Seeking Shelter Read Online Free PDF Page B

counted out his change, then extended her hand to give it to him.
    He smiled back and reached out to take it. Her heart did a funny little flip as she looked at his wide palm.
    Back in junior high, she and her best friend, Caryn, had bought a book on palm reading. They’d pored over all the meanings of the lines in a person’s hand. Looking at this man’s hand, with its calluses and lines, she wished she remembered some of that information. He intrigued her. She didn’t usually care about strangers, especially not men. But this man had been places outside this town. And he was heading someplace else once he left here. She wondered where.
    She shook her head to dispel her thoughts, and nearly dropped the coins.
    To keep the money from falling, he curled his hand around hers.
    Heat that had nothing to do with their location in the middle of the Arizona desert shot up her arm. Surprised, she looked up, then tried to hide her uncertainty. “Your change.” She pulled back her hand, and he let her go, though the feel of him lingered. She moved to the butcher block as he headed to the door.
    He stopped, holding the screen door open, and faced her. “So, is there somewhere I can get a room for the night?”
    Startled, she actually dropped the meat cleaver, but thankfully, managed to miss her foot. The unmistakable clatter echoed through the store. Why in the world would he want to do that?
    “You want to stay here?” She turned and looked at him. There was something about him that rubbed her the wrong way, a way that made her itch all over. She hadn’t felt that way since...since... She shut that thought down nearly as fast as it appeared. It must be that conversation with Katie yesterday that had stirred up all this...awareness.
    “Why wouldn’t I?” He frowned at her.
    “No one stays here.”
    “I’m going to. You friends with the sheriff?”
    “What?” She’d seen Gavin talking with him and Rick. What had that idiot said now?
    “Oh, nothing.” The man shook his head and smiled as he popped one of the sodas he’d bought and took a deep drink.
    Amy could only stare at the muscles of his throat as they worked. “Damn,” she mumbled. Without another word, she walked past him, pushed the screen door open wider and tilted her head toward the old Victorian house across the square. “Hank runs the B and B. Over there. He can always use the business.”
    The house had seen better days, but Hank was slowly fixing it up. The stranger moved close—close enough for her to feel the warmth of his body. He stared past her toward the house, then stepped outside. An eyebrow lifted, but that was his only reaction.
    “Thanks. I’m Jace.”
    His hands were full, but she thought he’d have offered his hand to her if they hadn’t been. He waited expectantly, apparently for her to offer her own name. She swallowed hard. “I’m...Amy.”
    “Amy?”
    He said her name softly, and despite the heat, she shivered. His eyes moved, as if his gaze were drinking in every detail of her face.
    “Amy,” he repeated. “Uh, nice to meet you.” He took a deep breath, and it seemed as if he shook his head slightly. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear something had just startled him.
    “Mama!” A high-pitched voice cut through the thick air between them, and Amy backed a step away. Then two.
    Katie came barreling down the sidewalk toward them and Jace turned to look at her.
    There are few things that set a mother off more than a threat to her child. Though the man now standing on the sidewalk was smiling down at Katie, Amy couldn’t let go of the fear that rippled through her. She was the one person Katie always turned to, the one who was there whenever she needed something. The one whose job it was to protect her.
    Right now, that little girl was looking up at a tall stranger with great interest. Amy barely held herself back.
    “Hi.” Katie walked right up to Jace, craning her neck to look at him.
    “Well, hello,” he