Free One Last Weekend by Linda Lael Miller Page B

the matter. Finally defeated, the judge had sent his secretary’s husband, Charlie, over to hang the tire.
    She pulled into the driveway and looked up at the apartment over the garage. A month before, when the last pillar of her life had finally collapsed, she’d called Frank Raynor and asked if the place was rented. She’d known it was available, having maintained her subscription to the hometown newspaper and seen the ad in the classifieds, but the truth was, she hadn’t been sure Frank would want her living in such close proximity. He’d seemed surprised by the inquiry, and after some throat clearing, he’d said the last tenant had just given notice, and if she wanted it, she could move in any time.
    She’d asked about the rent, since that little detail wasn’t listed—for the first time in her life, money was an issue—and he’d said they could talk about that later.
    Now she put the car into park and turned off the engine with a resolute motion of her right hand. She pushed open the door, jumped out, and marched toward the outside stairs.
    During their telephone conversation, Frank had offered to leave the key under the doormat, and Addie had asked if it was still safe to leave doors unlocked in Pine Crossing. He’d chuckled and said it was. All right, then, she’d said. It was decided. No need for a key.
    A little breathless from dashing up the steps, Addie stopped on the familiar welcome mat and drew a deep breath, bracing herself for the flood of memories that were bound to wash over her the moment she stepped over that worn threshold.
    A brisk winter wind bit through her lightweight winter coat, bought for southern California, and she turned the knob.
    Eliza’s furniture was still there, at least in the living room. Every stick of it.
    Tears burned Addie’s eyes as she took it all in—the old blue sofa, the secondhand coffee table, the ancient piano, always out of tune. She almost expected to hear Eliza call out the old familiar greeting. “Adelaide Hutton, is that you? You get yourself into this kitchen and have a glass of milk and a cookie or two.”
    Frank’s high school graduation picture still occupied the place of honor on top of the piano, and next to it was Addie’s own.
    Addie crossed the room, touched Frank’s square-jawed face, and smiled. He wasn’t handsome, in the classic sense of the word—his features were too rough cut for that, his brown eyes too earnest, and too wary. She wondered if, at thirty-seven, he still had all that dark, unruly hair.
    She turned her head, by force of will, to face her younger self. Brown hair, not as thick as she would have liked, blue eyes, good skin. Lord, she looked so innocent in that photograph, so painfully hopeful. By the time she graduated, two years after Frank, he was already working his way through college in Boulder, with a major in criminal justice. They were engaged, and he’d intended to come back to Pine Crossing as soon as he completed his studies and join the three-man police force. With Chief Potter about to retire and Ben Mead ready to step into the top job, there would be a place waiting for Frank the day he got his degree.
    Addie had loved Frank, but she’d dreamed of going to a university and majoring in journalism; Frank, older, and with his career already mapped out, had wanted her to stay in Pine Crossing and study at the local junior college. He’d reluctantly agreed to delay the marriage, and she’d gone off to Denver to study. There had been no terrible crisis, no confrontation—they had simply grown apart.
    Midway through her sophomore year, when he’d just pinned on his shiny new badge, she’d sent his ring back, by Federal Express, with a brief letter.
    Though it was painful, Addie had kept up on Frank’s life through the pages of the Pine Crossing Statesman. In the intervening years, he’d married, fathered a child,