Designer Genes Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t get many strangers.”
    She held her
breath, afraid he was going to ask the obvious question: what was she doing here? Mercifully, he didn’t. Possibly he was too polite, or just lacked
curiosity. Good, because she wasn’t ready to tell him.
    He pulled the
truck around, backed it into the garage and lowered her car. The grinding noise
of the tow mechanism woke Allie, who began to cry.
    Through the
passenger window, Buffy peered around. “Where can I breast-feed her?” A garage
was hardly likely to have a clean corner, she realized. “Never mind. When
you’re done disconnecting my car, would you drop us at a motel?”
    “That could
pose a problem,” Carter said.
    “Then call me
a cab and I’ll go there myself.” She wondered if the First National Bank of
Nowhere back on Main Street had an ATM, because she was running low on cash.
    “I’d drive
you,” the man explained, “but we don’t have a motel. Billy and Willie Grimes
used to rent out a spare room until they had their sixth kid, or maybe it was
the seventh. Now people have to stay with relatives or go to Groundhog Station.
They have two motels, although I wouldn’t recommend them, being as the folks in
Groundhog aren’t nearly as nice as the people around here.”
    No motel? The
energy that had powered Buffy all the way from California seemed to drain onto
the concrete floor of the garage. She didn’t know anyone in this town, she had
no place to go and her daughter was hungry.
    As usual,
though, her depression lasted somewhere on the short side of thirty seconds.
“Don’t you have a spare room?” she asked. “I’ll pay you to put me up
overnight.”
    Carter made no
move to exit the truck. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this is a small town.
People will gossip.”
    “About what?”
Allie started squalling full-out, cutting off his reply. This feeding couldn’t
wait until the man worked through his ridiculous small-town qualms. After
unstrapping the restraints, Buffy lifted her daughter out of the baby seat and
began unbuttoning her blouse.
    Carter averted
his face. “Do you have to do that with the garage door open?”
    “I’m
breast-feeding.” Buffy couldn’t believe anyone would object. “My clothes are
designed not to show anything, okay?”
    The man opened
his door and hopped out. “You take care of your business while I unhook your
car, and then we’ll figure out where you can sleep.”
    “Fine.” For
one night, she could handle anything within reason, Buffy figured. Thank
goodness she’d brought a sleeping bag in case she got stuck between towns.
    She might look
like a city slicker, but she’d seen practically every episode ever made of
“Survivor.” And there were scissors in her manicure kit to cut the tags off the
sleeping bag.
    The truck
bounced a couple of times while Carter was freeing her car. The motion seemed
to reassure the baby, who nursed lustily.
    The man
returned while Buffy was still holding Allie. He kept his face averted.
    “Mimsy Miles
rents a small apartment over the coffee shop,” he said. “She might put you up
in the living room.”
    It would have
been an acceptable suggestion, had Allie’s yawn not reminded Buffy of her mission
in Nowhere Junction. If she stayed somewhere else, how would she get to know
Carter Murchison?
    She’d come to
Texas to give her daughter the one thing in life that Buffy had always lacked:
a father. And she intended to complete her mission.
    “Why can’t I
stay at your place?” she asked. “There’s no reason the town gossips have to
find out about me.”
    He was so
startled that he met her gaze just as she rearranged her blouse. Although he
couldn’t have seen much, he turned bright red.
    “They, um,
already know about you,” he stammered. “You called me during a school board
meeting, remember? They took a vote that I should go help you right away.”
    “The school
board sent you to help me?” Until now, Buffy hadn’t imagined that anything
about this