Throw Wide the Door by Emilie Loring

Author:Emilie Loring [Loring, Emilie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2019-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Steve Sewell looked thoughtfully after the running figure of Mrs. Alice Grant. Well, well, that had all been very odd. She had come to bluff him into paying damages. Then she had decided to try blandishments, with the idea of acquiring a wealthy husband. Then she had revealed her true nature. What on earth had he said that had startled her so much at the end, that had driven her into headlong flight from the house? Was it his comment about the person who had given her that bruise?

He shrugged his shoulders and went back in the house, closing the door. So that was the woman over whom Jed Gordon had lost his head! Jed, who had talked to him about Elinor Parks, admitting he had loved her all his life. Jed, whom Elinor loved. How could he look from this cold, calculating, artificial woman to the loveliness and gaiety and warmth of Elinor and choose the one who was obviously untrustworthy?

Jed was headed for trouble. He had turned on his lifelong friend, Clay Parks. He had made stupid and ugly remarks to the man who was not only his employer but his friend.

How badly Elinor had felt about it! Elinor, who did not attempt to deceive herself, who saw honestly. He did not want her to be unhappy, but he could not escape a feeling of elation that this infatuation of Jed’s must alter her attitude toward him.

He remembered his first meeting with her. He was watching the little boys skating, thinking that Jimmy could have been with them if he had not taken that plane. The sketchbook was knocked at his feet and he had bent to return it to the girl. Stopped. A glowing face with skin like cream and flushed by the wind. Larkspur eyes. The beautiful mouth curved in an amused smile. It was not merely her beauty that stunned him, it was some quality—some …

And then he had looked at the sketches, seen his own face. Stern, withdrawn, brooding. That was what those honest eyes had seen. In a flash he had realized what he had done to himself. How he had permitted his grief and his senseless feeling of guilt to withdraw him from the main current of life and hope.

When she had left him he could not have let her go if he had not recognized the sketch of Jed on the Hastings Green. He had known then that there was a way to find her again.

He lived over again the moment when she had nearly slipped under the truck and his heart tightened. To have found her and then to lose her!

He laughed jeeringly at himself. To lose her! What did he mean by that? What was he allowing himself to hope? She loved Jed, didn’t she? And he—how could he ever dare to marry again, knowing how responsible he had been for Mary’s death? For all the deaths.

This was morbid and cowardly. He had to stop thinking in circles like this.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.