A Will and a Way Read Online Free PDF Page A

those rippling, ought-to-be-illegal rumbles that she could swear went right through his fingertips and sent a million volts of ‘yes, please’ barreling straight to her hoo-hah. Up close, she could see the strands of silver streaking through his dark hair. He wore the imprint of every scowl, smirk, and sleepless night in the creases on his forehead, but instead of detracting from his overall appeal, they only made him more attractive.
    His smile spread like brush fire—a slow, wicked burn that ate up any token resistance she might have offered. Not that she planned to resist. She was there because she wanted a new adventure. A fresh start. A chance to determine her own destiny.
    “I told you. It’s spring.”
    And boy was she feeling it. Every hormone she had was zipping and zinging, flitting through her bloodstream like bees in a pollen frenzy. Donald was gone. Her marriage was in ashes. And, Lord, she was tired of being the good girl. Sitting there with him, she wasn’t some small-town widow who hoped no one noticed her gulping verboten glasses of wine. Will Tarrant seemed to think she was his fate. Who was she to debase him of that notion?
    “I’ve been looking for signs everywhere,” she said in the breathy drawl she’d perfected before she’d entered the seventh grade. “Bunnies hoppin’ about, birds flyin’ in my window to help me dress, but so far….” She gave a helpless shrug. “…not a single young man fancying thoughts of love.”
    “Would you settle for a not-so-young man with thoughts of lust?”
    Betty caught her smile before it blossomed and dialed it back to something approaching demure. “Oh, my.”
    She stared at his hand, absorbed in mapping the scars and marks obscured by a dusting of fine, dark hair. It had been so long since anyone touched her. Too long. Her skin prickled, though layers of fabric separated them. The noise that filled the barroom faded as her blood thrummed in her ears. The muscles in her arm jumped, but thanks to the geese that gave their undercoat so she could have an overcoat, he would never know.
    Swallowing her nerves, she forced herself to look up. Bittersweet chocolate eyes shone with patient good humor, and one side of his mouth kicked up in a cocky smile. He knew precisely how affected she was. And he was toying with her.
    She released a slow, measured breath, making sure she kept enough oxygen in reserve in case he hit her with another one of those heart-lurching assertions. “You are very direct, aren’t you?”
    “I told you, this is Fate.”
    The scar that bisected his upper lip gleamed white against dark stubble. She wanted to touch it. With her tongue. “I believe people create their own paths.”
    Up until about six months ago, the statement would have been a load of pure horse manure on her part, but he didn’t need to know that. This was the new Betty. Bold Betty. The woman who was done playing the fool for any man. A woman to be reckoned with, as her grandmamma would have said. One who wasn’t afraid to take what she wanted from life, because she was damn well done giving.
    He slid his hand down and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Still holding on loosely. Still making it completely her choice. “I want to make a path with you, then.”
    “Bullshit,” she said, fixing him with a challenging stare. “You want to get in my pants.”
    Will looked down, and she resisted the urge to squirm under the scrutiny. So she hadn’t exactly dressed to impress when she decided to ditch her cracker-box apartment that evening. The yoga pants she wore tucked into her fake Uggs were clean, and at least she’d changed the sleepshirt dotted with sheep for a cable-knit sweater before she set forth on her quest for the grape.
    “More than you can imagine.”
    The lack of finesse behind his terse but scrupulously honest answer should have rankled, but it didn’t. If anything, the gravelly rasp in his voice infused the simple confession with an urgency