If Winter Comes Read Online Free PDF Page B

admitted,
“just dull things like street employee strikes, garbage piling up on sidewalks
and into the streets.”
     
    “Why not start a
campaign to get everyone in the city to mail their garbage to relatives out of
state?” she suggested.
     
    “Honey, you start it,
and I’ll personally endorse it,” he promised. “Eat your roll before it gets
cold.”
     
    “Yes, sir,” she replied
politely.
     
    He glared at her. “I’m
not that old.”
     
    She peeked at him over
the rim of her coffee cup. “Now I know why you brought me here.”
     
    He glowered at her.
“Why?”
     
    “Real napkins,” she
explained, “and real cups and saucers. No wasted paper products to fill your
garbage trucks!”
     
    He shook his head. “How
did you wind up in the city, little country mouse?”
     
    “Dad sold the newspaper
and took off on a grand tour of the Orient,” she sighed. “I didn’t want to go
with him, so I caught a plane and came up here to ask one of his former
employees for a job.”
     
    “And got it, I
suppose,” he replied, as he took a bite out of his buttered roll.
     
    “Actually, I didn’t,”
she told him between bites of her own roll. “It was the editor of the Sun, and
he didn’t have an opening. He sent me to the Phoenix-Herald , and I guess
they just felt sorry for me. After I told them about my ten starving children
and the lecherous landlord…”
     
    “Ten children?” he
prompted.
     
    Remembering the tragic
death of his daughter, she felt a strangling embarrassment lodge in her throat,
and a wild flush stole into her cheeks.
     
    “Don’t walk on eggs
with me, Carla,” he said, using her given name for the first time. “There’s
nothing to be embarrassed about.”
     
    She took a sip of her
coffee. “Can you read my mind?” she asked in a small voice.
     
    “Look at me.”
     
    She raised her eyes to
his and felt them captured, held for ransom by a gaze with the power to stop
her heart in mid-beat.
     
    “You have a very
expressive face, little one,” he said gently. “Readable. Vulnerable.”
     
    “I’m as tough as used
boots,” she murmured.
     
    “Don’t bet on it.” He
finished his coffee. “You realize that damned labor meeting’s polished off my
dinner invitation?”
     
    “That’s all right,” she
murmured courteously.
     
    “Is it, really?” he
asked in a deep, slow voice that sent wild shivers down her straight spine.
     
    She met his searching
gaze squarely. “No,” she managed shakily, “it isn’t.”
     
    “Tomorrow?” he asked.
     
    She nodded, and the
rush of excitement that made wild lights dance in her eyes was something she
hadn’t felt since her early teens, her first date.
     
    “I’ll call you, in case
something comes up.” He frowned. “There isn’t a boyfriend?”
     
    Her heart went wild;
her mouth parted, trembling slightly, drawing his intent gaze before it darted
back up to catch the hint of fear in her pale eyes.
     
    “No,” she whispered.
     
    Something relaxed in
his leonine face, and he smiled at her, an action that made his eyes soft and
tender.
     
    “Come on, country
mouse. We’ll talk on the way back, but I’ve got a budget meeting at eleven and
a luncheon at twelve, followed by a visiting oil magnate at two. In other
words,” he said as he rose, “I’ve got to go bridge my credibility gap.”
     
    “Thanks for the
coffee,” she said, moving slowly beside him to the counter.
     
    He glanced down at her.
“Your party piece?” he asked softly. “I’m not trying to wheedle any favorable
copy out of you, little one. But don’t make the mistake of thinking this is
just a moment out of time. This is a beginning, Carla.”
     
    The way he said it, and
the slow, sweet appraisal his eyes made of her emphasized the underlying
comment. She started to speak when she felt his big, warm hand catch hers and
press it warmly. And the music danced within her.
     
     
     
    Four
     
    S he was busily working
on the story