In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite) Read Online Free PDF

whole demeanor shifted to predatory attention.
    “Who are you?” she repeated, struggling to keep her voice even.
    “Cole,” he said to her son quietly but firmly, his gaze steady on her. Her son stopped talking at the sound of his name. “Do you know where your mommy keeps the towels?”
    “Uh-huh,” Cole confirmed with a nod.
    “We’re still all wet,” John said. “Why don’t you take the flashlight and go get us each a towel?”
    Nerves on edge, she watched her son do as he was asked. Asked , she repeated silently to herself. Not ordered . The man had used a gentle, patient tone. Calm patience.
    She had reached the end of hers. As Cole headed down the hall, the flashlight beam bobbing in front of him, she asked, “For the last time, who are you?”
    “Wade’s friend,” he said, then added, “JP.”
    The name hit her like a blow to the chest. She wanted to drop to her knees. Or scream. Or hit him.
    Hurt him, that’s what she wanted. She wanted to hurt him, as she and Cole had been hurt. Hurt by his failure. By Wade’s. By hers . Over a year she’d waited, and all but given up hope.
    His face cast in shadow, he asked his own question, “Your turn. Where’s Wade?”
    She stared back at him. “You don’t know?” she whispered, sure her throat was closing. Damn .
    “Know what?”
    “Oh, God. We didn’t…”
    He came toward her, big, powerful. Alive . “Didn’t what?” he asked, one hand on her good arm, his brown eyes unreadable.
    “We didn’t help him.” She drew a breath into oxygen-starved lungs. “He wouldn’t ask me. He asked you, but you didn’t come.”
    He shook his head, a small, quick movement that spoke of his confusion. Or denial. “I don’t understand.”
    She swallowed, aware of nothing but his face looming above her, of his hand holding her upright. She would have fallen without that support. “We’re responsible. You and me. We killed him. Wade’s dead.”

Chapter 3
    That was a lie . It had to be, JP told himself.
    Because if Wade was dead, so was he.
    If Wade’s wife—widow—was telling the truth, it was all over.
    She wasn’t crying, though. She should be, shouldn’t she? Women didn’t just say their husbands were dead without tears. Maybe she didn’t care. Or maybe Wade had ordered her to tell him he was dead, when he really wasn’t.
    JP regarded Wade’s wife. Abby. That was her name. His partner had often mentioned his wife, though rarely by name. She’d usually just been “my wife,” or, after a few beers, “the pretty country girl I married.” A couple of the guys had teased Wade about marrying a much younger woman, but JP never had. He’d admired Wade too much, and a twelve year difference didn’t seem that big a deal to him. Those twelve years meant she was a couple of years older than his own thirty. She’d been away the one time JP had come here with Wade before he built the house. Wade had spent more time showing him the area, the topography of the place he’d chosen to call home, than he had talking about her. But that was Wade, always into details, not people.
    He frowned. “What do you mean he asked for my help? When?”
    Her body tensed with determination, with anger. He barely had time to step aside before she took a swing at him. Not a woman’s punch, but a man’s swing that caught him along his ear and made him flinch.
    Surprised, he grabbed her hand before she completed the arc of a second swing, then realized she was coming at him with her other fist. Determined to stop her, he pinned her arms down by hugging her to his chest. Damn . He was bleeding again. The warm wetness spread down his hip.
    Fury blazed from her eyes as she struggled vainly against his grip. She couldn’t hope to overcome him. But she wanted to hurt him.
    She blamed him for Wade’s death . She couldn’t know the truth and still blame him.
    Then he remembered exactly what she’d said. We killed him .
    What the hell did that mean?
    She fought on in silence,