Dangerous Lover Read Online Free PDF Page B

very little family silver remained.
    No one took in a boarder without references. Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had been recommended by the head of her bank and had known her parents.
    Who knew Jack Prescott?
    But his deep voice had been so calm, that big body so still. And the look of grief that had crossed his face when he spokeof his father’s death…that had been real, and deep. Caroline recognized true grief—she was the world’s greatest expert.
    He looked scruffy and tired, as if he’d been traveling for a long time. His jacket was way too light for the gelid temperature outside, and his clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. His boots were old and worn. Those old boots had been the last straw.
    They were the boots of a man down on his luck.
    Caroline knew all about being down on your luck.
    There was something else about the man, too, besides his sexiness and steadiness. Something almost…familiar. Which only reinforced the crazy theory, because she’d never set eyes on him before in her life. She’d never even set eyes on anyone like him before.
    None of the men she knew had hands that large and that strong, or shoulders that broad. None of the men she knew moved with an athletic grace and tensely coiled energy, like a blaze that was temporarily banked but could flare into life at any moment.
    Not in the military anymore, he’d said, but he still had a military bearing—square-shouldered, ramrod-straight back, great economy of movement. And saying ma’am all the time. It was sweet, but not exactly the favored mode of address of men talking to women in the twenty-first century. Obviously, living with a colonel for a father had rubbed off on him.
    The man she knew best was Sanders McCullin, and he was as far from Jack Prescott as it was possible to be. Sanders was tall, though not as tall as Jack, blond, classically handsome and impossibly elegant.
    If Caroline had only half the money Sanders spent each month on clothes, her financial worries would be over. Of course her financial problems could be over tomorrow, Sanders made that clear enough, particularly now that poor Toby was gone. If she married Sanders and became Mrs. McCullin, life would go back to what it had been before her parents died. Safe, secure, comfortably wealthy.
    On bad days, like this one, with the Kippings gone, the possibility of coming home to a freezing house that would stay freezing until Monday afternoon because the Jerk was the only person on earth who could coax her boiler back to temporary life, and he didn’t make house calls on holidays, a Christmas Eve with no sales at all, the prospect of being alone on Christmas Day, of all the days in the year—well, on days like this, the thought of marrying Sanders made a lot of sense.
    Except, of course, for the minor fact that her skin crawled at the thought of kissing him, let alone sleeping with him, which just went to show that she was crazy. Half the women in town wanted to sleep with Sanders, and the other half already had, putting Caroline, as always, in the minority.
    And now, in a bid to shore up the crazy theory, she’d just given a man she didn’t know her car keys. The only things she knew about Jack Prescott were that he was a stranger in town and had very little money. Knowing that, what did she do?
    Hand him the keys, politely, because he’d asked.
    How smart was that?
    If he stole her car, how could she get home? She’d be stranded until the weather cleared, with only the weeks-old yogurt,Diet Coke and wizened apple in her small fridge for food. There was no way a taxi would come out in this weather and—
    A sharp rap on the window made her jump. A second later, Jack Prescott was back in the room, covered in snow. His long black hair was dusted with white. Even his black eyelashes had turned white. He gave no sign of being cold, however. He gave no sign of even being uncomfortable. He looked exactly as he had before—tough and self-contained.
    “I’ve got the