Running From Mercy by Terra Little

back just as greedily and opened her mouth wider with each passing second.
    â€œStop, Chad,” she eventually whispered. She pressed cold fingers to his lips to stop their progress when they would’ve come at her again.
    â€œI got you out of the habit of saying that a long time ago,” he murmured. His arms snaked around her waist and pulled her against him. He dropped soft kisses on her neck and teased the skin there with the tip of his tongue. “Ask me how long I’ve been sleeping in that room, Pam.”
    â€œI don’t want to know that.” Her own hands slid up his back and flattened against his shoulder blades. She rested her forehead on his chest and breathed deeply.
    â€œDon’t you want to know why?”
    She shook her head and fit her body to his. A groan rumbled in Chad’s throat as he scooped her up in his arms and squeezed her tightly. She squeezed him back just as tightly and made him curse viciously.
    â€œThis is why,” he whispered close to her face. “This is why, Pam. Damn, I missed you.”

EIGHT
    Nikki took the diary with her to her room and closed the door. She hadn’t known that her mom kept a diary and now, actually holding the heavy book in her hands, she felt like she had a piece of her mother that no one else had ever had. Her mom’s private thoughts and feelings were inside, her secret hopes and dreams, and just thinking about it made Nikki want to cry.
    She laid the book inside her nightstand drawer, where she kept her own diary, and flopped back on her bed. She could pretty much guess what was inside her mom’s diary. Paris Greene was probably the most predictable person in the whole world. Growing up, Nikki found comfort in the routines her mother had kept to. Dinner at six-thirty, always, unless there was an emergency, which there never was, and laundry on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Meatloaf with red sauce on Thursdays and pot-roast on Sundays after church. She’d always known what to expect from her mom; what she could get away with and what she shouldn’t even bother trying to get away with.
    Nikki guessed that the book was filled with Paris’s thoughts and feelings about her work and about their home life. There were probably a hundred pages about the stunts she’d pulled and the gray hair she’d caused. Just thinking about a few of those stunts brought tears to Nikki’s eyes. She’d give anything to have her mom standing over her, shouting at the top of her lungs right now. To walk into the kitchen and see her mom standing at the stove, making dinner.
    Whatever her mom had written about, Nikki wasn’t sure she could ever bring herself to open the diary and look. If she had a question about something she read, she couldn’t go to her mom and ask her about it. She’d never be able to talk with anyone about what she read, and that would only magnify the loss she felt. It was enough that she had the book. She could press her nose to the cover and smell her mom’s perfume, rub her hands across the cover and know that her mom’s hands had done the same thing. It was a way to connect, just like Aunt Pam said it would be.
    Nikki rolled to her stomach and stacked her hands under her head, deep in thought. Almost three weeks had passed since Pam had arrived and Nikki was holding her breath, waiting on the day her aunt announced that she was leaving. She didn’t know what she’d do when the day came. It didn’t even bear thinking about. Her dad was great, but having him around wasn’t the same as having another woman around to talk to.
    Aunt Pam was the complete opposite of her mom in a lot of ways, and Nikki didn’t feel shy about bringing up certain things to her. They had talked about sex a few days ago and Pam hadn’t started talking in riddles and turning red in the face as she answered questions.
    Nikki remembered that her mom had had trouble getting past