Baltimore [3.5] Broken Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

he isn’t .
    But if he was . . . She got up from the sofa and pulled the gun from her purse to make sure it was loaded. Just in case Brock really did mean for me to disappear .
    Monday, December 23, 10:45 P.M.
    Joseph gently tugged at one of Daphne’s curls and lazily watched it spring back. She lay beside him, her legs intertwined with his, practically purring as she stroked his chest, sated.
    As was he. A lonely marriage to her selfish prick of an ex-husband had given her limited sexual experience, but she was a very fast learner. And I am a very lucky man . As promised, she’d been waiting for him, dinner on the table, wearing a Christmas apron with dancing gingerbread men – and nothing else. He’d never eaten a meal so fast in his life.
    Now he had her in his arms, there was a fire crackling in the fireplace, and Nat King Cole crooning on the stereo about chestnuts. ‘I like this,’ he murmured.
    ‘Me, too,’ she said with a smile in her voice. ‘But don’t expect this kind of treatment every day.’
    ‘What? Home cooking? Nat King Cole?’
    She laughed. ‘The apron. I knew Ford wasn’t going to be here tonight, so you got lucky.’
    ‘I certainly did,’ he said smugly. ‘All three times.’
    ‘I was a tiger,’ she said with a proud little nod, making him chuckle.
    ‘We’ll have to clean up the kitchen floor. Assuming I can move later.’
    The first time he’d taken her on the kitchen table, dirty dishes be damned. The second, she’d attacked him in the upstairs hall. He’d felt like a teenager again and it felt damn good.
    She lifted her head, a frown on her face. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
    ‘I’ll probably have rug burns on my ass for days. Not that I’m complaining.’ Because finally they’d made it to bed and that had been the best time of all. He’d taken his time, made her moan, made her sigh. His name. Always his name. Because she’s mine . Of that he had no doubt.
    So marry her . The thought didn’t startle him. He’d wanted this since the first time he’d laid eyes on her, almost a year before. He wanted to ask her this very second, but she deserved a romantic courtship so he pointed his thoughts in another direction before he blurted out a proposal too soon. ‘Where is Ford, by the way?’
    ‘He’s up at the farm, helping Maggie get ready for Angel’s visit tomorrow.’ Maggie ran Daphne’s horse farm, thirty minutes north of the city. The farm was one of the first things Daphne had bought after her divorce. Her SOB ex-husband had left her on the wealthy side of comfortable and she liked spending money on other people. Maggie was also Daphne’s adopted aunt and the woman who, through equine therapy, had helped Daphne begin to heal. ‘I told Angel she’d see ponies, but we only have horses. They might be too intimidating. She’s such a little thing.’
    ‘Did you buy a pony?’ he asked.
    ‘No. We rescued one a year ago. She was all bone, but she’s up to weight now and really gentle. I loaned her to a neighbor whose grandchildren were visiting. Ford went to bring her home. It’s good for him to stay busy. Helps keep his mind off everything that happened.’ She kissed Joseph’s jaw. ‘Thank you for bringing me in on Angel’s case. I need to stay busy, too.’
    ‘I know.’ He hesitated, then figured it was as good a time as any. ‘Sophie Johannsen called me this afternoon. She said you’d left her a message asking her to hold your dad’s guitar, that you weren’t ready to return to the cabin. Turns out she never intended for you to come to back there to get it. She’s bringing it to you. I hope that’s okay.’
    She lifted her head again to stare at him, wide-eyed. ‘When?’
    ‘Tomorrow. She said she has to be back in Philly by late afternoon for a checkup with her obstetrician and will swing by on the way. I told her to come to the farm, since you’d be there.’
    ‘But . . . I mean, that’s nice of her. But she doesn’t have to do that.