Coming Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

shaking.
    "It is my business, you see, considering my ranch is your father's main employer."
    "My father has his own practice," she retorted.
    "Only as a sideline. Didn't he tell you he's on retainer to me? Hell, he's at my place full-time three days a week and on call the rest of the time."
    She froze, absorbing that tidbit, then whispered, "When did that come about?"
    "A few years ago. After I took over the Four C."
    "I heard about that," she said. "It must have come as quite a shock for you. I know you never expected to run the ranch."
    He gave her an unpleasant smile. "Must have come as quite a shock to you, too. Suddenly I'm not the bastard grandson with no prospects...you know, the one who wasn't nearly good enough for Nicole Ross of the Baltimore racing set."
    Nicole stood abruptly and dropped her head back so she could stare straight up into his face. Sticking an index finger toward his flat stomach she snapped, "Look, I don't know what your problem is. If anyone around here's got a right to be angry it's me. I’m the one who’s had to handle things alone for all these years, while you were totally ignoring your responsibilities. You took off for Europe, leaving me to deal with everything.”
    Wyatt narrowed his eyes, his hard, tight form displaying his anger. He leaned forward, lowered his tone and practically spit out, "Oh, and you dealt with it, didn't you. How long did it take for you to knuckle under to that witch mother of yours and let her drag you back to Baltimore?"
    "What difference does it make to you? You didn't call...didn't write. I didn't hear one word from you. Not for all those weeks. What did you expect me to do, Wyatt? Sit around in Florida and wait for you to decide if you wanted to come back and do the right thing? For all I knew, your mother and her new rich husband had already gotten you engaged to some European millionaire’s daughter."
    "You should have waited, damn it! By the time I found out...."
    “By the time you found out, you had already decided I wasn’t what you wanted,” she snarled. “But you should have had the balls to just say so instead of trying to paint me as a…”
    "Excuse me, sir, ma'am, this is a hospital,” a harsh voice intruded. “I'm going to have to ask you to keep your voices down."
    Nicole took a step back as a nurse entered the waiting room and frowned at them, wrapped in disapproval. Wyatt thrust an angry hand through his thick hair, and frustration rolled off him in waves.
    Nicole couldn't believe he was the one acting like he had a right to be angry.
    After all, he wasn't the one who'd been left, rejected, and pregnant at age seventeen.
    He opened his mouth to say something, but frankly, she wasn’t in the mood to hear it. So before the nurse had even turned around to leave them alone again, she stormed out of the waiting room, determined to avoid Wyatt for the rest of her time here in Florida. Because if she didn’t, sooner or later she was going to reveal the one secret she didn’t want him to know: that despite what he’d done—and what he hadn’t —she had never gotten over him.
    He had hurt her more than anyone else in the world. But Wyatt Clayton was still the only man she had ever loved.
     
    Her father was moved into a private room two days later. He was recovering nicely, though he complained constantly about being stuck in bed and the lack of fresh air. Doctor Kendall told them he'd be able to leave the hospital in five or six days.
    "But that doesn't mean back to work," the doctor insisted. "That just means home...for recuperation. No work for another six to eight weeks."
    "Weeks? Impossible," Dad declared.
    Nicole rested her hand on her father's arm. Since they'd moved him out of the intensive care unit and into his own room, Dad had acted as if he was perfectly fine. He flirted with the nurses and complained about the food, but Nicole wasn't fooled. He tired easily, his face looked pale and drawn.
    Humoring him, she said, "Now, Dad,