Straight from the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

cup with an itch weed potion. I’ll call my mother and get her recipe. Her grandfather was a medicine man, you know.”
    Rebecca laughed, feeling the day’s problems lift a bit off her shoulders. She pushed herself to her feet and said, “Let’s call it a day. I just want to go home, eat a pizza, and crash.”
    She would have added “forget Jace Cooper” to that list, but Rebecca Bradshaw was nothing if not practical. With their next confrontation looming on the horizon, there was little chance she would be able to forget about him overnight.
    Rebecca went to the parking lot with her spring coat slung over her arm. As she unlocked the door of her blue Honda Accord, Rebecca took a deep, cleansing breath. Maybe the day had been awful, but the grass was still growing and the sun would come up tomorrow. One thing she had learned—life could be hard, but the world went on turning and people made it from day to day.
    All things considered, she didn’t have such a tough row to hoe. It was just that at the moment, her row had a big rock in it—Jace Cooper. Rocks could be moved. In Jace’s case they rolled away and gathered no moss.
    Rebecca didn’t let herself wonder why it stung a little to think he would only be there to pester her until greener pastures lured him away again.
    As she pulled her car out of the hospital parking lot and headed for home, she stuck a tape in the tape deck and settled back with a sigh and a smile. The strains of Pachelbel’s Canon in D floated from the speakers. The full round tones of peace and serenity filled the car. Violins sang a serenade to the end of a beautiful spring day. Rebecca felt her tension drift away on the soothing tide of sound.
    A lone figure moving down the tree-lined sidewalk caught her eye. A lone figure swinging slowly along on crutches. Before her mind could register who it was, her heart was already picking up a new rhythm. She drew even with Jace, who was trudging along with a huge duffel bag strapped across his back. Rebecca sighed and pulled her car over to the curb. Jace glanced at her and then had the audacity to appear surprised.
    “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Rebecca yelled as she slid across to the passenger seat and stuck her head out the window.
    “Heading home.” He put on his little-lost-boy look. “Providing I can find it.”
    If he thought he was going to play on her sympathy, he was sadly mistaken. Rebecca wasn’t about to fall for that routine. “We have taxicabs, you know. They’re not exclusive to Chicago.”
    “Mmm,” he said noncommittally as he glanced around. “It’s a nice day for a walk.”
    “You’re not walking, you’re hobbling,” she pointed out, all her mother hen instincts rushing to the fore in spite of her resolve to take no pity on him. He should have been sitting somewhere with that knee elevated and packed with a warm compress. Knowing him, he’d probably been on it all day. “How far are you going?”
    Jace shrugged with a comically innocent expression on his handsome face. “I’m not sure I remember my way around that well.”
    “What’s the address?” she asked impatiently.
    He dug a hand into the front pocket of his jeans, stressing fabric that was already under considerable strain. Rebecca swallowed hard as unwanted memories washed over her in a hot flash. He was a beautifully built man in every respect, and his athleticism had never been confined to the baseball diamond. It made her furious to admit to herself that no man had ever measured up to Jace Cooper in bed, but that was the plain truth.
    She couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief when his hand emerged with a crumpled scrap of paper, but all the blood drained out of her face as he read the address he had scribbled down.
    “That’s Muriel Marquardt’s house,” she said weakly. “That’s right across the alley from my house.”
    Jace’s dark eyes rounded. “Is it?”
    Rebecca scowled at him, her elegant hand curling into a