My Dearest Cal Read Online Free PDF Page A

cooperative. “I’m not saying I believe you, but I’m willing to look into it. Leave the letter with me and I’ll check it out.”
    The expression she directed at him was very wary. “Check it out how?”
    Her persistence almost cost him the tight rein on his temper. “I’ll have to think about it. Maybe I’ll hire a private investigator. Yes,” he said, warming up to the notion. She ought to buy that. “I’ll hire a detective.”
    She was shaking her head. “That’s a waste of perfectly good money. I can find her for you in no time and I won’t charge you a penny.”
    “Really,” he protested desperately. “That’s not necessary. I can afford it and I really can’t take up any more of your time.”
    Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “You’re just trying to get rid of me, aren’t you? You figure I’ll give you the letter and walk out and you’ll tear it up the minute my back is turned.”
    “Lady, if you’re so dead-set sure that the letter is mine, then what I do with it is none of your business.”
    She frowned at him, her expression thoughtful. “I suppose you’re right.”
    “Of course I am. You’ve done all you can do. You can go now and your conscience will be perfectly clear.”
    She nodded slowly and his mood brightened considerably. Then she turned one of those penetrating looks on him, a look that seemed to see straight into his lying heart. “Nope. I can’t do that,” she said, sounding downright sorrowful. “I feel responsible.”
    Cal lost his last thread of restraint. “Dammit, you are not responsible!”
    “I can’t help how I feel.”
    “Feel any way you want to, just do it someplace else.”
    “Let me just make a few calls for you, get the search started.”
    “No!”
    “It’ll relieve my mind.”
    “No!”
    She nodded, her expression triumphant. “I knew you weren’t really going to follow through.”
    Cal threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “That’s it. I give up.”
    He was no more than half a dozen feet from the porch, when Chaney stopped him. “What should I do about her?” he asked, gazing pointedly toward Marilou.
    “Ignore her,” Cal said finally, stalking off into the rain. “I’m going back to Lady Mary.”
    As an interim plan, it would have to do, but he had no doubt it wouldn’t be the end of Miss Marilou Stockton. Oh, she looked like a frail little thing with her sunburned nose and too-big T-shirt. In fact, for an instant there he’d been drawn to her innocence and naiveté. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a woman who looked as if she needed protecting. Fortunately he’d learned long ago that those kind of women were the most dangerous of all. They usually had a streak of muleheadedness that drove a man nuts. So far, Marilou was running true to form. She’d be waiting wheneverhe decided to come back. He had no doubts about that.
    “I’m going to strangle Joshua the next time I see him,” he muttered. The accountant had to be behind this visit. No one else could have pointed the way from his last address to this place. Joshua was probably sitting in that fancy office of his chortling with glee this very minute. He no doubt considered it just revenge for Cal’s failure to heed his advice.
    Hell, for all he knew Joshua had made up the damned letter in the first place. He’d been making less than subtle noises about it being time for a family reunion for months now, preaching a lot of psychological hogwash about facing the past. The more Cal thought about it, the more sense it made. Joshua was definitely behind this visit.
    Disgusted at the abrupt end to his new-found peace and quiet and unable to think of a single tactic to rid himself permanently of his unwanted visitor, Cal ignored the downpour and headed for the barn. He might not know much about horses, but he figured he had a better shot at understanding them than he ever would figuring out women or friends who meddled in things that were none of their business.
    He’d left