Jodi Thomas Read Online Free PDF Page A

frowned at her dreams.
    Texas was as wild as she knew her heart to be, but right now that heart was bound in black. She wished she could go back to when she was eighteen and believed in love, but she’d realized months ago that the only passion she’d ever know would be for her work. She wouldn’t be a man’s possession, like most wives were, and no man she’d ever met, besides Barret, had treated her as an equal.
    If she wanted to be independent, she’d live her life alone. She was a fine doctor, and that would have to be enough.
    The tiny gold band on her left hand flickered in the light. Barret had been her teacher in both years of medical school. He’d been one of the few who hadn’t laughed at her desire to practice medicine. After the bad luck she’d had with men in her teens, she’d decided to accept his offer of marriage, even though he was fifteen years older than she. Barret was a brilliant man, the best doctor she’d ever seen, but his body had never been strong. He’d told her once that no one expected him to live beyond five or six. When he did, they pampered and protected him. The weak heart inside a frail body housed a determined mind. She’d admired him from the day they’d met.
    A single tear slid down her face. She’d known from the beginning that there would be nothing romantic between them. He’d kissed her hands the night they’d married and promised not his love but that he’d make her a great doctor. It seemed he knew his time was running out, and he wanted to pass on as much knowledge as he could.
    “Knowledge in medicine is expanding like an exploding star,” he’d told her. “And you, Sage, will be part of that new age.” He hadn’t added that he planned to be at her side. They both knew he would not.
    Sage shoved the tear aside, wishing she’d only wanted what he offered, but she’d wanted more. A week after they married, she found him asleep in a bed in the hospital storage room. She crawled in beside him and wrapped her arms around him. All she’d wanted to do was sleep next to her husband. That surely hadn’t been too much to ask.
    But Barret had gently pushed her hands away and moved off the bed. “Sleep now,” he’d whispered. “I need to make rounds.” She heard the familiar coughs rack his body as he moved away.
    She thought he would come back when he finished, but he hadn’t. To her knowledge he never slept in the storage room bed again. He never slept with her. He was the kindest man she’d ever known, but he couldn’t bring himself to love her. The legacy of his talent was all he had to give her.
    When he finally gave up the role of doctor and became a patient, she’d asked him why he’d married her, and he had whispered simply that he was so sorry, but he didn’t want to die alone. She understood then and stayed beside his bed until the end. He’d made her a doctor, and she’d made sure he wasn’t by himself when death knocked, but she’d never truly been his wife.
    A widow without being a wife is doubly lost.
    The sun slipped behind a cloud as though the day outside her window was reflecting her mood. Sage straightened her spine. Melancholy was not a cloak that fit her shoulders. She would not wear it well or long.
    A knock rattled the thin door, making Sage jump. Bonnie wouldn’t have knocked on the door to their suite, and anyone else would not be happy to find a dog in the best room of the hotel.
    Sage wrapped the mutt in the sheet and carefully carried him into the second of the two bedrooms, not wanting the two animals in sight of one another. All she’d seen the black cat do was sleep, but it would be her luck that Bullet would decide to wake, just to pester the dog while he was feeling bad.
    The dog didn’t move when she laid him in the sun by the window. “Stay,” she whispered as another knock sounded. “Please, stay.”
    The animal put his head on his paw and closed his eyes as if content to do as she asked.
    Rushing through the