A Man of His Word Read Online Free PDF

low. For a second, Rosebud wanted to smack the woman for pouring salt in her wound, but it was a short second. Of course, they were right. Dan Armstrong was an opportunity to do a little domestic spying, that was all. And if she could link Tanner’s death to an Armstrong—any Armstrong—she’d be able to sleep at night. Hell, she might even find a new way to stop that dam.
    Aunt Emily gave her an artificial smile. “It’s what Tanner would do.” She pulled Rosebud’s glasses off her face and gently tucked them into the pocket of her one-and-only suit jacket. “Do it for Tanner.”
    Tears that she normally kept out of sight until the middle of the night, when no one would know she cried them, threatened to spill. She squeezed her eyes shut to keep them in. “All right,” she managed to get out.
    Aunt Emily kissed her cheek in painful blessing. “Find out what you can. Give away nothing.”
    â€œDo your best,” Joe added, finally removing his clamping hand from her shoulder.
    Her best. She’d been doing her best, fending off that dam for three years, but it hadn’t been good enough. She wondered if anything ever would be.
    She heard both car doors shut, heard both of them drive away, but still she couldn’t open her eyes. The breeze tickled her hair, and the sun tried to reassure her it would, in fact, be all right, but she couldn’t move. When Tanner had died, she’d sworn to do anything to find out who put that gun in his hand and pulled the trigger. She’d never thought it would come to seducing Cecil Armstrong’s nephew.
    â€œMs. Donnelly?”
    Oh, hell.
    â€œMr. Armstrong,” she said without turning around. How on God’s green earth was she supposed to muddle his thinking when her own mind was exactly as clear as the DakotaRiver during the spring floods? “Thank you for coming today.”
    He stood next to her. She didn’t know how she felt it, but one moment, she was alone, and the next, his solid warmth was close enough that she thought he was touching her arm. Moving slowly, she turned to meet his gaze.
    As she did, the breeze surged like a trickster, throwing her hair around. The look in his eyes went from curious regard to recognition—the wrong kind of recognition. His nostrils flared as his jaw clenched. She was no longer facing a compassionate man. Any fool could see that Dan Armstrong was fighting mad.
    â€œTell me, Ms. Donnelly,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you ride?”
    He knew—or thought he knew. In a heartbeat, she realized she needed to play innocent. “Of course. Everyone out here does. Do you?”
    She couldn’t even see those lovely greenish eyes. They were narrowed into slits. He wasn’t buying it. “Sure do. What kind of horse do you ride?”
    â€œScout is a paint.” She wanted to cower before that hard look, but she refused to break that easily. With everything she had, she met his stare. “Yours?”
    â€œPalomino.” He stepped around her so quickly that she couldn’t help but flinch. “In fact, I was riding him near the dam site in a pretty little valley the other day.”
    â€œIs that so?” That was the best she could do as he threw open the door of an enormous, shiny black truck and yanked out a brown cowboy hat.
    With a bullet hole through it.
    She’d gotten a lot closer than she meant to. She hadn’t actually been trying to hit him. She’d been trying to go right over his head, just close enough that he could hear the bullet. But she’d missed. She’d come within an inch of killing a man.For the first time in her life, she felt really and truly faint. The only thing that kept her on her feet was the knowledge that fainting was a confession of the body. No weakness. No confession.
    No matter if she was guilty of attempted murder.
    Armstrong was watching her with cold interest.