Diamond Read Online Free PDF Page B

quiet sob followed him off the porch and into the night.

    He’d never seen sunrise from this side of night. His eyes were dry and burning, his shoulders stiff from the long hours behind the wheel. Last night he’d simply loaded her up, bag and all, and headed west. Stopping at a motel with her had been unthinkable. He’d sensed her panic and known that one more shock would have been her undoing. And so he’d driven…and finally she’d slept.
    A familiar curve in the road and the cattle guard they bumped across was warning enough that he’d just driven onto his property.
    “Thank God,” Jesse muttered, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
    He glanced over at his passenger and tried to ignore the fact that the two top buttons on her shirt were missing. A generous amount of ivory skin showed beneath the faded plaid shirt she wore tucked into a pair of very worn, very tight jeans. Sometime during their drive she’d shed her boots, and he noticed that she wore no socks. Something about the small red blister on the side of her big toe made him want to curse. Instead he pulled beneath the split-log roof of his carport, shoved the stick shift into park, and turned off the engine, welcoming the silence.
    He leaned wearily against the headrest and closed his eyes as he inhaled. A faint scent wafted across the interior of the car. He inhaled again, trying to identify the smell. And then he opened his eyes and turned to look at his sleeping passenger.
    Her hands were curled into loose fists, lying limply in her lap. There, poking out the side of her hand, was a half-eaten roll of Lifesavers. Cinnamon.
    Guilt overwhelmed him. He’d never even seen her put one in her mouth. He didn’t want to guess when she’d eaten last. But he hadn’t offered, and she hadn’t asked.
    “Come on, sweetheart,” he said, shaking her gently. “Let’s go inside and find you a bed. You can stretch out those long, pretty legs and sleep till you wake. We’ll talk later.”
    Diamond didn’t hear the endearment. She was too sleep-muddled. And if she had, she wouldn’t have trusted him. She’d been dreaming. Of a tall, dark-haired man with laughing eyes who kept promising her heaven. And she’d cried because she hadn’t believed him.
    She crawled stiffly out of the small, low-slung car, her boots in one hand, her bag in the other, and staggered into the house behind him, thinking that maybe she wasn’t so different from her father after all. She’d just gambled her life and her future on a stranger’s promises.
    3
    A door banged in another part of the house. Diamond sat straight up in bed and looked around wildly, wondering why the wallpaper wasn’t still peeling off the walls around her and why she smelled coffee instead of smoke from the mines.
    Then she remembered.
    What had she done? she wondered, looking down in dismay. Her nudity was as obvious as the room’s opulence. Vague memories surfaced of Jesse’s touch, and his voice, and something about promises. She’d undressed alone, of that she was almost certain. But the thought of food and coffee superseded any other worries that might have surfaced.
    The comer of a bathtub was visible through the half-open doorway at the end of the room. She staggered toward it and into the shower, unable to appreciate the unexpected luxuries she was experiencing due to the deep growl her stomach was making. More than twenty-four hours had passed since she’d eaten anything substantial.
    The hot water helped, as did the shampoo and blow-dryer conveniently placed on the vanity. And it didn’t take long to dress. There wasn’t that much in her bag from which to choose.
    She stomped her foot to slide a boot into place and then headed for the door. She heard men’s voices nearby and followed them and the smells of breakfast to what she supposed was the kitchen.
    “It’s the middle of the goddamned afternoon, you asshole,” a man was saying to Jesse. “If your car