Always a Lady Read Online Free PDF

to make yourself sick. I'm sorry. I swear to God I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, and as for Lane, it'll never happen again."
    The quiet strength of his voice soaked and soothed her hysteria. Her sobs lessened, her shaking quieted, and the tears fell slower until they finally ceased to exist. The arms holding her loosened gently, and Lily felt her face tilted upward. She opened her eyes into a blaze of blue and tried to turn away, suddenly reminded of the view Case Longren had of her.
    "Don't turn away from me, Lily," he whispered. He cupped her face in his hands, caressing the tender curve of her cheeks with rough, callused palms as he wiped away the last of her tears with his thumbs. "Talk to me about this."
    The soft, gentle manner in which he traced her face lessened the embarrassment Lily felt as he touched her so intimately.
    But then she shrugged out of his arms, shocked at the way she'd clung to him only moments before. She turned away in confusion.
    Case watched her wrap her arms around herself and knew that she was gathering strength to continue. She was some lady, his cook.
    "There's nothing much to talk about," Lily finally answered. She turned to face him and stuffed her hands in her pockets to hide their tremble. "I went to a bridal shower. I started home and a drunk driver changed the shape of my face . . . and my life . . . forever. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
    Her words were angry and defensive. Case ached for her.
    "Is that why you wanted this job? Because your life took such a drastic change? Or are you hiding from your life by coming halfway across the country to take a job you're obviously overqualified for."
    "This job, as you call it, is little more than what I did for the last twelve years of my life before I finally moved away from home. My mother died when I was thirteen. I became chief cook and bottle washer for my father and four older brothers. They all had jobs and I didn't. Feeding them became my job. In the beginning, I wasn't very good at it, but I got better. Daddy let me falter and helped me along the way. My brothers never complained about my failures. It took me several years to realize that they'd given me that job to help me get through the emptiness I felt when my mother died."
    "Is that where you were living when you had your accident?" Case asked.
    Lily hesitated. Now it got sticky, and she wasn't certain how much of her private life she felt like revealing.
    "No, I was living in L.A., remember? I grew up outside of Laguna Beach."
    Case felt her reticence. There was more; he could tell.
    "So what did you do in L.A.? Surely you weren't a cook?"
"I worked as a legal secretary in a law firm."
    Case watched the pain growing as her lips tightened and the fury in her eyes turned them back to that darker shade of jade he'd noticed was a signal of her anger.
"And . . ." he coaxed.
    "And I had my accident, and I left to come out here," she answered.
It was too pat and too quick.
    "And there was no one in L.A. who tried to stop you? Surely you had friends, Lily. Couldn't you go back to your old job?"
    Anger exploded, surprising Lily as much as it did Case.
    "My fiancé wanted his ring back because he didn't want to walk down the aisle with a bride who had a face like this. I couldn't go back and work in the same office with a man who hated the sight of me, now could I?"
    Case grabbed her hand as she gestured angrily toward her face. His eyes narrowed until they were mere slits of blue.
    "Are you telling me that a man who claimed to love you wouldn't marry you because of that little scratch on your face?"
Little scratch!
    She caught her breath and blinked back a fresh set of tears. She'd be damned if she cried in front of this man again.
    "Well, Lily Brownfield, if you ask me, which you didn't, I'll tell you one damned thing is obvious as hell. You're the luckiest woman alive that the bastard dumped you because he doesn't deserve the ground you walk on."
    Lily stared. She