Her Galahad Read Online Free PDF Page B

darkness. "You want to compare notes? I was carjacked today by somebody I thought was dead, with a Ripley's story about my family for his excuse! If I'd had time to get you out of the car I wouldn't be here now!"
    He looked at her. "If you didn't believe me you wouldn't be here, and neither would I. You'd have shot me."
    A sudden jab of anguish landed over her heart, robbing her of breath. Was he right? "I'm still thinking about it. I don't shoot people without at least giving them a hearing. I still have the gun … and you have tonight to prove you're telling me the truth."
    He held up a hand. "I get the picture. We're both overwhelmed and stressed now. Can we call a truce and get the flashlight?"
    "Fine." In moments she handed him the torch. "I have aspirin, antiseptic and bandages. I'll bandage your wounds inside."
    "Thanks." He flicked it on, and led the way in.
    When the light came on, Jirrah sighed in relief. "Thank God for that. The last thing I needed was to wrestle with that crazy generator tonight. You hungry?"
    Tessa looked at the house, with its rough walls, unfinished windows and loamy scent of damp earth rising from between the imperfectly laid floorboards, and frowned. Then she noticed a wood carving set on an upturned crate. An enormous kangaroo made of a deep red eucalypt wood, one of a pair. The other stood on a similar platform in a shadowy corner. "These are magnificent—exquisite pieces," she said softly, wondering at the incongruity of their surreal and radiant beauty living within the dark shadows of this sad, neglected shack. "They're so real they look like they're actually in flight."
    He nodded. "I like them. You hungry?" he repeated.
    Looking at him she saw the pain, the total exhaustion, and realized the toll the past few hours had taken on him, driving over unlit roads after a brush with death. "I keep tinned food in my van. I'll heat some up while you rest. You want coffee?"
    "Sounds great." He fell back on an old brown-and-black striped sofa, just about the ugliest she'd ever seen. He closed his eyes—one eye purple and contorted with swelling.
    She left the room, disturbed by the sight of him looking like that. He'd been hurt because he'd come to find her.
    Moments later, she touched his shoulder. "Here." She handed him two tablets and a glass of water.
    "Thanks." He downed the tablets, and closed his eyes again, got the food heating in the gorgeous but impractical Kookaburra wood-fire oven. Soot striped her face and top from trying to light it. By the time she'd cleaned herself up the coffee was cool in the Bodum plunger—so he was still a fresh-coffee addict—and she had to make it fresh. "Where the hell's a microwave when you need one?" she muttered, dumping the coffee grinds out the window, since there was no drain in the kitchen.
    Why did Jirrah live in a hovel like this? If she could just have a week here, he wouldn't have to. It would be a home—
    Don't think like that. Don't go there. That's in the past.
    She returned to the living room with her first-aid kit.
    A small open fire blazed behind a grate in the corner. Jirrah lay sprawled on the long, ugly sofa in a deep sleep, looking so much like her David she ached with it.
    He's Jirrah. David's gone. This man is no more the boy I loved than I am the girl he married.
    Fighting a second wave of grief over him, she put the water and bandages on the crate before the sofa and tended to the cuts on his arms and chest through the gaping tear in his T-shirt.
    The first time she'd touched a man's body in over two years, and she didn't want to now; but Jirrah had risked his life to help save hers today. She owed him, big time.
    It seemed she owed him even more if he was telling her the truth about Duncan and Cameron's setup.
    He's alive, and I have a death certificate Duncan gave me. Isn't that enough?
    She continued cleaning the wound with warm water, frowning.
    Jirrah started half-awake when her fingers connected with his chest. "Tess," he