Slow Heat in Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    She put that figure to full advantage, too. It wasn't so much her body that made her wholly woman, but what she did with it. The graceful way she moved. The feminine gestures she unconsciously made with those slender, ring- less hands. The long legs and narrow feet. The expressive movements of her light brown eyes. And all that sweet, honey blond hair.
    She was woman through and through. Cash wondered if she knew that. It was doubtful she did. But he sure as hell did.
    Irritated with himself for dwelling on her, he stepped into the pirogue that he'd left on the bank of the bayou. He picked up the long pole and used it to push off. As silent as his guerrilla progress through the nighttime jungle, the canoe cut as cleanly as a blade through the still, murky waters of Laurent Bayou.
    Since he was several years older than Schyler—he wasn't sure just how many because Monique hadn't been a stickler for dates and was never sure exactly what his birthday was—Cash had watched her grow up from a pretty little girl with flaxen braids into the woman she now was.
    As a child, being driven around by proud papa Cotton in his newest Cadillac convertible, she had always worn hair ribbons that matched her lace-trimmed dresses. Always so prim. While Cotton looked on proudly, she had entertained his friends with her precociousness.
    But she hadn't been like that all the time. Every now and then the little doll had stepped out of her bandbox. From his hiding places in the woods, Cash had often seen her riding Cotton's horses barebacked and barefooted, hair flying, face flushed and sweaty.
    He wondered if she still rode horseback. And if she did, did she ride hell-bent for leather like she used to when nobody but him was looking?
    That image of her made his sex stretch and grow hard against his zipper. He wiped the sweat that beaded his forehead on his sleeve and cursed the vicious heat. Ordinarily he wouldn't have even noticed it.
    But Schyler Crandall had come home. Nothing was ordinary.
     
    Schyler noticed how stifling the heat was as she left the car and made the short walk to the air-conditioned lobby of the two-story hospital. By the time she stepped through the automatic doors, her clothes were sticking to her. Maybe she should have showered and changed before coming to the hospital.
    As she waited for the elevator, she surreptitiously checked herself in the mirrored wall and decided that she looked far from outstanding, but okay. There was a grass stain on the hem of her full cotton skirt and her sleeveless blouse was wrinkled, but in this part of the country everybody wore cotton in the summertime. Everybody looked wilted by late afternoon. It was a given that the heat and humidity would inflict their damages, so they were generally ignored.
    The very thought of wearing stockings was suffocating. She'd left on her sandals. Her only pieces of jewelry were a plain watch with a leather strap and the gold hoops in her ears. They were eighteen carat but unostentatious. Her shoulder bag was expensive and of the highest quality, but since the designer's signature wasn't obvious, no one would be impressed, even if he recognized the Italian's name.
    In the mirror Schyler saw a woman who looked perilously close to her thirtieth birthday. It wasn't the maturity in her face that bothered her, but that she didn't have more to show for those thirty years. No career to speak of. No husband. No children. Not even an address she could call her own.
    Her accomplishments added up to nil. She hadn't been able to move forward because of the memories that kept her shackled to the past. By coming home, she had wanted to lay to rest the most disturbing of those memories. She had hoped that the ambiguities surrounding her feelings for Ken Howell would be resolved.
    Instead, his kiss had only confused her further. She no longer loved him, not with the intensity she had before. That she knew. What she didn't know was why. She couldn't pinpoint the reason