The Gingerbread Man by Maggie Shayne

Author:Maggie Shayne [Shayne, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Suspense
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

REGINALD WAS TENSE, AND HE DOUBTED he’d sleep a wink with that stranger under his roof. He didn’t like strangers. Didn’t trust them.

He paced his bedroom, wrung his hands, and tried to think of what he ought to be doing. Surely there was something. Damn, things were so confusing lately. His mind sizzled like water dripped into hot oil. So many things dancing, jumping, and spitting all at once. Dangerous things. What the hell should he do? What?

A soft tap on his bedroom door made him start, and then Amanda stepped softly inside. “I knew I’d find you all worked up.”

He tried to fool her with a false expression. One of calm, or at least something less manic. But it didn’t work. It never had. Oh, his acting might have fooled millions over the decades, but it had never once fooled his darling Amanda.

She crossed the room, white gown drifting. Angelic. She took his arm, led him to the bed, and pulled the covers over him. Then her cool, soft hands drifted over his forehead, slowly, repeatedly. “We came back here to face our demons. Didn’t we?”

He wanted to deny it. It might be her reason, but it had never been his. He had come back for her. For her alone. Because it was what she wanted, and because her doctors felt it was time. That it would be healthy for her.

“I’m an adult now, Uncle Reg. I’m not that frightened little girl you remember. Not anymore. No one can take me away from you now.”

“I know. I know that.” He did know it, on a practical, mental level. It was the rest of him that refused to believe. She was his, dammit. She’d been his for as long as he wanted to remember. He’d made her his. His little girl.

“I want you to stop worrying.” Her hand moved away, and her lips replaced it on his forehead. “I love you, Uncle Reggie. I’ll always love you.”

That kiss, her breath warm on his skin—God, his heart twisted into a tight little knot in his chest. “You’re everything to me,” he whispered. “I don’t want to lose you, Amanda.”

“You won’t. I promise, you won’t.”

But he would. He felt it right to his gut. If she ever remembered the things she had blocked out ...

Amanda perched herself on the side of his bed, resumed stroking his head, and began to sing softly to him.

My redemption, he thought as she let her voice lull him, soothe his mixed-up mind. Other men washed their sins away by the blood of the lamb. Not him. His salvation was found in the touch of a child. This child. Without her, he was damned.

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