Free That Runaway Summer by Darlene Gardner

attention he needed, but he was limited by the long hours he worked as a tax attorney.
    “Jill and her brother have always been very close,” Mark said. “She has a blind spot where he’s concerned.”
    “She has one with me, too,” Arianne said. “I wish she’d gotten to know me better so she could see how ridiculous those accusations are.”
    “When all this is over,” Mark said, “we’ll make sure she gets that opportunity.”
    Arianne gave him a tight smile. Jill and Chris had already been gone for almost a year. After that much time had passed, Arianne didn’t think they could all become one big happy family. Mark, however, believed in miracles.
    “I need to go,” Arianne said, “but I’ll be home in plenty of time to get ready for tonight.”
    “Tonight?”
    “We have tickets to the symphony. Remember?”
    With everything else that had been going on, he hadn’t. He started to say he wasn’t in the mood, but he could tell how much she was looking forward to it.
    “I’ll be ready,” he said.
    “I’ll see you later, then.” She leaned forward to kiss him, careful not to sully her expensive clothes against his sweat.
    Her lips were warm and soft.
    She turned away, hurrying toward the Mercedes on her high heels, her backside swaying temptingly.
    The age difference had stopped him from proposing. So had the fact that he was a single father who’d already been divorced once and widowed once. But he hadn’t been able to refuse when she’d asked him to marry her, especially because she knew he and Chris were a package deal. That had been two years ago and he’d felt like the luckiest man alive.
    Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised when his luck had run out, yet he was.
    It still seemed incredible that Jill could possibly believe Arianne had regularly locked Chris in a closet and threatened to kill him if he told anyone about it.



CHAPTER FIVE
    “T HAT WAS WAY COOL. Did you see me paddling the rapids? Whoosh! I was awesome! Didn’t you think I was awesome?”
    A young boy about the same age as Chris ambushed Jill early on Wednesday afternoon when she exited the supply room at the warehouse-type building that housed Indigo River Rafters. The boy had been the most enthusiastic member of the group of white-water rafters Jill had led down the river.
    Although the trip had ended thirty minutes before and most of the adventurers were already gone, the boy’s parents were at the counter paying for some souvenir T-shirts.
    “I most certainly did think you were awesome,” Jill said. “You beat those rapids to a pulp!”
    “They didn’t stand a chance,” he agreed, his head bobbing.
    “Not a one,” she said.
    She wasn’t about to diminish his pride by telling him summer was the tamest time of year for riding the rapids, aside from the special dam-release weekends when the water level was deliberately raised to give a boost to the fishing and rafting industries.
    She’d explained as much to Chris, however, and he still insisted white water rafting was too scary. Her latent anger at her father’s new wife briefly bubbled to the surface. What Arianne had done to her brother’s psyche was criminal.
    “Next time I want to go on one of those little boats like you had.” The boy was referring to the single-person kayak Jill and the other guides used. “My parents were slowing me down.”
    “Liam. We’re leaving!” the boy’s father called from across the shop.
    “Bye!” Liam said, then dashed across the store, his arms extended from his sides, as though he were flying.
    “Energetic little guy, isn’t he?” Annie Whitmore came around the counter and joined her, her blond hair stuffed into the twin of the Indigo River Rafters hat that Jill wore. “Probably runs his parents ragged. I wouldn’t have the stamina to keep up with him.”
    Jill squashed the urge to tell Annie she wished Chris had half the boy’s energy. He had once upon a time, even though he’d never been the