Hard to Hold Read Online Free PDF

her problem was. He had initially suspected drugs, though he admitted to himself she didn’t seem the type. In fact, she radiated good health. Even with the oversize shirt and no cosmetics, she was more than just attractive. Her hair was a silken mass of dark gold with wheaten streaks, and for one brief instant he wondered what it would feel like under his hands. He had seen the evidence of her slender curves in the photo. There wasn’t anything about her that wasn’t completely feminine. Colton thought she might be breathtaking if she would only smile.
    Pushing himself to his feet, he stood uncertainly for a moment. The racking sobs subsided, but she still cried quietly into her hands. The hysterical laughter and deep sobs he could handle. Her soft weeping nearly undid him.
    He took one step toward her, then spun away, raking a hand over his hair. He swung back, staring at her bent head and trembling shoulders. The urge to take her in his arms and comfort her was almost overwhelming. He was actually standing over her, one hand poised above her hair, before he realized what he was doing and managed to get a grip on himself. While she might rouse every protective instinct he had, nothing good could come of letting himself feel anything for her. With a muttered curse, he turned on his heel and strode from the cabin.
    * * *
    S HE WAS A fool to have believed the cabin would hold the key to her brother’s release. When her grandfather had become too frail to continue living alone in the cabin, Maddie had made the difficult decision to move him to a nursing home in Elko, where she could visit him every day. Toward the end, he’d suffered from acute dementia, insisting he needed to return to his cabin. He claimed he had a fortune hidden there.
    Maddie knew about the tin box he kept hidden beneath the floorboards. Her grandfather had stashed his spare money there for years, but it had never, to her knowledge, amounted to much. Even though the rational part of her brain insisted the tin contained little, if anything, of value, her grandfather’s words had come back to her. During the ride into the mountains, she had actually begun to fantasize that perhaps he had somehow managed to put away a substantial hoard of cash.
    She was such an idiot.
    Maddie drew in a shuddering breath and swiped her palms across her wet cheeks. The money lay in a messy heap on the table. Her heart had leaped when she first saw the thick wad of bills inside the tin, but hope had turned to despair when she realized there was barely five hundred dollars there. Even combined with what she had, it didn’t come close to satisfying the debt her brother owed. She glanced over at the gaping hole in the floor and the scattered contents of the tin. But it wasn’t until her gaze fell on the discarded crowbar that she remembered.
    Colton.
    While she had been crying her heart out over the lack of money in the tin, he had slipped away. With her luck, he had a spare key and had taken the truck, as well. She couldn’t afford to be stranded here. With her heart slamming in her chest, Maddie leaped to her feet and bolted from the room. In the deepening shadows of early evening, she nearly collided with Colton as he reentered the cabin, carrying a large cardboard box.
    “Oh! I thought you were gone, that you’d taken the truck.” She felt a little weak with relief.
    In the indistinct light, he peered at her. “I’m not going to get too far without my keys, am I?” He indicated the box in his arms. “It’s getting dark, and with the gas tank on empty, we’re not going anywhere tonight. I have two weeks’ worth of food and supplies in the bed of the truck. I thought the least I could do was fix us something to eat.”
    Still flustered by her own incompetence, Maddie followed him back into the kitchen and watched as he set the box of provisions on the table, sweeping the money aside with a careless gesture.
    “How about some sandwiches? I have ham or roast