Miracles and Dreams Read Online Free Page B

dogs. In the frenzy, overhead bins snapped open and luggage scattered. A briefcase missed Jack’s head by mere inches. He waited for the crowd to clear before melding into the fold, grabbing his duffel, and heading toward the exit.
    He was all the way to the rental car counter before he realized he had no idea where he was going.
    Misty’s place, for sure, to hash things out. But where did she live now? Surely, it wasn’t in the same campus apartment she’d settled for through grad school. Maybe she didn’t even live in Mill’s Landing any longer.
    No, she said she’d never leave.
    Flickers of dread raced up Jack’s spine. Maybe she hadn’t left Mill’s Landing, but what if she was dating someone—or married after all this time? The thought that another man had claimed her—and his child, as well—caused a flash-fire of jealousy Jack was helpless to contain.
    His blood turned to ice. What had he done? What was he doing?
    Jack drummed his fingers on the rental counter as the clerk gathered keys and contracts. His brain was shrouded in fog, his throat parched from recycled plane air. His body told him it was still the middle of the night, but outside moonlight was veiled in the first golden hints of pre-dawn. The three-hour time difference had jettisoned him fast forward toward morning.
    Maybe he should just head to a hotel, sleep for a few hours to get his head on straight, and figure out where to go from there.
    No. Sleeping wasn’t an option, no matter how hard the exhaustion nipped at him. He’d get into the car and drive.
     
     
     
     

4
     
    The drive through Mill’s Landing told Jack that six years away had changed little…and everything.
    Cole’s Hardware still sat on the corner of Fourth and Main, and Minton’s Drive-In Theater, one of the few that remained in operation in the state, was open for the season. Jack had spent countless summer nights there with Misty, though he could hardly recall the name of even one of the movies that had played. He’d been too busy watching her dark curtain of hair dance in the breeze, admiring the tilt of her nose, the slope of her mouth, and dreaming of coaxing a kiss.
    The Landing was different now…the design and feel. The willows had exploded, their long, flowing fingers swaying gently in the last vestiges of moonlight and across dewy grass. A jogging trail flanked the river’s edge. A sign for a preschool he didn’t recognize, Precious Miracles, beckoned beyond the refurbished playground.
    Did his son—daughter—play there?
    Jack rolled down the window and let the chill of a spring breeze wash over him. The hum of the rental car’s engine wasn’t enough to drown out the memories, so he switched on the radio and cranked it to a volume somewhere between Lose the Past and Wake the Dead .
    The lyrics of a hymn washed over him, bringing with them a sense of peace. So many things were hard right now. Jack wondered who’d rented the car before him. Was this some kind of sign?
    Jack brushed a hand across his jaw, startled to find the stubble he’d neglected to shave for several days was morphing into a full-on beard. The cool air revived him, and at the next corner, he turned right and followed the familiar two-lane road.
    The hushed sigh between night and dawn was quiet, but he sensed nature inhaling a breath, ready to whisper the morning alive. Birds fluttered in the treetops, and a dog barked in the distance. Low, dark storm clouds veiled the stars. The moon glowed through rifts as the clouds swirled, illuminating a pasture that fronted the road. Just before the telltale fork, a tidy, white-washed house rose into view. It was still there, a lone sentinel.
    Floodlights spilled across the darkness, warning travelers to turn right or left. Jack had installed them himself the day after a driver missed the turn and took a midnight plunge across the front lawn. The pick-up truck demolished the porch stairs and rails before its hood came to rest just inches from