Breath of Dawn, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

watched him carry armful after armful of clothes to his Range Rover until at last he came back inside, rubbing his hands from the chill.
    “That’s all I can fit. Where do you want them taken?”
    “There’s a church in town that sends them to a mission.”
    He nodded. “I’ll drop them with Pastor Tom.”
    “You know him?”
    Now the edge found his eyes, but in truth, Morgan didn’t seem like a man who’d know the pastor by name.
    “Right.” She broke the stare. “Thanks for your help and . . . purchase.” She’d been too flabbergasted to haggle.
    “You’re welcome. Hope you find what you’re looking for.”
    She hadn’t admitted to searching, but he’d obviously analyzed and drawn conclusions. If she was smart she’d do the same. Maybe he didn’t have fifteen hundred dollars and his check would bounce. That suspicion seeped in with an acidic burn.
    She still had possession of the cabinet, so it wouldn’t matter except in principle. Still, she couldn’t stand dishonesty, hated it almost as much as cruelty. Being the victim of lies as a little childhad first baffled, then demoralized her. Now it infuriated her to encounter even senseless, supposedly harmless deceit.
    Bundling into her coat, she hurried to her truck and drove home, parking not at her little house but the big metal storehouse barn on the side of the property. Chafing her chilly hands, she fired up her laptop and searched Morgan Spencer.
    Moments later, her jaw fell slack. “Oh. My.”
    Videos, images, articles, and blogs. Awards, events, international corporate news. She read one business article about his second New York Times bestseller. Elusive corporate specialist Morgan Spencer avoids the public eye as his fame and success crescendo. . . .
    Quinn gaped. She’d clung to a world-famous mogul. Huffing a laugh, she shook her head. She should have charged five thousand.

    With his head to the steering wheel, Morgan sat alone in the night, clutching his baby’s monitor to his chest, the engine unturned in the Maserati that would fly if he let it. Outside in the car was as far as he could go, and that only because the lights of the monitor would show what he might not hear over the pure-pitched speakers throbbing words he knew by heart from countless repetitions.
    A life leaving nothing behind. No dream to echo in time.
    Hours ago, he’d typed the final word of his third book and sent the file without once looking back to revisit what he’d written. He’d laid out the core of his philosophy, everything that made his zenith shine. Whoever could reproduce it, let them. Let others save the world.
    Visions and dreams dismembered. Nothing remembered. Everything lost in this night.
    Once, he’d fed on the cool certainty, the razor-sharp focus and adrenaline of the contest, recognizing potential and turning disasters around, seeing problems and finding solutions no one else saw. Now it was all ashes in his mouth, shades laughing softly in the night wind.
    A few strides might get him the sympathy of his brother and even Rick’s wife, but no matter how close they were, in the end,it was his own effort to put one foot in front of the other, step by step by step.
    All his successes, yet he hadn’t seen it coming. Almost two years, and still the stealth and shock of death rocked him. The lyrics had ended, and in their place came the caring platitudes.
    “What could you do? You weren’t even there.”
    He’d been useless to his wife and worse than useless to Kelsey, his vigorous bone marrow damaging one organ after another when she had nothing to fight back with.
    “You did all you could. It was out of your hands.”
    The hope had been a slim one, but he’d believed. He was golden. He’d save her, and then he and Jill could know her. Only he hadn’t. Morgan Spencer wasn’t God. If he were, Kelsey would be here, Jill would be here.
    Instead . . .
    The piercing-clear moon showed his face in the rearview mirror. The kings of the