Bitter and Sweet by Rhonda McKnight EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Rhonda McKnight
- Language: English
- Genre: contemporary romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 4.8 MB
- Price: Free
Duncan, South Carolina
Present Day
Find a way to survive.
I bolted up in the bathtub, water sloshed over the side. I coughed until my
lungs were cleared of the water that had slipped down my throat and then
pinched my nose.
I had to find a way, or I was going to die from heartbreak,
disappointment, betrayal, and this migraine I couldn’t shake. But I couldn’t
manage to find air anymore. Even though oxygen was all around me,
breathing was not just hard but impossible.
Regretting I hadn’t brought the wine bottle I’d opened into the bathroom,
I reached for my empty glass and raised it to get the final drop out.
Muscadine wine. My grandfather’s creation. Low in alcohol, high in sweet,
rich in love. The taste usually conjured up feelings of comfort and safety—
memories of better days or at least not days as bad as these. But it wasn’t
working tonight. Not working because drinking it made me sad. My
grandfather was sick. He might never make this wine again. A sick
grandfather was the last thing I needed in my messed-up life right now. The
life I didn’t even know if I wanted to live. But I had zero permission from
heaven to die. My grandmother had enough stress. She didn’t need to bury
her granddaughter.
And if I died, I’d be chum in the ocean for gossip. Everyone in Hendley
was already talking about me. Again. I could feel the wind from their
whispers. It wasn’t hard to be the subject of gossip. In a town as small as
Hendley, South Carolina, where the population was twenty-two hundred,
including children, gossip was served with the grits in the morning and the
cracklin’ corn bread at night. However, I didn’t think I would receive the
honor of being the subject of conversation so soon. It didn’t seem fair that it
was my turn again.
The first time people let my name fall off their lips was because Vince
Clark, one of the city of Hendley’s golden boys, got married to someone
other than Callie Humphries, the head cheerleader/prom queen in his
kingdom whom they expected him to propose to after college. Callie had
been waiting at his house when he brought me home. There was
disappointment that their story hadn’t ended in a happily ever after, but
folks got over it fast. The cash bar at our wedding helped.
The second time my name was caught up in town gossip involved my
mother-in-law, Sylvia. When the grapevine caught the news that she was
sick, people were surprised I was taking such good care of her. Everybody
knew she didn’t like me. The Callie thing was a source of disappointment to
her too, and liquor at the wedding had not changed that. Sylvia’s aggressive
form of bone cancer carried the prognosis—dying. The accuracy—right on,
nearly to the day the doctor told her.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB