart. “Look, Mr. Cameron, you’ve come a long way to see my sister and me. What do you and your aunt really want from us? What’s this offer I can’t refuse? You and I have never even met before. You only met my parents once, and you were just a little boy then.”
    “If it’s that simple, and you don’t give a damn, then why did you remember me so quickly? No matter what your father told you, you can’t deny that you didn’t forget us.”
    “My father wasn’t hostile toward your family. It was just that after my mother died, he felt we had nothing in common with you. He didn’t believe in cultivating relationships that had no room to grow. His and Mom’s wedding at Cameron Hall was just a sentimental memory to him.”
    “I see. Then why didn’t you listen to him and forget all about me?”
    We spent several long seconds studying each other in strained silence. I spread my hands awkwardly on the table, then curled them into my lap. “I’m twenty-nine years old and you’re, what? Thirty-five? We’re not childhood pen pals anymore. You wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to find me if it wouldn’t benefit you to do it.”
    The insult tightened his face and brought out a look of flat, cold-blooded scrutiny. It was a mask I’d seen on the faces of government agents. “There was a time when I believed in you,” Gib said in a low voice. “It sounds stupid now. I was the kind of kid who took things seriously. I’d lost my parents. I hated the world outside my mountains. You were the only part of that outside world that I wanted to know. But after yourmother died I never got another card from you. I was afraid you’d died, too. Even though I knew you hadn’t, I decided to forget you.”
    “Wait a minute.
You
stopped writing to
me.”
I didn’t add that I’d grieved desperately over his silence, long after Pop told me Camerons had no place in our lives.
    He shook his head. “I sent you letters for years.”
    I stared at him. “That’s not possible. I would have gotten them. I—” My voice