One More Dance by Roxanne Rustand (best ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

and Jared had reached a truce of sorts, each carefully avoiding past wounds. Each carefully, explicitly explaining daily schedules and destinations in a painfully casual way for months, just trying to move on.

Trust was such a fragile gift—so easily shattered, so difficult to rebuild. Surely he wouldn’t risk destroying what they’d salvaged of their marriage.

Would he?

She turned on the car stereo and settled back for the hour drive to the Madison airport, lifting a hand to wave at familiar faces as she cruised through town.

With just twenty thousand residents and a single vet clinic, many of the Lost River locals were clients, or members of her church, or had served on various PTA committees with her over the years. Small-town connections that warmed her still, even after years of living away from the anonymity of Minneapolis.

The touristy shops and coffee houses on Main Street gave way to the four blocks of grand old homes, then a newer subdivision followed by the grocery, several gas stations, and a discount store. Beyond that, the road curved through meadows and stands of timber on its way out to the four-lane highway leading to Madison.

She smiled, humming along with the music, her heart lifting at the thought of Casey coming home at last after her first year of college. The house would feel alive again, with her daughter’s music shaking the rafters and her friends crowding into the family room on Friday nights, the scent of buttery popcorn and warm brownies filling the air.

A small, insistent voice nagged at Kate over the odd catch in Casey’s voice during their last phone call and the long, uneasy silence before she’d insisted it was nothing. She just had a cold. She was...just tired. The reasons spoken with a hesitance that had never been there before.

But maybe she was being truthful. Maybe she was tired, needing to come home to just relax before starting her summer job. If there was anything wrong, Casey would’ve shared it, like always. Wouldn’t she?

Four miles down the interstate, Kate topped a low rise. Drew in a sharp breath and slammed on the brakes. Traffic had been light, but here it was at a standstill—with at least fifty vehicles backed up behind a melee of flashing lights and emergency vehicles. Figures moved rapidly between the patrol cars and two ambulances, then one ambulance took off, made a U-turn across the grass into the northbound lanes and sped away, its siren screaming.

Five minutes later the other ambulance left. Silently. No lights, no sirens.

And then the traffic started to edge forward, narrowing to single file on the left-hand shoulder of the road, urged on by a harried officer windmilling his arm.

The crumpled roofline of a partially burned white SUV, a mangled ski rack hanging like tinsel over one edge, was barely visible in the opposite ditch as she passed.

It was June. Most outdoors enthusiasts had switched to bike racks by now. But Jared hadn’t, and he drove a white Navigator.

Kate’s heart did a slow-motion somersault in her chest, then settled into place. It couldn’t be him. He’d gone to a meeting north of town tonight. The opposite direction. And accidents always happened to someone else. Names in the paper that one didn’t recognize, poor souls caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But ten minutes later her cell phone rang—a call forwarded by her answering service—and the earth jerked out of its orbit and tumbled crazily into space as she listened. Jared. A wreck out on the highway just south of town. Get to the hospital as soon as you can.

But the caller from the hospital couldn’t—or wouldn’t—give any further details over the phone.

One ambulance had sped back to town on a hot run with flashing lights and a screaming siren. The other one had no need for lights and sirens. Which one had held her husband?

Numb, her heart racing, Kate pulled to the side of the highway and speed-dialed her friend Deanna, who lived outside of Madison, to ask her to pick up Casey at the airport, then she took a deep, steadying breath and tried Jared’s mother, but Sylvia didn’t answer.

Kate pulled back onto the highway and took the next exit, then started back to Lost River twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. It can’t be... It can’t be.

Whatever problems they’d had over the years, she’d been sure they would grow old together. Enjoy grandchildren together. Tears burned her eyes as regrets swamped her.

They’d made so many mistakes with each other. Foolish mistakes, though everything had seemed so perfect once upon a time. Surely it couldn’t be too late to finally make things right.

He’ll be okay. He has to be okay. She gripped the steering wheel tighter to still her shaking hands and forced herself to think back to the time when their future together had been so unexpected, such a bright and special gift...

THE PAST

“Frat parties are not my thing,” Kate shouted above the blaring, pulsing beat of an old Tina Turner hit. “So I’m going back to the library.”

“Wait—we just got here, and it’s almost over, anyway.” Deanna, also a sophomore vet student, laughed and dug an elbow in Kate’s ribs. “Just look at those guys over there in the corner. I want...the blond one. Red sweatshirt, torn jeans. He is hot.”

Kate rolled her eyes and started edging backward toward the door, but the crush of bodies gyrating to the music stopped her progress. “This isn’t exactly a supermarket, Dee, and I’ve got a pathology test tomorrow.”

“Which you’ll ace as always. Why worry?”

“You know why. If my GPA drops, my grant is gone. You’ll get your DVM and I’ll stay a waitress until I’m too old to carry trays.”

“Not hardly, sweetie. C’mon—there’s a guy you oughta meet, and I get dibs on the blond standing next to him.” Deanna grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her forward, toward a group of guys in the corner. “Give me five minutes, and you can leave. Promise.”

“Right,” Kate