Stroke of Fortune Read Online Free PDF Page B

baby.
    He said carefully, “You wore yourself out, I’ll bet.”
    â€œNo. I’m young and I like to work. You know that. Then, well, you know, my mama needed me so I came back.”
    God. He could smell her. The sweetness of her. And something else.
    Cigarettes. “You take up smoking, Josie?”
    She stared straight ahead, her profile so fine and pure in the faint glow of the streetlamp down the block. She looked as sweet as an angel—an angry angel, right then. “I don’t much like your tone, you know that, Flynt?”
    He put his hands on the steering wheel and held on tight to keep from reaching for her. “It was a simple question. You can just answer yes or no.”
    â€œI just got off work and I work at the café.” She shot him a charged look, then faced front again. “The Mission Creek Café—which I’m sure you already know.”
    He understood what she was telling him. At the Mission Creek Café, there were ashtrays on the tables and smokers lit up whenever they felt the urge.
    â€œNot that it’s any of your business,” she said.
    â€œI’d hate to see you do that to yourself, that’s all,” he told her softly.
    She sent him another glance. “Well, don’t worry.I’m not. And if I ever considered takin’ up the habit, all I have to do is look at my poor mama to change my mind right quick.”
    Flynt was pleased to hear her say that. He wanted the best for her. And that included good health—both for herself and for Lena. He didn’t want to think that she’d been smoking around Lena or, worse, before Lena was born.
    But she said she hadn’t and he decided to believe her. “Well,” he said. “Good.”
    She didn’t say anything, just went on staring out the windshield.
    He scoured his mind for a way to get around gracefully to the subject of Lena. But there was no graceful way to ask a woman if, just possibly, she’d borne his child and then left her on the golf course at the Lone Star Country Club.
    So he fell back on a safer subject. “How is your mom doing, anyway?”
    She sent him another iceberg of a look. “What is this, Flynt? You came knockin’ on my bedroom window at ten o’clock at night to ask me how I liked it up in Hurst and find out how my mama’s doing?”
    â€œJosie, I…”
    â€œYou what?”
    Did you have my baby? Is Lena ours?
    The questions were there; he just couldn’t quite bring himself to ask them. Yet.
    She waited. When he gave her only silence, shestarted in on him again, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, let’s see. I already told you about my life in Hurst. So, about my mama… Well, Flynt, my mama is sick. She will never be well again. But she is better than she was three weeks ago. The doctor says she’s improved enough to live on her own now, for a while. I’ll be getting my own place soon. But if you really came here tonight to tell me you want me out of town, you’re flat out of luck. My mama needs someone nearby that she can count on. Since my father’s no longer among the living and I’m their only child, no one else fits that description but me.” She left off and just glared at him for a minute, those eyes of hers daring him to speak. He didn’t.
    She let out a hard huff of air. “So then, satisfied? Did you find out what you wanted to know? I don’t want your ten thousand dollars and my mama is not well. And if that’s all, I’m getting out of here.” She leaned on the latch and the door opened a crack.
    He reached across her, grabbed the armrest and yanked it shut, his arm brushing her breasts in the process.
    Both of them gasped. He jerked his arm back to his own side of the cab.
    There was a silence—one with way too much heat in it. He stared at her profile some more, and then his gaze traveled downward.
    Too bad he