Love and Secrets - Kit Morgan Page 0,8

school.”

Holly’s mouth formed a perfect “O”.

“It’s not funny,” Jack groused.

“My, my, someone’s touchy about his hair,” Holly said. She watched Katie put the brown plastic cape around Jack, then run a comb through his hair. “Guess who I ran into yesterday?”

Katie stopped what she was doing and smiled. “And how is Zane?”

“Wipe that grin off your face.”

“I told you you’d run into him.”

“Yeah, literally…”

Katie turned to her. “What?”

Holly bit her lower lip and cringed. “I hit him with my shopping cart at the grocery store.”

Katie burst out laughing. So did the kids. “Well, at least you didn’t do what Crystal did and hit the back of his car.”

They laughed. “It wasn’t as dramatic as that, but I did ram him in the butt.”

Everyone laughed again. Tiffany thought it especially funny and couldn’t stop giggling.

Holly bent to the child. “Go ahead and laugh. Wait until you run into someone with your shopping cart.”

The child’s face fell. “Did you hurt him?”

Holly straightened. “No.” She looked at Katie. “But something did.”

Holly agreed to join Katie and the kids for dinner. But first she had things to do.

When she got home, she did her usual Monday house chores; dusting, vacuuming, laundry. She then stared at her bedroom closet. It was scary. Holly gulped.

She’d been meaning to clean it out and reorganize it for … hmm, when did she move into this apartment?

She took a deep breath. This would be a daunting task. She had things shoved into places one should never attempt. But she was no coward. “I knew I should have gotten myself a storage unit.”

She went into the kitchen pantry, pulled out her step ladder, brought it into the bedroom and got to work.

In truth, she was trying to keep busy so she wouldn’t think about Zane and the look on his face yesterday. She also didn’t want to think about the tiny thrill of excitement that ran up her spine while talking about him with Katie. This wasn’t high school, and he did break her heart to a certain extent.

Okay, maybe it was a mutual breaking. If they’d really been in love back then, wouldn’t they have made it work? But they were all of eighteen. What did they know?

She looked at the boxes on the closet shelf stacked to the ceiling. “This is going to be like a game of Jenga.” She took a deep breath, studied the boxes, then reached for one. Once she got her hands on it, she closed one eye and slowly pulled it out. “I hate being short!”

She gave it one quick pull and cringed. The boxes that were on top of it fell one space but didn’t come toppling down on her. “Whew!”

She stepped off the ladder and opened the box. “Post cards!” She pulled one out, then another. A huge smile crossed her face. They were from Zane after he’d first gone to New York. “Ah, Zany,” she giggled. Zany had been her nickname for him. He used to call her Holls. She in turn would tack on “tein”. She wasn’t the thinnest in high school. What did Zane think of her now? He hadn’t said a word about it yesterday.

He certainly looked good. Did he have six pack abs? Biceps to die for? It was hard to tell yesterday with the long-sleeved shirt he wore. Though his arms did look like they needed more room in those sleeves …

She tossed the post card into the box. “What am I thinking?!” She left the closet, put the box on the bed, then went to pull out a few more.

Within fifteen minutes she had a stack of them on the bed. Most were full of photographs. Thank Heaven she owned a digital camera now, or she’d never have enough room in her closet!

She grabbed a snack before attacking her closet a second time, then realized she’d be going to Katie’s soon. How time flies when you’re avoiding thoughts of an ex-boyfriend. Not that it worked.

By the time she drove to Katie’s she had a handle on keeping Zane out of her head. Why go down that road? He wasn’t going to stay in town anyway.

“Hi!” Katie said when she opened the front door. “How was your afternoon?”

“Productive.” Holly grinned. “I started cleaning out my bedroom closet.”

Katie gasped.

“It’s true. And I only got hit on the head twice by a box.”

“Impressive,” Katie said and closed the door behind her. They went into the living room where the kids were watching TV. “Want a soda pop?”

“Got