Songbird Read Online Free PDF

that first nightfall.
    Now, as she stopped to chat with a regular, Steve stared at her and felt the familiar arousal, though it still rankled, the fact that she had walked out on him — without even a phone call to let him know what was going on. No woman had ever done that to him before.
    He turned to Alice. “I knew she wouldn’t be able to stay away for long. Didn’t I tell you she’d be back?”
    “Mebbe so, but she’s a damned fool, so she is!” As Irish as the Blarney Stone and wick as a leprechaun, Alice Mulligan was herself a force to be reckoned with. “It’s a mystery to me how she ever puts up with you.”
    “Women are no mystery to me,” Steve boasted. “I’ve always been able to twist ’em round my little finger.”
    “You’re too clever for your own good, that’s your problem, mister.” Being a woman of some fifty years, Alice had lovely skin and a slim figure that looked good in her smart business suit. Her blue eyes were alive with vitality. “When you said she’d be back, I hoped you might be wrong,” she sighed. “But here she is, an’ may God and all His Saints help her.”
    In truth, Alice was not at all surprised to see the younger woman here tonight, because it was not the first time today that Maddy had walked through these doors, though Steve Drayton didn’t know that.
    “She must have lost her mind, to make her way back here,” Alice said, closing the till and putting a rubber band round the notes. Earlier on, she had said the very same thing to Maddy. “It just goes to show what bloody fools we women can be!” she added cynically. If only Maddy could see through this bully.
    “My girl is nobody’s fool,” Steve argued. “She knows which side her bread is buttered, and come to think of it, so do you. But I can see it’s put your nose right out of joint, now she’s done the sensible thing and come home to me.” His mood darkened. “The truth is, you never thought I was good enough for her.
    Undeterred, Alice ignored his last remark and looked him in the eye. “That’s because you’re
not
good enough for her! And ye never will be.”
    Steve helped himself to a large Scotch from the bar, and added a handful of ice. “I don’t give a sod what you think.” He glanced over at Maddy. “
She
thinks differently, and that’s enough for me.” He preened himself. “Besides, she won’t get better than me, however hard she tries.”… Steve didn’t believe in God, but he did believe in “An eye for an eye.” Two could play at that game of “now you see me, now you don’t.”
    “Well, all I can say is, she must be a divil for punishment. Gawd! When I think of the way you treat her…” Alice tossed her head.
    “She can’t do without me,” he declared smugly. “In fact, I haven’t yet decided whether I’ll have her back or not.”
    “Oh, but you will, me boyo.” Alice had no doubts about that.
    “Really, and why is that then, eh?”
    “Because without her, the punters would soon stop coming and you’d be broken like a twig underfoot. Besides, one time when you were drunk out of your skull, you actually spoke a few home truths, so ye did.”
    “Is that so? And what might
they
have been, then?”
    “You said she was a feather in your cap, for all the other men to envy.” Alice had no liking for this self-centered man. “Deep down you don’t love her at all,” she scoffed. “That poor girl is just another acquisition for you to show off.”
    “Hmh!” Swigging down his Scotch, Steve pressed his glass against the optic for another shot. He searched Madeleine out, to smile lovingly on her. “Since she walked out on me…” his voice grew softer “I… might tell you, I’ve really missed her.” It was the truth. The man sometimes wondered if he had foolishly fallen in love with Maddy; it scared him, brought out the violence in him.
    “Missed the money she brings in, more like!” Alice snapped, completely unsympathetic. “Deep down, yer a bad