Dancing With the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rhea ignored him. Despite what Colin insinuated, shecould have found plenty of men to marry if she had the time or inclination.
    Heat crept up her neck and butterflies twitched in her stomach. “All my life, I watched Ma and Pa. They loved each other, Colin. Really and truly loved each other.”
    Her brother’s jaw tightened ’til she thought the muscles would snap.
    “I wanted that, too, and everyone in town knew it.”
    Colin’s grunt left little room for doubt on what he thought of her romantic side. “You only saw what you wanted to see,” Colin ground out. “Their marriage wasn’t everything you think it was.”
    “They loved each other, and that’s what’s important.” Rhea nodded. “I wasn’t about to marry a man I didn’t love, and after what happened with Deacon, the only way to salvage our name was to marry him.”
    “So what are you saying? You love Deacon?”
    She blinked rapidly, cursed the tightness in her throat and tried to forget Deacon was sitting right there. If her mouth was any dryer, she wouldn’t be able to swallow at all.
    “After he left last summer,” she said, hoping neither man would notice she’d sidestepped the question, “Mrs. Foster made sure I knew everything people were saying about us, about how ‘scandalous’ our relationship was. I never expected him to set foot in this town again, so he was a safe risk.”
    “A safe risk?” Colin came out of his chair like he’d been shot. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”
    “It made perfect sense,” she retorted, then added more softly, “at the time.”
    Why did Deacon keep grinning like that? Surely he didn’t want to be married to her any more than she wanted to be married to him—not for real, anyway. In her pretend world, it was the perfect arrangement.
    “At the time,” Colin grunted, his fingers gripping the back of his chair tight enough to snap the spindles. “Let me get this straight,” he muttered. “You’re not legally married, yet you have a piece of paper that says you are.”
    God help her. “Correct.”
    “And you did this just so you could keep that stupid store?” Colin’s growl became increasingly louder with each word.
    “You make it sound like I robbed a bank or something.”
    “For God’s sake, Rhea—it’s forgery!” The vein in his neck pulsed dangerously fast.
    “No, it’s not,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so pathetically desperate. “No one got hurt from it, and it’s not as if I stole anything from anyone.”
    “Except my freedom,” Deacon threw in.
    “Forgery is forgery.” Colin reached for the shelf that usually housed his whiskey and found it wanting. “Dammit.”
    “Deacon doesn’t care, do you?” She twisted in her chair to face him.
    “Well…”
    Colin didn’t let him finish. “And it wasn’t enough that you falsified a marriage, but then you went and falsified his death, too!”
    “I had to. People kept asking where he was, and why he didn’t come to live here in Penance.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t very well tell them he’d been dragged back to H—”
    “Houston,” Deacon interjected.
    “Right,” she muttered. “Houston.” It was one thing for her to know who he truly was or where he’d been, but it was something else entirely for others to learn the truth.
    “Dammit.” Colin slammed his hands down on thetabletop and glared pointedly at Deacon. “You swear you didn’t know any of this?”
    Deacon offered a half shrug. “Not a thing.”
    Oooh, she’d like to slap that righteous smirk off his face.
    “Colin, please.” She shot Deacon a warning look before turning to face her brother. “Nobody has to know.”
    “ I know!” The force of his yell rattled inside Rhea’s skull. “Damn it, Rhea, I know!”
    Silence followed. The realization of what she’d done began to sink into Rhea’s brain. She hadn’t even thought about Colin when she’d jumped into this plan; all she’d been thinking about was keeping the