Borrowed Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyes. He was
very tall, fit and strong-all lithe, muscular power that overwhelmed her.
    Don’t you answer when a
stranger speaks lo you?’ he inquired softly. ‘If you’ve been told not to speak
to strange men, let me remind you that we’ve spoken before. I almost knocked
you down.’
    I remember.’ Abigail’s
cheeks flushed softly. He had made her feel very young with his remarks about
strange men and now she didn’t know where to look.
    ‘Can I begin again?’ He
smiled at her warmly. ‘Are you going home?’
    ‘No, I’m going out.
This-this is my night when I stay in town.’
    ‘Ah! You’ve got a date.’
For a moment she had the strange feeling that he was disappointed and she
quickly corrected him.
    Not a date exactly. I go
out with an old school friend on Wednesdays. We go for a meal and then-then
sometimes we go to see a film. She’s a girl,’ Abigail finished in a rush, just
to make sure he understood. What would she do if you didn’t turn up?’ I always
do turn up.’ Her heart seemed to take off frighteningly fast and she looked
away, biting her lip. If for any reason I can’t go out then I ring her.’
    ‘Ring her,’ Logan ordered quietly.
    ‘But—’
    You’re going out with me.’
He looked at her steadily and Abigail bit her trembling lips harder, unable to
really believe it. He walked closer and stood looking down at her and she
managed to find her voice.
    ‘I don’t know you,’ she
whispered, and he nodded in understanding.
    ‘That’s why you’re going
out with me—unless you don’t want to know me’
     
    ‘I do!’
She looked up anxiously, scared that he would change his mind, no thought of
danger in her head it all, and Logan smiled into her eyes, his grey eyes slowly
inspecting her face with a sort of gentle probing that made her feel weak and
strange.
    ‘Then why
don’t you leave your car here and come with me now? We’ll find a telephone and
you can ring your friend. Then we’ll have dinner. I’ll bring you back to your
car later.’
    Abigail
looked up at him like someone in a trance and he touched her flushed cheek
lightly.
    ‘There’s
nothing to be afraid of. All right?’ He was so wonderfully reassuring and
Abigail nodded. There was something to be afraid of. She should have been very
much afraid of this man with the soft, dark voice and the startling grey eyes
but she was too bewitched to know it. He had soothed his way into her soul.
    The phone rang and Abigail
came back to reality with a start.
    ‘Brian
Wingate on the line for you,’ Martha said and put her straight through before
she had time to come out of the world of dreams and back into the bleak and
frightening present.
    ‘How are
things?’ He sounded safe and comfortable and Abigail smiled as she answered.
    ‘Hanging
by a thread. I expect the thread to snap at any moment.’
    ‘Well,
there’s no new word about,’ he assured her steadily. ‘What do you do, Abigail?
Do you wait for the axe to fall or do you slide out from under now?’
    ‘I can’t
slide out from under. Brian,’ she pointed out wearily. ‘I’m the one they have
to throw the book at. I have to see this out-Madden’s last stand.’
     
    ‘You’re
not the one,’ he said forcefully. ‘The only reason you’re there in that
position is because your father is ill. Are you telling me that if Martha Bates
had been forced to hold the fort she would have had to make a last stand?’
    ‘Knowing
Martha,’ Abigail mused, ‘she probably would have done. In any case,’ she added
more firmly, ‘I have the name. I’m a Madden. I can’t just hide.’
    ‘You’re
merely a girl!’
    ‘I’m
twenty-four and I feel eighty. The girl disappeared—somewhere.’
    He swore
under his breath and for a moment she thought that he had simply decided to say
nothing more; then he said, ‘Look, love, I’m flying to Germany in the morning. I may be a week or even longer. Let me fix you up with us before I
go.’
    ‘No,
thanks, Brian I have to