Forever Wife Read Online Free Page A

mere mortals to transport him, but he’d found that it was often necessary in today’s world.  It would be too suspicious if he conducted business in the morning in Denver, and in the evening in Portsmouth of the same day.  Hiding his true nature became more difficult even as it became increasingly more important.  
    He maneuvered around the slower moving pedestrians, wending his way to the car rental booth near baggage claim.  Again, in the old days he could have stirred a bit of magic to transport himself to any desired location.  Now, mortals expected him to arrive in the mundane conveyance – the automobile.  He requested a higher end option, as his long legs just didn’t fit into the compact contraptions.  Eventually he was behind the wheel of a Ford Explorer.  Not quite the comfort of a Cadillac, but far more practical for the rough mountain roads in this region. 
    He had an overnight bag, his laptop and wheels – what he didn’t have was an exact location. He had avoided Scrimshaw Lake for years and he would never set foot in Camp Birches again. Too many bittersweet memories were tied up there.  Yet, he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else living there – touching the Shelburne’s things, maybe discarding them.  Bulldozing it had seemed like the right decision at the time… but although he had bulldozed the neighbor’s place, he had yet to allow anyone onto the Shelburne property. 
    Mr. Holcombe was the current wrench in the cog of progress.  He would start there. 
    The years hadn’t been kind to Holcombe’s place and it had been in bad shape back when he had first met the old man.  He chuckled as he recalled the occasion.  Elizabeth Shelburne had been quite the tomboy.  There weren’t any little girls to play with, as the Gates girl hadn’t moved to the area yet.  The passel of little boys she ran with had dared her to throw eggs at the Holcombe place, claiming that it was haunted by his ghost and that the barrage of eggs would drive away the evil spirit.  The boys had laid in a massive store of eggs – who knew how many kitchens they had raided to gather that many! 
    His little Beth had quite the throwing arm.  She nailed the side of the house with a dozen eggs, and growing bolder as nothing happened, drew closer and closer to her target.  She didn’t hear Edgar come up behind her from the woods.  He grabbed her by one of her pigtails and hauled her inside the cabin to call her folks.  The boys – rapscallions all – had fled from the scene of the crime.
    Vidar was sorry that he hadn’t been the one to get that call.  Things would have gone far differently if he had.  Instead, the Shelburnes came to collect their somewhat repentant daughter.  They offered Edgar Holcombe money to repaint his home and grounded her for a week.  That was hardly a punishment, as her bedroom was jam packed with every toy a child could possibly want.  She was free to go about the house, eat meals with the family and watch her favorite television programs.
    Vidar would have put her over his knee right at the scene of the crime. Then he would have equipped her with a bucket of soapy water and a rag, and insisted that she scrub all trace of the egg from the weathered siding.  It would have taken her the better part of a week to complete and he was sure that combined with the well-deserved spanking, it would have taught her respect for the property of others. 
    He shook his head.  Sadly, she was not his responsibility any more.  Although he was her godfather, she was no longer a child when her parents had passed away.  She did not need or want him around.
    The miles fled by while he’d reminisced about the past.  All too soon, Vidar parked in the gravel clearing behind Holcombe’s camp.  With a wry grin, he realized he could still see the stains on the siding from those eggs.  He didn’t know what Holcombe had spent th e money on that the Shelburnes had given him, but it hadn’t