Dark Paradise Read Online Free PDF Page B

sold her court reporter's equipment, sublet her apartment for the
    summer, loaded her suits and her guitar in the back of her Honda, and
    headed for Montana.
     
    She had made no plans beyond summer, beyond basking in the glow of
    enlightenment. She was free to be herself at last. Born anew at
    twenty-eight.
     
    Still, all the self-revelation of the past two weeks didn't completely
    dull the sting of Brad's betrayal. Lucy would have understood that,
    having won, lost, and dumped an astounding number of men herself. She
    and Lucy should have been sitting on Lucy's bed right now in their
    nightgowns, eating junk food and trashing Brad, and then trashing men in
    general until they ended up laughing themselves into tears.
     
    Dammit, Lucy.
     
    Guilt swept through her, chasing a current of resentment. She wanted
    Lucy to be there for her. How selfish was that?   She had a case of
    wounded pride and jitters over finally finding the nerve to stand up and
    be herself.
     
    Lucy was dead. Dead was forever.
     
    Feeling disjointed, disembodied, Marilee sank down on the edge of the
    bed and put her pounding head in her hands. She reached out blindly for
    the guitar, she had propped against a chair and pulled it into her arms
    like a child, hugging it against her. She held it at an angle so she
    could rest her cheek against its neck. The smell of the wood was
    familiar, welcome, a constant in a life that had too often seemed alien
    to her. This old guitar had been a friend for a lot of lonely years. It
    never found fault in her.
     
    It never cast judgment. It never abandoned her. It knew everything that
    was in her heart.
     
    Her fingers moved over the strings almost of their own volition,
    callused fingertips of her left hand pressing down above the frets, the
    fingers of her right hand plucking gently at a tune that came from a
    private well of pain deep inside her. The emotions that fought and
    tangled like wrestling bears crystallized simply in the music. In just a
    handful of notes the feelings were expressed more eloquently than she
    could ever have spoken them. Sweet, sad notes, as poignant as a mourning
    dove's call, filled the stale air of the room and pierced her skin like
    tiny daggers.
     
    The tears came hard, almost grudgingly, as if she didn't want to give
    them up without proof that her friend wasn't going to come waltzing
    through the door with a smirk on her face. That would be like Lucy. To
    Lucy, life was just one big practical joke perpetrated on the human race
    by bored and cynical gods.
     
    The joke's on you this time, Luce.
     
    A dry, broken sob tore Marilee's throat and then she was spent,
    exhausted, drained as dry as the gas tank of her Honda. She set the
    guitar aside and fell back across the bed, staring through her tears at
    the water stains on the ceiling. The silence of the night rang in her
    ears. The loneliness of it swelled in her chest like a balloon. Above
    her the moose from the starving-artist painting gazed down on her with
    melancholy eyes.
     
    She'd never felt so alone.
     
    Her dreams were a jumble of faces and places and sounds, all of it
    underscored by a low hum of tension and the dark, sinister sensation of
    falling into a deep black crevasse. J.D. Rafferty's granite countenance
    loomed over her, shadowed by the brim of his hat. She felt his big,
    work-roughened hands on her body, touching her breasts, which were
    exposed because - much to her dismay - she had forgotten to wear anything
    but an old pair of boxer shorts and hiking boots. She glared at him,
    detesting him with her brain while her body warmed to the consistency of
    melted caramel beneath his touch.
     
    Lucy lingered in the shadows, watching with wicked amusement. "Ride him,
    cowgirl. He'll let you be on top."
     
    Rafferty ignored her. As he massaged Marilee's breasts, he murmured to
    her in a low, coarse voice.
     
    "Man, Luanne, you've got the biggest tits I've ever seen."
     
    She shivered. Her brain stumbled in