Love, Like Water Read Online Free PDF Page A

enchilada?”
    “Maybe he ate on the plane,” Eli said, but even he knew that was hedging, and deserved the scornful look she gave him.
    “He did not, nor on the bus, nor in your car. He looks as though he hasn’t eaten for days . Tucker will not be happy when he gets home tomorrow morning.”
    “Well, I ain’t terribly happy right now,” Eli said. “I agree with you, sweetheart. There’s something seriously wrong with that boy.”

Chapter 3

    T HE meeting had been a good five-hour drive from home, and normally Tucker would have stayed over at the hotel afterward. But when the group of his friends had finished dinner and drinks at the local cattlemen’s club, it was two in the morning, he was wide awake, and the text message from Elian Kelly— Josh here. Sarafina worried @ him —had made him anxious enough that he bade his friends good-bye, got into his truck, and headed back down the road toward home.
    He knew some of what his nephew had gone through—at least as much as Hannah knew, which wasn’t a terrible lot. He’d listened to her cry with worry during the last couple of years of Josh’s assignment, when she couldn’t get in touch with her son, and again a few months ago when he’d come back, and Hannah had found him so terribly changed. Drugs were involved, which worried Tucker, but Hannah had insisted that it wasn’t Josh’s fault, that he’d been forced into it by circumstances, and that he was doing his best to break away from it. That had been part of the reason Hannah had wanted him to take Josh, to get him away from the drugs. The other part was that apparently Josh was still in danger from some of the people he’d put away—or their compatriots—though Hannah had assured him she and Cathy and the kids were perfectly safe. They and the ranch weren’t even on the bad guys’ radar, which was some comfort.
    But Hannah had said that Josh had gone through some kind of chemical detox and that he was on the mend. It was just the psychological effects of the addiction that he needed to deal with, and the ranch would be just the place to do that. He could learn a new job and build a new life, far away from the stresses of the city, and hopefully put everything else firmly in the past.
    So Tuck had been expecting someone who was ready to make a change in his life, but Eli’s text— Sarafina worried @ him —made him think twice. Sarafina was a wise woman.
    The sun was just coming up as he drove into the ranch yard and parked the Silverado beside the house. Inside, Sarafina was already at work, kneading dough for the hands’ breakfast. She looked up at him as he entered, her face surprised. “Home already?”
    “Didn’t stay over,” he said. “I’ll catch a nap this afternoon. How is everything?”
    “Normal. Elian is in charge, so of course everything is normal.”
    “I mean about Josh.”
    She didn’t answer right away, but kept kneading the dough. Finally, she stopped, set the ball in a bowl and covered it with a dishcloth, then said, “He has very bad dreams.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes. They wake him. They wake me , and I’m upstairs. When I come down, he is awake and tells me he’s fine. But he is not fine, Tucker. He is very not fine.”
    “Is he still asleep?”
    She shrugged. “He’s still in his room. He ate one enchilada last night, Tucker. One .”
    He said seriously, “Then he is sick, Sarafina.” It was true. Sarafina’s enchiladas were nectar of the gods. Anyone who could turn them down—or worse yet, eat only one —was sickening for something.
    “I told you that.” She put the bowl in the oven, then went to the big refrigerator. “You go see him, Tuck.”
    Calling him “Tuck” meant she was dead serious. He nodded, and went down the hall to the bedroom he’d chosen for Josh.
    When he opened the door, he almost backed out and went to ask Sara who the hell was in his house, because that couldn’t be Josh. Josh was only twenty-seven or twenty-eight. The photo