A Time to Keep Read Online Free PDF Page B

presentation was likened to a Hollywood A-list actor’s performance.
    Now, however, he wasn’t a district attorney but Sheriff Shiloh Harper, and serving out his father’s term had delayed his goal of becoming a judge by his fortieth birthday.
    Shifting slightly in the hammock, he closed his eyes as the blades of one of the ceiling fans on the veranda moved the sultry air, caressing his scantily clad body. He was beginning to feel the effects of the two beers he’d drunk in lieu of eating his mother’s jambalaya. After thirty-seven years of marriage his widowed mother still had not adjusted to cooking for one person. Any time he left the house where he’d grown up, it was with several containers of Moriah Harper’s exquisitely prepared food.
    The cell phone resting near his right hand rang a distinctive ring. Without glancing at the display he knew who’d dialed his number. He counted six rings before the voice-mail feature activated. Then he picked up the telephone, deleted the message, and settled back to spend the night on the hammock.
    There had been a time when he couldn’t wait to talk to Deandrea Tate. But that was before he’d courted and married her. But everything changed eighteen months into their marriage when he came home and found another man in bed with his wife. They stopped talking and rage and acrimony surfaced as he filed for divorce. Now, there was nothing his ex-wife had to say that he wanted or needed to hear. He’d given Deandrea the monstrosity of a house she’d hounded him to buy and everything in it as a settlement—a house and furnishings she sold less than six months after their divorce.She’d called because she probably needed money. Well, he’d given her all that he had, and then some.
    Shiloh Harper wasn’t the same man Deandrea married. She was now his past, and he had made it a practice not to dwell on what was, but prepare for what was to come.
    * * *
    Gwen opened her eyes, totally disoriented, her clothes pasted to her moist body. She stared up through the gauzy netting at the whirling blades of a ceiling fan. Within seconds she realized where she was, and recalled what had happened since she’d crossed the boundary into Bayou Teche.
    She’d gotten stuck in a mud bank, was rescued by the police, surveyed the hot, musty, dusty interior of the house that was now her home, and instead of sleeping at Bon Temps was forced to spend the night at a local boardinghouse.
    Sitting up and getting off the bed, Gwen made her way barefoot over to the smallest of her three pieces of luggage. Shiloh had carried all three bags in one trip while it had taken her two trips from her top floor apartment to bring them down to her car. Opening the bag, she withdrew a case with her cosmetics, and walked into the bathroom.
    Half an hour later, she emerged from the bathroom, refreshed by a lukewarm shower. Turning off the table lamps, she parted the sheer netting, slipped under a crisp floral sheet, and within minutes went back to sleep.

CHAPTER 3
    G wen woke up ravenous. Rolling over, she reached for her watch on the bedside table. It was 11:20, and she did not want to do anything or make any decision until she’d eaten. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she stood up and headed for the bathroom.
    Despite the growling sounds coming from her belly, Gwen lingered under the spray of the shower to wash and condition her hair. It was half past twelve when she descended the staircase and walked into the boardinghouse lobby. The expansive area was filled with wicker love seats and chairs cradling colorful floral cushions. An elderly woman with long, graying red hair stood behind the counter sorting mail.
    Her head came up and she smiled at Gwen. “ Bonjour, Miss Taylor. I’m Angelique Jessup. My nephew told me that Shiloh brought you in last night.”
    Clutching her purse to her middle, Gwen hoped to mufflethe sound of her