The Creed Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

Carolyn wanted very much to cry. And this was a sign of weakness, an indulgence she rarely allowed herself. All her life, she’d had to be strong—as a matter of survival.
    She swallowed painfully and raised her chin a notch. “Okay,” she said. “You’re right. We’ll just…let it go. Act as though it never happened.” She put out her hand, the way she might have done to seal a business agreement. “Deal?”
    Brody looked down at her hand, back up at her face. “Deal,” he said hoarsely. And in the next moment, he was kissing her.
    Carolyn felt things giving way inside her and, as good as that kiss was, she wasn’t about to surrender so much as an inch of the emotional ground she’d gained after the cataclysm that was Brody Creed.
    She wrenched herself back out of his arms, put a few steps between them and then a few more.
    Brody merely looked at her, with his mouth upturned at one corner, a bemused I thought so gleaming in his eyes.
    Stunned, not only by his audacity, but also by what he made her feel, Carolyn touched her lips, as if relearning their contours after a long absence from her own body.
    “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” she muttered.
    Brody chuckled as he opened the door to leave. “Oh, believe me,” he intoned. “I’m not the least bit sorry—not for that kiss, anyhow.” His gaze shifted to Winston, who watched him from the windowsill, ears laid back, fur ruffled. “So long, cat,” he added. “For now.”
    In the next moment, Brody was gone—so thoroughly gone that Carolyn felt as if she might have imagined the visit, at the same time certain that she hadn’t.
    After that, her concentration was shot.
    She waited until Brody had had plenty of time to drive away. Then she logged off her computer, pulled on a lightweight blue corduroy jacket and retrieved her purse and car keys.
    Sewing was out of the question, and so was doing the bookwork. She was too jumpy to sit still, or even stay inside.
    So she drove to the Creed ranch, taking the long way around, following the back roads and bumpy logging trails to avoid running into Brody.
    After some forty minutes, she reached Kim and Davis’s place, parked beside the barn and then stood next to her car for a few moments, debating with herself. She and Kim were good friends; she really ought to knock on the door and say hello, at least.
    The sprawling, rustic house had an empty look about it, though, and besides, Carolyn didn’t feel like chatting. Kim was perceptive, and she’d know something was bothering her friend just by looking at her.
    Because she had permission to ride any of the Creeds’ horses anytime she wanted—with the exception of the rescued Thoroughbred stallion, Firefly—she could go ahead and saddle up one of the cow ponies without asking first.
    Firefly, a magnificent chestnut, was “too much horse” for anybody but an experienced jockey, according to Davis. When they’d learned that the animal was about to be euthanized because his racing days were over and, being a gelding, he couldn’t be put to stud, Kim and Davis had hitched a trailer behind their truck and driven all the way to Kentucky to bring him home.
    Passing the corral, an enclosure as large as many pastures, Carolyn stopped to admire Firefly, who had the area to himself that cool but sunny afternoon. He towered against the blue of the sky, and his beauty all but took her breath away.
    She stood still as he tossed his great head and then slowly approached her.
    Carolyn reached up to pat his velvety nose. Normally, if she planned to ride, she stuffed a few carrots into her jacket pockets before leaving home. Today, though, she’d made the decision impulsively as, let’s face it, a kneejerk reaction to Brody’s kiss.
    “Sorry, buddy,” she told the former racehorse. “No carrots today, but I’ll be sure to remember them next time.”
    Firefly nodded, as if to convey understanding, and Carolyn’s spirits rose a little. For her, there was