Tea and Destiny Read Online Free PDF Page A

vulnerabilities.
    The ease with which she did it saddened him. For a fraction of a second Hank wanted to take the tall, stoic woman in his arms. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to challenge her easy acceptance of the fact that he was here today, but very likely gone tomorrow. He wanted to promise her a life filled with warmth and love and commitment. He wanted to tell her that the world really wasn’t such a lousy place. Ironically, he wasn’t sure he believed that himself. Maybe, in theend, he and Ann Davies were two of a kind, both too cynical to believe in happily ever after.
    So he didn’t argue. He didn’t hold her. He didn’t do a damn thing, except what he did best: he ran. He turned away from her emotional needs and tackled the practical ones. He went to work on the drain again.
    After several minutes of thick, increasingly awkward silence, she left the room. Hank didn’t look up. He said nothing.
    When she’d gone, the faintest scent of strawberries lingered. It taunted his senses in a way that expensive French perfumes never had. He wondered if the taste of strawberries was on her lips. The possibility was provocative. Maddening. He had the oddest feeling, now that she was out of reach, that he’d made a terrible mistake in not acting on impulse and kissing the woman senseless. Maybe once he’d done it, her odd grip on him would loosen.
    His hand slipped and his knuckles scraped along the jagged inside edge of the drain. He cursed as blood welled slowly. He ransacked the medicine cabinet for antiseptic and dumped it on, grateful for the pain. For an instant, anyway, it blocked out his unexpected, inexplicable sense of loss.
    It was going to be a very long couple of months.
    It was a very long evening. There was absolutely no gracious way Hank could think of to get out of joining the whole unorthodox, noisy family for dinner on his very first night. He figured it was a test contrived by an irritated Maker. He barely passed. His nerves were so tightly wound by the time they finished sayinggrace and passed the heaping platters of food that his shoulders felt as if he’d been lifting weights for an hour.
    He discovered that there was no such thing as conversation, much less seductive intimacy, at a table with six children. There were pokes. There were grumbled complaints about vegetables. There were muttered gripes about the choice of baked rather than fried chicken. There were threats of banishment if one single spoonful of mashed potatoes was actually flung across the table. There were promises of dessert for those who finished their glazed carrots. And there was intense bargaining over dishwashing duties. Ann presided over it all with Madonna-like serenity.
    Hank watched her and marveled. While his muscles knotted at the confusion, she seemed to thrive on it. Her cheeks glowed. Her blue eyes sparkled with laughter. She was as adept as an experienced referee in the midst of a goal-line pileup. She knew exactly what everyone needed at any given second and provided it. Platters and bowls came and went with the precision of a banquet caterer. No argument was allowed to erupt into anger. She teased. She soothed. She tolerated spilled milk and gravy stains with equanimity, but drew the line at food fights.
    “Enough,” she said, unable to hide a grin as David—or was it Jason? Nope, Jason was the one who never talked—promised to stuff cold potatoes down Tracy’s throat if she dared to reveal some secret he’d entrusted her with. Ann moved the potatoes safely out of reach.
    “You are such a jerk,” Tracy countered with a look of supreme disgust for the red-haired boy beside her. “Why would I want to tell anyone that you—”
    “Tracy!” he threatened, stretching to try to get a gripon the bowl that Ann had just moved. An embarrassed flush spread beneath his freckles.
    Tracy grinned back. “Gotcha.”
    “Mom, make her promise,” David implored.
    “Not me,” Ann said, getting up and beginning