San Antonio Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

obviously been haunting the entry hall, waiting for her. Now his brown eyes seemed unusually bright as they skimmed from her bare head and unbound hair to her flushed face. “Rustypromised to take him riding as soon as he’s finished eating.”
    Jeannie fingered the brim of the hat she still held and self-consciously wet her lips. She tasted Rafe’s kiss on them and experienced the ridiculous but not unfounded fear that it might be visible. Belatedly remembering her manners, she introduced the men who stood on either side of her.
    “Dr. Webb Bishop,” she said briskly, “I’d like you to meet Rafe Martinez.”
    Rafe extended his hand. “Dr. Bishop.”
    “Mr. Martinez.” Webb sounded as if the words had been forced from his throat.
    The two men shook hands, sizing each other up as potential rivals for Jeannie’s affection. Rafe was taller and darker than Webb, but they were both professionals, both successful in their chosen fields of endeavor. The tension built and the low buzz of background conversations seemed as loud as the roar of a blue norther while they quietly assessed each other’s chances.
    Standing between them, seeing the tanned hand that had once known her intimately clasping the fairer one that knew her in only the most superficial manner, she suddenly felt like the rope in a tug-of-war.
    “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, removing herself from the highly charged situation as gracefully as she could, “I’m going to check onTony and freshen up before I see to my guests.”
    Rafe and Webb dropped their hands and all pretense of propriety, turning of one accord to study her ashen face.
    “I’ll catch up with you later,” Rafe said, the rumbling tautness in his voice making it sound like a threat.
    “Fine,” she agreed, unable to bring herself to meet Webb’s silently appealing expression. Taking the coward’s way out, she headed for the safety of the kitchen and the reassuring sight of her son … of Rafe’s son.
    The country kitchen, spanning the rear of the house, was papered in a small floral of blues and greens and creams. Six-inch pine flooring shone spotlessly. A trestle table surrounded by comfortable arrowback chairs invited people to sit and share a meal. Tea tins lining the soffits over the oak cupboards lent charm, and a bread-making board under one of the windows meant business.
    Tony had already changed out of his dark suit and good shoes into play clothes, boots, and the neon-blue baseball cap he would have worn around the clock if Jeannie would have let him. He was happily ensconced at the head of the table, a plate with a half-eaten taco and a glass of milk sitting before him.
    “Hi, Mom,” he said around a mouthful of taco.
    “Hi, honey.” She put her arm around his shoulder and planted a kiss on his freshlyscrubbed cheek, relishing the spring of his flesh and the familiar bump and blade of bone.
    By nature Big Tom had been all rough edges and emotional reserve. In contrast Laurrinda had been all parties and perfume and pitiable need. The social butterfly whose wings had been clipped by cancer. And by the time Jeannie was born, it had essentially been over between them.
    To this day she didn’t really understand what had drawn her parents together in the first place. If she’d had to guess, she would have said it was a classic case of opposites attracting. But somewhere along the line the magnetism, not to mention the marriage, had lost its pull.
    It was their remoteness, though, that was responsible for Jeannie having made a daily habit of hugging her son and saying to him the words she’d seldom heard when she was growing up … the words she whispered now into his clean-smelling hair. “I love you.”
    Tony swallowed and said, “I love you too.”
    Knowing he wouldn’t sit still for much more of this “mush”—his word, not hers—she let him go and turned to look at the woman who’d taken Maria Martinez’s place as cook and housekeeper. “How’s it