Heart Strings Read Online Free

end of their country blue sofa. Tucking her legs beneath her, she turned to the page where she'd stopped reading, and losing herself in the story, read until she'd reached the long-awaited happy ending.
    Sighing over the final words, she closed her eyes. Maybe someday someone would come along who'd make her feel like the heroine in First Love . Light brown hair and a dimpled smile appeared before her eyes, and Keely sighed. When Tripp caressed her cheek the same way Mark had, she'd run. Not because she didn't like Tripp, but because it seemed eerie.
    The two guys were different types. Mark wore his hair long and parted in the middle. Tripp's hair was neatly cut and parted on the side. Mark was wiry. Tripp was slim but broad-shouldered. Their personalities were opposites, and she'd loved Mark, no matter what Megan said, so why give Tripp a second thought?
    Oh, say can you see … the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner” flooded the family room and Keely opened her eyes abruptly. Her dad and Joey had entered the room and turned on the TV to watch the Indy 500. Settling himself on the other end of the couch, Joey held his ears against the high-pitched soprano. Dad sat in the middle with a bowl of popcorn in his lap. “We just had breakfast,” Keely said, poking with him her bare toe.
    He tossed a piece at her mouth. She opened up but missed. Jim Nabors stepped forward to sing “Back Home Again in Indiana”. “The race is about to begin,” Dad said, leaning forward eagerly.
    Joey bounced up and down on the couch cushions. Even Keely leaned forward as a woman stepped up to the mike. “La-dies and gentlemen,” Mary Hulman's voice rang out, echoing in the loudspeakers. “You may start your engines.”
    The roar was deafening. The announcer's voice crackled with excitement. “Just listen to those cars. Can you believe it, folks? Seconds from now, they'll be circling this two-and-a-half mile track at speeds in excess of two-hundred forty miles per hour.” Mark had only been going sixty. “They're circling, waiting for the flag. There it is. They're off,” the announcer shouted.
    The roar became a deafening whine. Throwing down her book, Keely ran outside, letting the back door slam as she drew fresh air into her lungs.
     
    *****
     
    “Are you okay?” Sara Johannsen came down the back steps to put an arm around Keely. “You were running through the kitchen looking as if you'd seen a ghost.”
    A ghost. The crash woke her but her parents wouldn't let her go outside. “I don't like racing.”
    Her mother sat down in the webbed lawn chair next to her, and Keely, comforted by her presence, focused on the here and now. It was quiet outside, except for the hum of their air conditioner and the sound of a nearby mower. The brick patio was warm beneath her bare feet. The smell of newly mown grass was sweet. She breathed a slow sigh of relief. The world was almost the way it should be.
    “Who's that young man mowing the Jefferson's lawn?” Mom asked, scooting her chair sideways so she could see better.
    The Crawfords next door had a backyard trellis loaded with honeysuckles that obstructed the view, so Keely moved her chair too. “Tripp.” She whispered the word. Tripp Andrews was wearing Mark's shirt, a long-sleeved plaid worn thin from many washings. He'd loved that shirt. Tripp was mowing the lawn like he belonged there. He had promised he wouldn't try to take Mark’s place.
    “Tripp? What kind of name is that?”
    Keely watched Evelyn come out the back door and set a tray on a wooden bench built around a tulip tree. George built that bench, and she used to sit there and watch Mark play when he was small. Later, she watched Mark in the driveway puttering with his car. Now, she motioned Tripp to turn off the mower and join her.
    “Jonathan Michael Andrews—the third. Triple. Tripp, for short.” Keely went on to tell her mother about meeting him and their conversation afterward. “I can't believe Evelyn asked