Night Heat Read Online Free PDF Page B

him to dinner. She had done a pretty good job of avoiding him the few times she’d returned home over the past five years.
    â€œAnd just who will this dinner guest be?” she asked, curious as to how many languages Reese would say the words hell no in when he got the invitation from Leah.
    â€œJason called for you a short while ago and happened to mention that Mr. Steele arrived in town today.”
    â€œAnd what of it?” Jocelyn asked, leaning back against a wall she hadn’t started painting yet.
    â€œI think it would be a good idea to invite him to dinner. After all, he was Dad’s friend.”
    â€œBut that doesn’t make him ours,” she snapped, looking down at the hammer she had placed at her feet. She then glanced across the room at Bas. It was a tempting thought but she quickly decided that nothing and no one was worth going to jail.
    â€œBut I want to meet him. Aren’t you curious?”
    Jocelyn rolled her eyes. “I’ve met him and prefer not spending unnecessary time in his company.”
    â€œYou’ve met him?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œEarlier today at Jason’s office.”
    â€œWell, what do you think of him?”
    Jocelyn glanced back across the room. Bas was staring at her and it annoyed her that she felt a quick tightening in her stomach. She wished she could blame it on something like indigestion but knew she couldn’t. “There’s no way I could sum up what I think of him in twenty-five words or less.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you to.”
    Jocelyn couldn’t help but smile. Now this was the Leah she was used to, someone always ready for a fight, and not the mousy person Jocelyn had picked up from the airport a couple of days before the funeral.
    â€œWell, then,” Jocelyn decided to say, “how aboutinfuriating, maddening, annoying, irritating, exasperating, galling—”
    â€œOkay, okay, I get the picture, at least yours. I’d rather take my own snapshot and form my own opinion.”
    â€œFine, then count me out.”
    â€œAren’t you being a little immature?”
    That did it. Taking a slow, steadying breath, Jocelyn walked around the wall into a bathroom whose fixtures had yet to arrive. What she had to say to her sister needed to be said in private.
    Closing the door behind her, she braced herself against the area where the pedestal sink would be and said rather heatedly, “How can you of all people fix your mouth to call anyone immature, Leah? I’m not the one who acted like a spoiled, immature brat by up and leaving home without as much as a goodbye, leaving her family worried for over a week before we finally heard from her.”
    Jocelyn knew now was not the time and place to unload feelings she’d held inside for years, but she’d done it and there was no way she could take back her words. Nor did she want to.
    There was silence on the other end, and then Leah said in a somewhat quiet and unsteady voice, “There was a reason I left the way I did, Jocelyn, and maybe it’s time I tell you why. At least that’s what I’ve been told I should do.”
    Jocelyn felt an uncomfortable feeling in the center of her stomach. “Told by whom?”
    â€œLook, I’ll tell you everything when I’m able to talk about it, okay? Now getting back to Sebastian Steele, be forewarned. I do intend to invite him to dinner before I leave, Jocelyn.”
    â€œLeave? When are you leaving?” That uncomfortable feeling about being deserted by those she cared about was becoming unnerving. She lifted a hand to her chest, feeling a tug at her heart at the thought that she was losing her sister again, so soon after losing her father.
    â€œI don’t know, but I won’t leave without telling you. I promise.”
    Before she could say anything, Jocelyn heard the gentle click in her ear. She took a deep breath. Her palms suddenly felt