Straight from the Heart Read Online Free PDF

fist on the open window of the car. “You know darn well it is!”
    He didn’t deny it. She wouldn’t have believed him if he had. This was vintage Jace Cooper—an all-out assault. She shouldn’t have been the least surprised. After all, he had very clearly stated his intentions. Well, if he thought living in close proximity was somehow going to weaken her resolve and make her susceptible to his charm, he was deluding himself. She was going to ignore him on every plane but the professional…just as soon as she took him home…to the house that stood directly behind her own.
    “Get in the car. Get in the car!” she said in a tight voice.
    Propping his crutches against the side of Rebecca’s Honda, Jace shrugged off his duffel bag and tossed it into the backseat. Gingerly, he eased himself into the car, bad leg first, so he wouldn’t have to bend the knee that had begun to swell and ache. He buckled his seat belt as soon as he closed the door, and he glanced across to make certain Rebecca had hers in place as well.
    Rebecca didn’t say a word until she signaled and pulled away from the curb. “You’re some kind of crazy person. You always were a little off the mark, but you’re in the deep end of the pool now. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t plan this well in advance, Jace Cooper. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”
    “Gee, Becca,” he said mildly, rubbing at the ache in the muscle above his sore knee, “are you upset? You’re repeating yourself. I remember you used to do that when you were upset.”
    She halted the car at a red light and took advantage of the opportunity to glare at him, her eyes narrowed to mere slits. She didn’t speak again until the light changed. “How did you get Mrs. Marquardt’s name? She hasn’t been advertising for a boarder.”
    “Ummm…a friend gave her name to me,” he said evasively, fixing his gaze on the bus they were passing.
    Rebecca was too steamed to notice his strange tone of voice. So he had friends in Mishawaka, did he? He hadn’t bothered to do so much as send her a Christmas card in seven years, but he had friends here who could line up accommodations for him at a moment’s notice. Wasn’t that just peachy?
    Well, she thought, half chuckling to herself, maybe they weren’t such good friends after all. A room at Muriel Marquardt’s house wasn’t going to be quite what Jace was used to.
    “Renting a room from an elderly lady is hardly your style,” she commented as she negotiated a right turn that took them into an older residential area where the houses were big and sturdy and full-grown maple and oak trees lined the boulevard. “I would ask why you didn’t have this famous friend of yours find you a posh condo overlooking the river, but I’ve realized this is part of your demented scheme.”
    She was right. It was part of his master plan, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d taken a room in a less-than-fashionable part of town. Jace wondered what Rebecca would have to say if he told her he couldn’t afford much better at the moment. He could well imagine the tongue-lashing he’d get if he told her he’d gambled away a good deal of his money.
    He glanced at her. She was muttering to herself under her breath as she hit the turn signal with a ruthless motion that threatened to break the slender wand. Obviously she was in no mood to hear the story of the last seven years of his life. She looked more ready to put an end to his life.
    That fact would have discouraged him if not for her reaction to him that afternoon. No woman got that skittish around a man she cared nothing about. If he meant nothing to her, she would long since have let go of the hurt and anger his leaving had caused.
    “I’ll admit it,” he said. “You have an IQ of two hundred plus. It’s not likely that I could come up with a plan so subtle you couldn’t figure it out, so why not be obvious about it? I mean to set the past to rights with you, Becca. It’ll just