Sanctuary Island Read Online Free PDF

through her obsession with getting to know Jo Ellen.”
    Grady frowned. “So it’s all about Merry. Right.”
    As if she hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm dripping off his words, Ella shrugged. “Hey, believe me, I tried to talk her out of this trip. But Merry is a force of nature when she has her heart set on something.”
    Grady couldn’t fight the tug of curiosity. It was his besetting sin. “What about you? What’s your heart set on?”
    He didn’t know what answer he thought he’d get—if she were really a gold digger intent on hooking her claws into her mother’s recent inheritance, she’d hardly be likely to admit it straight-out.
    Ella stared up at him, an unreadable expression on her pretty face. “All I want is to get Merry through the next few days and be there for her when she realizes the fantasy of a mother that she’s dreamed up in her head is nothing close to the reality. And then I want to get us both back to D.C.”
    That, at least, sounded like the truth.
    An unwelcome spark of respect kindled in Grady’s chest. He knew all about protective urges and how deep they ran, and he couldn’t fault Ella for wanting to take care of her very pregnant younger sister.
    In return for her honesty, and in recognition of the fact that he clearly wasn’t going to have much luck running them off before they ever got to Jo’s, he pointed at the road where her car was pulled over.
    “You missed the turnoff for Jo’s place about a mile back,” he said, instinctively rebalancing his weight as Voyager danced under him. “Her land is the last acreage inhabited by humans on the east side of the island. Once you get out this far, it’s all dedicated as a nature preserve and wild horse sanctuary. We try to keep nonislanders—and their cars—out of here, to ensure the safety of the horses and their habitat.”
    She arched a brow. “You sound like a public service announcement. Do you get paid to patrol the marsh for trespassers? Are you authorized to shoot on sight?”
    “Obviously not, since you’re still here.”
    “Right,” Ella said. “I never did catch your name, Mr.…”
    She trailed off expectantly, those blue eyes wide and intent on his face. Grady had the unfamiliar urge to mess with her—he’d been known around the task force for being a prankster, but he’d always kept his sense of humor to the guys, or his cousins. People he knew well, who knew how to take a joke.
    Not prickly, put-together women he’d known for all of thirty seconds.
    Shaking it off like a dog emerging from a lake, he offered her his gloved hand and said, “Wilkes. Grady Wilkes.”
    She hesitated before stepping closer, and he wondered if she was nervous about the horse or about taking his hand. Whatever it was, it didn’t stop her from reaching out.
    “Ella Preston,” she said, and the moment their fingers touched, Grady had to clamp down on a shudder of sensation.
    Even through the thin, supple leather of the work gloves covering his scarred hands, Grady felt electricity arc between them in a flash of heat and awareness. Her eyes widened with it, and she stumbled back a pace.
    Sudden panic had him curling his stiff fingers into as tight a fist as he could manage, keeping his leather glove from peeling away from his hand with her jerky movement.
    Ella blinked at him, the moment spinning out between them as fine as spider silk strung between two pine trees as Grady’s heart banged against his rib cage.
    “Ella! Are you coming? We need to go, because I didn’t. Go, I mean. And it’s starting to get dire up here.”
    Without another word to Grady, Ella whirled and hustled around her car, calling out, “I’m coming, and I’ve got directions.”
    Grady watched her walk away, unwillingly fascinated by the sleek, sexy movement of her rear end in those conservative khaki pants.
    There was a time, he remembered, when even this loose fist would’ve been more movement than his hands could deal with. When he’d thought