The Promise of Rainbows Read Online Free PDF

need that sweet tea warmed up.”
    The sweet tea. He’d forgotten all about it. “I can warm it up. And I’ll turn up the heat while I’m at it.”
    “Don’t bother on my account if you’re warm,” she said, her moss-green eyes soft.
    So she knew he was unsettled.
    “I’ll get you one of my jackets,” he replied, liking the idea of seeing her wearing something of his.
    Then he had to remind himself that they could never be anything more than friends.
    “That’s not—”
    He darted out of the kitchen before she could continue to protest. His favorite jean jacket hung in the front closet, and truth be told, it would look nice with her red blouse and navy skirt. Country professional, he decided, and then frowned. His daddy would have called him a sissy or worse for having an opinion about women’s clothing.
    Daddy didn’t understand that as an artist Jake knew about things like color and textures, the same way he knew how to pair words with musical notes. But according to Daddy, “real” men weren’t attracted to the arts. But then he and Daddy had never seen eye to eye.
    When Jake had returned from his final tour and announced he was leaving the Army, Daddy had been more than disappointed. His brother, Aaron, hadn’t voiced an opinion about his choice, which made Jake suspect he wished he could get out too. None of them spoke to him anymore, but perhaps that was in part because there was so little to say.
    His decision to pack up his one battered suitcase and his guitar and head to Nashville had been his salvation. He’d played on street corners and in honky tonks, singing songs that simply wouldn’t be silenced. The more real the songs, the greater the audience’s response. His whole life had changed after he was discovered at Nashville’s famous Bluebird Café.
    For the better.
    Well, mostly. He didn’t like to think about where he’d be if he’d stayed in the Army. Or if he’d taken up a job at the bank like his mama had encouraged him to do after he left the service.
    He’d forged his own path.
    Even so, the past still had its hooks in him. He could make music, but it appeared he would never make real love with a woman and raise a family.
    But as he walked back into the kitchen and helped Susannah into his jacket, he simply couldn’t make peace with that death sentence. The light in her eyes was like the North Star, and she looked so sweet and small in his jacket. There had to be a way out. There had to be something he hadn’t tried.
    Maybe it was going back to church. Maybe if he could figure out why God had stopped answering his prayers—what made him so unlovable to the Almighty—he could find his way back.
    “I’ve changed my mind about your offer to go to see your mama preach,” he said before he could chicken out. Sweat was already beading on his back, and his heart had jumped to attention like a new recruit, pounding hard in his chest.
    What if God struck him dead when he tried to walk through the doors of the church? If he hadn’t been so tense, he would have laughed at himself.
    “You want to go?” she asked, her moss-green eyes wide. “I’m so happy to hear that.”
    “This Sunday,” he said, forcing himself to swallow the bile in his throat. Vomiting in front of her would be beyond humiliating.
    She took the damp paper towel he’d set aside and dabbed his neck with it. “Are you sure?”
    He wasn’t sure of anything, but he had to do something. “Absolutely.”
    Silence descended as she studied him, and even though the cloth she was holding to his neck was cool, her touch was hot. He almost yanked her hand away. The control he forced himself to have around her was slipping again, and his gaze dropped to her lips.
    The fingers applying the cloth to his neck tensed, and so did his whole body. His hand immediately rose and cupped hers. Her gaze flew to his. He could hear her breathing change from normal to agitated in the same instant his heart rate went from accelerated