Free The Red Hat Society's Acting Their Age by Regina Hale Sutherland Page B

She faced up to what she’d done, accepted her fate and moved on.
    Or so she’d thought.
    She knew she should share her concerns with Eddie, let him help her figure out how to fill the gaping hole that had reappeared in their lives. But she didn’t know how to explain the emptiness in her heart without hurting him like she had in the past. So she stayed quiet. And as her unhappiness grew, so did the tension between them.
    Leanne took a book from her nightstand drawer. Sometimes she caught him studying her instead of the pages when they read at night. Same thing when they watched TV. As if he was searching for a sign in her face that her prior instability had returned. What did he expect to see? A tic? An outbreak of hives or tears? Was he afraid she’d have a sudden deranged fit, tear off all her clothes, run naked into the street? How could she convince him she wasn’t headed for another breakdown? That she’d never again disappear on him like she had all those years ago? She felt bad about worrying Eddie, but his constant scrutiny was wearing her nerves thin. If he didn’t stop soon, she’d snap, all right.
    After several minutes of silence, Eddie reached over, nudged beneath her chin with the pad of his thumb until she looked at him. “I’m sorry, baby.”
    “Me, too.” She managed a slight smile. “Let’s start over, okay?”
    He nodded, his mouth curving up at one corner. “You first.”
    She closed her book. “What went on at the paper today?”
    “Not much.” He bent his neck from side to side, as if working out the kinks from long hours spent at his desk. “A runaway kid shoplifted from a couple of the stores in town yesterday.”
    Leanne’s heart skipped. “I heard about that. Cade Sloan stopped by the shop this morning to ask us to keep an eye out for her.”
    “Shoot. She’s long gone by now. I bet she caught a ride with some trucker and is halfway to California.”
    “What’s a kid like that looking for, I wonder?” She thought of Mia’s daughter, Christy. A moody, creative loner; a puzzle piece that never quite fit into Muddy Creek’s picture. Then she thought of tiny, hollow-eyed Rachel. The girl was too thin, too bleached and made-up, too smart-mouthed and needy. Too everything.
    Just like Leanne at fourteen.
    Leanne shook her head. “It’s not easy being a kid . . . growing up.”
    He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
    “What about you? How was your meeting this afternoon?”
    “Good.” She laughed. “I’m still a little blown away that I’m old enough to be a full-fledged Red Hat member. I’m
fifty
, Eddie. How’s that possible?”
    He winked. “Happens to the best of us.”
    “Did you think our lives would be different than this by the time we reached half a century?”
    “I’m not sure I ever thought about it.” The space between his brows puckered. “Did you?”
    Shrugging, Leanne said, “I don’t know. It’s just . . . nothing much has changed when you think about it. We live in the same old town where we were both born, in the same old house I grew up in.” Which had belonged to her ever since her daddy died just after her eighteenth birthday.
    Eddie’s body tensed. “And you’re married to the same old guy you used to date in high school.”
    Leanne tilted her head to one side. He was too sensitive. Any time she even hinted at something amiss, he assumed he was the cause. “I wasn’t gonna say that, Eddie.”
    “But is it what you’re thinking?”
    She shook her head. “No . . .”
    “Then what?” Eddie touched her cheek.
    “I guess I always thought—” She brushed a finger across his chest.
That there’d be more time. That somehow or another, we’d have a family. That this house wouldn’t be so quiet
. . .
so empty.
“Nothing,” she said, and opened her book again. She felt Eddie’s stare.
    “My football reunion’s in a few weeks,” he said. “I was thinking . . . instead of driving home afterward, why don’t we stay over in