Heartbreaker Read Online Free PDF

queried.

    She nodded. “He died in a nursing home the year I moved in with Marge,” she said. “He’d had a stroke and he never fully recovered from it. It left him in a vegetative state. J.B. paid to keep him in the facility.”

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    “And the old man’s wife?”

    “She died long before I lived with Marge. I don’t know how.”

    He looked odd. “I see.”

    “How do you know all this?” she wondered.

    “Her brother is a friend of mine,” he told her. “He was curious about the old man. I needed a job, and this one at the feedlot came available. I like Texas. It was close enough that I could find out about old man Hammock for him.”

    “Well, now you know,” she said, trying not to let the trauma show in her face.

    He frowned. His hard face went even harder. He stared down into his coffee cup. “I didn’t realize it would have such an impact on you.”

    “J.B. is like an older brother to me,” she told him, lying through her teeth. “But nobody ever told me why he plays the field like he does, why he won’t consider ever getting married. I thought he just liked being a bachelor. I guess he blames himself for what happened, don’t you think?” she added, surprising an odd look on Grange’s face. “Even though it was his father who did the real damage, J.B. surely realized that if he’d never gotten mixed up with the poor woman, she’d still be alive.”

    He winced. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”

    “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” she added thoughtfully.

    “So he doesn’t want to get married,” he said after a minute.

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    She nodded. “He has lots of girlfriends. The new one was a runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant.”

    He didn’t even seem to be listening. He finished his steak and sat back to sip cold coffee.

    Barbara came around with Tellie’s new glass of tea and the coffeepot. She warmed Grange’s in his cup.

    “Thanks,” he said absently.

    She grinned at him. “No problem. You’re new here, aren’t you?”

    “I am,” he confessed. “I work for Justin and Calhoun, at the feedlot.”

    “Lucky you,” she said. “They’re good people.”

    He nodded.

    She glanced at Tellie. “How’s Marge?”

    There was something in the question that made Tellie stare at her. “She’s fine. Why?”

    Barbara grimaced. “It’s nothing, really.”

    “Tell me,” Tellie persisted. It was her day for learning things about people she thought she knew.

    “Well, she had a dizzy spell the last time she ate lunch here. She fell into one of the tables.” She sighed.
    “I wondered if she ever had a checkup. Just to make sure. I never knew Marge to have dizzy spells.”

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

    “Me, either,” Tellie said, frowning. “But I’ll find out,” she promised.

    “Don’t tell her I told you,” Barbara said firmly. “She can light fires when she’s mad, just like J.B.”

    “I’ll ask her gently, I promise,” Tellie said, smiling. “She won’t get mad.”

    “If you do, you’ll eat burned hamburgers forever,” Barbara told her.

    “That’s just mean,” she told the older woman, who grinned and went back to the kitchen.

    “Well, it’s your day for revelations, apparently,” Grange observed.

    “I don’t think I know anybody anymore,” she agreed.

    “Listen, don’t tell Hammock’s sister about any of this,” he said suddenly. “I’m not here to cause trouble.
    I just wanted to find out what became of the old man.” His eyes darkened. “I suppose J.B. knew what his father did?”

    “I have no way of knowing,” she said uneasily.

    He put cream into his hot coffee. He drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry if I shattered any illusions.”

    He had. He’d just put the final nail in the coffin of her dreams. But