Watching Amanda Read Online Free

dial tone for a few moments and then finally replaced the phone. She stared up at the ceiling, mentally subtracting the four extra personal days she’d taken.
    Well, one day’s vacation pay would still cover the electric bill and a few small Christmas gifts.
    I’ll get through this , she told herself. I’m a resourceful person. If I nursed my mother through the final stages of cancer, I can do anything.
    That was hard. And at least her mother had still been alive, her warm hand still able to hold Amanda’s. Her mother had been sick for over two years, and Amanda had dropped out of City College after only three semesters in order to care for her mom and also work full time. She’d never built up any kind of longevity in one industry because she needed flexibility to deal with the fluctuations of her mother’s treatment. Once, she’d wanted to be a nurse, but the requirements were more than Amanda could sign on for at the time. And then her mother lost the battle and Amanda got pregnant. On her own in every sense of the word, she couldn’t very well afford to go back to school for any kind of career training.
    The phone rang, and Amanda jumped to answer it. Perhaps it was Anne, calling back to say she didn’t want to be such a Scrooge, after all.
    â€œAmanda Sedgwick?” asked a male voice she didn’t recognize.
    â€œYes, this is she.”
    â€œMy name is George Harris. I’m an attorney at Harris, Pinker and Swift.”
    Was Anne suing her? For being a bad employee?
    â€œWe represent your father, William Sedgwick,” the man continued. “I’m so sorry for bothering you at this sensitive time, Ms. Sedgwick, but I do need to inform you that the reading of the will is scheduled for—”
    Amanda blinked. “Excuse me?” she interrupted. “The reading of the will?”
    Sensitive time?
    â€œYour father’s will,” Mr. Harris explained.
    â€œMy father’s will? I don’t understand,” Amanda said.
    Silence.
    â€œMs. Sedgwick,” the man continued, “I am very sorry. I was under the impression that you knew that William—that your father—had passed away.”
    What?
    Amanda gripped the phone. “My father is dead?”
    â€œYes, unfortunately,” Mr. Harris said. “He died last night. Late-stage cancer was discovered some months ago—he didn’t want anyone to know. I’m so sorry.”
    As the air in Amanda’s lungs whooshed out of her, she dropped the phone. She sat numbly, blankly staring at her lap, where the receiver lay.
    â€œMs. Sedgwick?”
    Amanda picked up the phone and put it to her ear, but all she heard was the rushing beat of her own heart.
    My father is dead.
    My father is gone.
    The father I never really knew is now gone forever. I’ll never have the chance to know him. Tommy will never have the chance to know his grandfather.
    Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes. “I’m here,” she told the lawyer.
    â€œMs. Sedgwick, do you have a piece of paper and a pen? You’ll need to jot down our address and the date and time of the reading of the will.”
    Amanda picked up the notepad and pen on the side table and numbly wrote down the information the lawyer gave her. He offered his condolences again, and for the second time in fifteen minutes, the phone buzzed in her ear.
    She glanced down at the address in midtown Manhattan, on the East Side. She shouldn’t have bothered writing it down.
    There was no way she was going to the reading of her father’s will.

CHAPTER 3
    As Ethan Black settled another piece of wood in the old coal stove and the flames flickered back to life, he could have sworn he heard a knock at the front door of his cabin.
    Not likely.
    The howling winter wind must have knocked down another tree branch, sending it crashing against the door or the window. This was his third winter in Maine, and he was almost used to the