Deep in the Heart Read Online Free PDF

bitter woman was not the Sam he’d expected to find. And then he wondered, what had he expected? How else should she be acting? If this had happened to him, he’d be fighting mad, too.
    He interrupted before Samantha said anything else extraordinary.
    “She’ll have a cheeseburger, well done, uh…fries, and a strawberry malt,” he said shortly. “Repeat it for me, only make my burger a double and leave off the fries.”
    The waitress nodded and hurried away.
    Her eyebrows rose. “Well thank you very much for making up my mind,” she drawled.
    “Someone had to,” he said.
    Her eyebrows arched. “You aren’t having fries?”
    “I’ll eat yours.”
    She caught her breath at the grin on his face and knew that the smartest thing she’d done since she’d moved to this godforsaken city had been mailing that letter to Texas.

    Later, Samantha paced the floor in her apartment, alternating between staring at the broad back of the man sitting at her table poring over the stack of hate mail, and wondering how he’d gone from being a town truant to arresting them instead.
    “Johnny, where is your father?”
    Her question was as unexpected as the old pain he felt in the pit of his stomach. These days he rarely thought of his father, and when he did, he was hard-pressed to remember what he’d looked like.
    Her dropped a handful of papers, shoved back the chair he was sitting in, and stood. It took a lot of guts, but he had to be looking at her when he said it. If he wasn’t, he’d always wonder what her first real reaction had been.
    “He died in prison.”
    Samantha was quiet. The expression on her face never wavered, nor did the look in her eyes. It was still steadfast and sure. He exhaled, slowly.
    “When?”
    “Ten weeks after I left Cotton.” He laughed once, but it was harsh and filled with pain.
    “I didn’t know,” she whispered.
    “How could you?” he said bitterly. “When I came back for the funeral, you were already gone.”
    Before he knew what was happening, Samantha had walked into his arms and wrapped herself around his heart.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to open up old wounds.” Her voice was faint, a mere whisper. “I didn’t know.”
    John Thomas rested his chin on her head, wrapped his hands in the long fall of black hair hanging down her back, and hugged her with a desperation that surprised him.
    “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
    “Yes. It mattered. It still does. And I wish I’d known.”
    “What would you have done, Sam, cried at the funeral? You were scared to death of him and you know it.”
    “I would have cried for you,” she said softly.
    Oh God, Samantha! And I would have let you, be cause I damn sure couldn’t cry for myself. And why—why did you send my letters back? What the hell did I do that was so bad you wouldn’t even keep them to read?
    “I see a pattern,” he said, and stepped out of her arms before he made fools of them both.
    “Pattern?” She was lost until he pointed to the letters. “Oh, the letters.”
    The abrupt change of subject surprised her. Obviously she’d gotten too close to something he didn’t want to explore.
    He drew her toward the table, and then began moving from one side to the other, thinking aloud as he went.
    “These seem angry. Just angry.” He pointed to the stack of mail closest to him. “But these,” he pointed to a stack in the middle, “these blame.” He moved to the stack at the farthest end. “These are the ones that scare the hell out of me. These are the ones with the promises. These are the ones that hate.”
    She wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered.
    “I’d never really thought of them in those terms. I was too busy running from shadows to decipher their contents.”
    “What did the police say?” Then he thought of something. “Wait a minute. Why the hell do you have these instead of the police? This is evidence, Samantha. Didn’t you show it to them?”
    His anger enveloped