Lies of the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

comes chasing after you.”
    The spiral curls, caught up in a ponytail at the crown of her head, bounced as she nodded in the direction of his darkened house. A shiver racked her body and she hugged herself.
    “Can’t do that, sunshine.” He grinned as she scowled. Yanking his shirt over his head, he shook free of it. He tugged down his T-shirt with one hand while handing Tessa his gray shirt with the other. When she stared at it blankly, he put it on her, assisting her with the armholes, and then carefully smoothing it over her. All the while she easily complied as if in a trance. “You’ve got something I want.”
    “Me?” Her usually soft voice cracked.
    “Yes, you.”
    “If this has anything to do with earlier tonight, then just forget it.”
    Something wrenched inside him. He shrugged awkwardly, saying, “I know I’m no prize, but there’s got to be something I have that you want. We could trade.”
    She went perfectly still, now clutching the towel in a white-knuckled grip. He swore she stopped breathing altogether. In the dim light from the moon, he thought she lost all her color.
    Shaking her head, she said, “Granny would never…no, I can’t. She’d never go along with it.”
    With a sneer, he asked, “Why, does she want the pub so much?” It still rankled that his granddad would blackmail him with the fact he’d give everything to old lady Warfield if Chance didn’t go along with the terms of the will. That alone should have made his decision a foregone conclusion.
    “You know she hates drink of any kind. Calls it the devil’s brew.”
    It may have been something he saw flash in her eyes, censor perhaps, that clued him into how she’d taken the news of his being a recovering alcoholic. A part of him shriveled up. “I’m no saint. Never have been.”
    “I didn’t—”
    “You didn’t have to say a damn word.”
    She visibly cringed. “It’s just that granny says…well, that it’s immoral,” she trailed off.
    “In other words, I’m immoral.” Her silence spoke volumes. Through the ache in his chest, he trudged onward. “Six months, that’s all I’m asking for. You give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want.”
    “A baby,” she blurted out, and then slapped a hand over her mouth.
    That stopped him cold. Shock raced through him. He figured she’d say anything but what she had. “A baby?”
    Slowly, she dropped her hand. “Yep, that’s what I want. Always have.” The hint of longing in her voice pierced his heart.
    Something stirred deep down inside him. A wistfulness tugged at him. One time, long ago, he’d dreamed of having a child. But that had been before, before he’d lost his wife, before he became a drunk. He had little to nothing to offer a wife and even less to a baby. It was one thing to help troubled teens and yet entirely another to create a perfectly innocent baby, thrusting him into inheriting a wretched past filled with demons lapping at his heels.
    “Tessa, who’s out there?” The older woman’s voice grew closer. Chance heard her shuffling along the floor coming their way.
    Panic crossed Tessa’s face. “Yes or no? Tell me now before she comes out here.”
    He gulped hard. “I…”
    “Hurry up. What I tell her when she finds us all depends on how you answer me now.”
    Just then the door swung open and Chance got his first glimpse of the elderly woman who hated him since the day he was born. She looked the same: silver hair in a bun, lips pinched up in blatant disapproval, glaring dark eyes, short and thin, almost wiry frame. “What in blue blazes are you doing here? And at this hour?”
    A cocky grin at besting this old enemy broke across his face. He winked down at Tessa, mouthed the word yes, and then turned back to the older woman. “Why, Mrs. Warfield, I’m here to ask for your granddaughter’s hand in marriage.”

 
     
     

Chapter 5
     
     
    The high-pitched shriek from her granny rang in Tessa’s head. Chance’s hearty