Passion's Mistral Read Online Free PDF

before. Her wild cries, her struggles, had not moved the government officials
    who had come to take her child away. Her last sight of the son she had named Patrick was his little
    face—scrunched up in a horrific howl—as the social worker buckled him in the car seat. She would
    never forget his little outstretched arms, his tiny fists beating against the glass as he was driven out of her
    life.
    Prison had been only a minor circle of hell for Fay O’Reilly. Her true punishment had been the absence
    of her little boy and the torture of not knowing if he was alive or dead, of wondering if he was being
    cared for and loved, if he was being abused. The most terrible day of her life had been the day she
    learned her precious child had been adopted by some nameless family and would never know her as the
    woman who had given him birth and who loved him still more than life itself.
    “It’s the best thing for him,” the social worker sniffed, “and I’m sure you want the best for the boy.”
    As the years passed, her son’s memory remained bright and clear in her mind and the determination to
    find him once she had served her time never wavered. She wrote him everyday even though she knew
    her letters would never be forwarded to the family who had adopted him. In those letters she poured out
    her soul, explained how and why she had wound up in the nightmarish prison that kept her from him,
    begged his forgiveness for what she had been forced to do.
    On the day she was allowed to go free, she had stood outside the prison gates in the pouring rain, her
    face to the heavens, tears mingling with the raindrops and vowed that no matter what it took nor how
    long, she would find her son, now a grown man.
    Trudging down the interstate highway, cheap suitcase containing all her worldly possessions clutched in
    her cold hand, she had passed the sign warning motorists not to pick up hitchhikers. Resolved to walk all
    the way to the next town, she had been surprised when the expensive white Lincoln town car’s brake
    lights came on and it pulled off the slab just ahead of her. Cautiously approaching the idling car, she had
    flinched as the front passenger door swung open as she drew near.
    He was leaning down in the seat so he could see her beneath the barrier of the door opening. “Hop in,”
    he said. “You’ll catch your death of cold out there!”
    There was something very warm and non-threatening in his open face. He was smiling at her in a way no
    man had in a long, long time.
    “Can’t you read, Mister?” she had asked, nudging her chin toward the sign warning motorists not to pick
    up hitchhikers.
    “Yes, I can,” he replied. “And I can do math, too. Been able to since I was knee high to a possum’s
    belly.”
    Watching his infectious grin widen, she had thrown any reservations she might have had to the blowing
    rain and had accepted the ride, never once regretting her decision.
    “Where you headed?” he inquired as he pulled the car onto the interstate.
    “You can drop me wherever is convenient for you. I got nowhere to go and no time to get there.”
    “Done your time and don’t have to worry about a parole officer, huh?” he asked.
    Fay O’Reilly had stared at the middle-aged man behind the wheel. “How’d you know I—”
    “The Correctional Institute for Women is back there,” the man interrupted, jerking his thumb over his
    shoulder. “I imagine that’s where you were.”
    “Do you make it a habit to pick up ex-cons?” she snapped.
    “Only ones who look like cute little wet puppies,” he responded, glancing over at her. “You give new
    meaning to having a bad hair day, little lady.”
    Fay turned her attention to the front of the car, staring out the windshield at the rain lashing against the
    glass. Eastward, lightning flared in the sky. As grateful as she was to be inside the warm car, she was
    suspicious of her companion.
    “My name is Bradford Lynden,” the driver said. “I live in