Discovering Daisy Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn’t Amelia have met a man like Jacob? Why did her sister have to die? Why?
    Jacob held her to him soothing her hair from her face, running his hand up and down her spine as she sobbed. When she was too exhausted to do much of anything he slid free of her body and, holding her like a child, he dipped her beneath the water so that only their heads remained above. His hands brushed over her, stroking and soothing as he helped the water to wash over her skin.
    When they were both as clean as only water could get them he waded out with her once more held high and tight against his chest. He carried them back to the campsite where the fire was just embers and, standing her on the bedroll, pulled a cloth from his saddlebag and briskly dried her before easing her arms once more into his shirt.
    “Lie back down for a bit,” he urged her as he helped her lie once more in the bedroll. “Rest while I get the fire going and get some food. You’re safe here,” he vowed and ran his hand over her cheek in a soft caress.
    “Safe,” she whispered and realised that she did feel that way with him.
    “Rest,” he said again and stood once more. She watched as he pulled his clothes on. He was truly the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His dark skin, the black hair that was unbound and spilled around his shoulders and face. The high cheek bones, the hard contours and bulging muscles. And yet there was tenderness in his touch, a comfort in his soft smile. She let her eyes flutter shut, let the exhaustion take her off to a deep, dreamless sleep.

    Jacob glanced down at the woman sleeping so soundly. His heart gave a tug as he took in the dark shadows under her eyes. It had been easy to miss them when her gorgeous eyes were open. But in sleep she seemed so fragile and broken. The way she had come apart in his arms, the sound of her sobs had nearly killed him. All he could do was hold her and offer what comfort he could.
    He wanted to go back and find her before whatever had happened. He wanted to erase whatever pain she had known. He wanted to kill the men that had dared to hurt her so deeply. He would wake her as soon as the food was done and after he fed her it would be time for her to talk, time for her to quit holding back and tell him exactly what had happened. It was just as important for her to share it as it was for him to hear it. She needed to unburden herself, to understand that what happened was not her fault and that she had done everything that she could.
    He didn’t know yet exactly what had happened but he did know that there was no way that Daisy was to blame for any of it. What had she seen? What had she done? What had been said or done in the time before the sheriff was brought to that place and found Daisy surrounded by dead men? Sheriff Duckett had said that Daisy was cradling the body of her pregnant sister at the time he arrived, that it had been hard to pull her away. He had also said that she seemed like a shell of a person and that she had claimed to have killed them all. Three dead men and a dead pregnant woman. It was a lot for anyone.
    She murmured in her sleep and he reached out to sooth her brow. She whispered his name and seemed to settle once more in sleep. It touched him in ways that he couldn’t explain to hear her call his name in her sleep. They had only just met, still had so much to learn about one another and yet it seemed as if she was the person he had waited his entire life for. There had been other women, here and there, but never more than a moment was spent indulging his sexual need. And he’d been sure to never be with a woman more than once as he didn’t want to mislead them into thinking he was a forever type of man.
    But Daisy was making him into a forever type of man. He wanted to wake every morning with his wife in his arms. He was delighted that she wanted to be with him always, even when they were out sleeping under the stars. She made him think of forever, of children and