Kit Gardner Read Online Free PDF Page B

suspicion. Because you have to prove everything you tell me. “I don’t know,” he said slowly.
    “Listen to Mama, Christian.”
    “Is he going to stay and fix our barn?”
    Jessica glanced sharply at Christian, then shook her head. “Reverend Halsey is going to fix our barn...and the house...as soon as he finds the time. He’s very busy at the church.”
    “No, he’s not. He doesn’t like the barn or our house. He told me, Mama. He told me I was gonna live in his house soon. He told me that, Mama.”
    “That must have been before he talked to Mama.”
    Christian’s blond brows quivered as he stared down at Stark. “He’s big, Mama. He could fix our barn good.”
    A shiver took up residence in Jessica’s belly when her eyes skittered over the muscled plains of chest. “We’ll see.” She sat back on her heels and surveyed the clean wound. “I have to get bandages.” She pointed her index finger at her son. “Stay here. And don’t touch him.”
    Christian gave her a look that bordered on patronizing. How like his father he looked at times like that. “I can touch him. He doesn’t bite, Mama. And I want him to stay.” His tiny voice crept after her as she ventured into the kitchen in search of bandages. “Did you see how he killed that snake, Mama? Did you see? I want him to stay. Can he, Mama? Can he? He could sleep in the barn and teach me how to throw a knife.”
    Jessica shuddered and slammed the cupboard doors.
    “Couldn’t he, Mama? Say yes, Mama.”
    “We’ll see.” She entered the bedroom with bandages in hand. Yet, try as she might, there was no denying the peculiar thrill that shot through her at the thought...of a repaired barn, of course. Avram wouldn’t get to it by September, if then—if he ever would, stubborn man. And the house, yes, the house required so much. After all, the further it sank into disrepair, the more fervently Avram would insist she rid herself of it. Perhaps if these bedroom walls were sporting a fresh coat of white paint to rival that of Sadie McGlue’s, if the barn weren’t threatening to collapse at any moment, if she could prove her strawberry patch a worthwhile endeavor...perhaps then Avram would cease this nonsense about selling the farm.
    Her eyes drifted over the undeniable bulge of Stark’s biceps, the sinewed length of forearm, those large, capable hands and long, long legs. Even with a shoulder wound, he looked quite able, even more so than a sulking Avram on a good day. And he was awfully tall, tall enough, it seemed, to accomplish just about anything.
    “We’ll see” was all she said.

Chapter Two
    I nch by inch, Rance pulled himself from the sucking depths of a fathomless pit. The light drew him, and something more, a touch upon his brow, soft as thistledown, upon his lips, something cool, and then another touch...something tapping upon his closed eyelids, first one, tap-tap-tap, then the other.
    “Wake up.”
    A voice, bereft of all softness, all compassion, all the warmth his jaded ear sought, loomed out of the pervasive gloom. The voice brimmed with impatience, and the tapping upon his eyelids hovered near an agitated poke.
    “Wake up, wake up.”
    A growl blossomed in Rance’s chest, struggled up his parched throat and spilled from his lips. The tapping on his eyelids stopped. Only then did the heat in Rance’s left shoulder swell, then focus into one searing throb of pain.
    He’d been shot. He knew this from both instinct and experience, even while all else hovered just beyond his grasp. If only the fog would part. If only he could move. Who the hell had shot him?
    The poking resumed upon his eyelids.
    “Wake up, wake up.”
    A child’s voice.
    Rance forced open one eye. Sunlight blinded him and stoked yet another ache, this one dull, at the back of his head. He squeezed his eyes closed and rolled the lump on the back of his head over whatever it was he lay on. Something soft, as if placed there for his comfort. Who the hell would do