Jed's Sweet Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

She made him feel cruel, and he wasn’t.
    “This is my house,” he said slowly. “And I’ll stay if I want to.” He paused, his chin jutting forward. “You got that … Thena?”
    She exploded into action. In two quick steps she reached her dining table and grabbed a ripe peach from a stoneware bowl there. Jed didn’t even have time to duck. She hurled the peach with a force that amazed him. It bounced off his ribs with a painful thud and left a soggy stain on his plaid shirt.
    “Get out,” she repeated, and reached for another peach. With typical calm Jed looked down at his aching side, then back up at her.
    “That’s real good,” he said dryly. “But since I never heard of a man bein’ killed by a peach, I’m sure not a helluva lot scared.”
    “You will be.” The second peach flew across the room and smacked him in the jaw. Jed grunted with surprise and pain, but held his ground. He gingerly touched his jaw and couldn’t argue with the possibility that peaches might be fatal.
    “Now there’s no need for gettin’ rowdy,” he murmured soothingly. “Let’s talk.” Thena paused, off guard. He charged her.
    “Cheat!” she screamed.
    Thena grabbed two more peaches and ran to the far side of the large table. Jed flung himself across it, scattering shells and knocking the bowl containing the rest of the fruit to the floor.
    Thena screamed again as his hands grabbed for her skirt. Pelting him in the head with another peach, she leapt away. Her hand shook badly around theremaining peach it held. Heaven alone knew what this forceful man would do if he ever caught her. Trouble, trouble.
    “Stay away from me!” she cried.
    “I’ve had all I’m gonna take from you. I want an apology.”
    She uttered something in French that Jed figured was distinctly not an apology. Deadly silent, his face white with pain and anger, he rolled off the far side of the table and charged toward her again. The bottom of his left boot made contact with a slick chunk of peach on the wood floor, and his left leg decided to take a different direction from the rest of him.
    Thena gasped as he tumbled energetically backward and whacked the side of his head on the rim of the kitchen’s yellow Formica countertop. His eyes closed in obvious response to the sharp torture, but he made no sound. He simply slid to the floor in a sitting position, his back against the kitchen cabinets, one denimed knee drawn up. He slowly flattened a hand over the rising lump on his head, and the skin around his mouth lost some of its ruddy color.
    “I want to die with my boots on,” he mumbled, his eyes still squinted shut. “Just go ahead and beat me to death. Get an ear of corn. That ought to do the trick.”
    “Dear God,” Thena said slowly. How could he joke when he’d nearly brained himself? Somewhere deep inside her, grudging admiration flared along with the fear that he might be seriously hurt. She dropped her last peach and hurried to the kitchen sink, where she soaked a dishcloth in cool water.
    “Sit still,” she ordered. Thena knelt beside him and tentatively reached out with the cloth. His eyes opened, their gaze directly on her. He spoke somberly.
    “I’d rather be beat to death than smothered, ma’am.”
    He had a way about him that was funny and outrageous,and she was too overcharged to react in a reasonable way. Thena couldn’t contain a little smile at his humor.
    “You’re safe for the moment.”
    She quit smiling and pressed the cloth to the top of his head. He lowered his hand as Thena squeezed the soggy material. She watched the brown of his hair darken to chocolate as the water soaked it.
    “Maybe that will help. Are you bleeding?”
    Jed continued to study her as he ran his fingers under his wet hair. He pulled them away and she glanced over. He had absolutely battered hands, covered in scars and calluses, and the little finger on this particular hand was a tiny bit crooked, as if it’d been broken and hadn’t