The Reckoning Read Online Free PDF

seemingly fascinated by a full-size ad for the grand opening of a quilting store.
    â€œI just wanted to feel your hair,” she said, trying to explain the unwarranted action. Her face burned hotter. “I mean, I—”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” he said again. Calmly.
    At the rehab center, the counselors and therapists very likely told him that sometimes brain-injured people did inappropriate things because their injuries affected their impulse controls. She’d heard about it from her counselors and witnessed it herself among other patients. Before now, she’d never personally shown that particular symptom.
    Linda slipped into her seat and slunk low in her chair, willing her embarrassment away. It was no big deal, she told herself. Not when he was a mere helper, like a toaster, like a vending machine.
    He was still staring at the quilting store ad. And she could smell him now, too. Over the scent of the coffee beans she caught that tangy, masculine fragrance that she’d inhaled in the shower. Appliance? Nice try, Linda, but he was all too obviously a man, not a machine.
    A man who had willingly given up four weeks of his personal life to live with her.
    Why? For the first time, the question blazed to life in her mind. She straightened in her chair.
    It should have made her wonder before, she realized, that day at the rehab center. But brain-injured people were often self-centered. As they struggled to recover what skills they could and to learn coping mechanisms for those they’d never regain, their focus was inward, their energy directed toward themselves. That day when he’d volunteered to stay here with her in the guest house, she hadn’t really stopped to consider what the situation meant to him.
    It had to be a sign of the progress she’d made that she was suddenly, unquenchably curious about the man seated across the table from her.
    It might even explain her fixation on his scent and her odd compunction to explore the texture of his hair.
    â€œEmmett?”
    He grunted; then, when she didn’t continue, he looked up.
    God, those green eyes were incredible. She almost lost her train of thought. “Why are you here?” she asked.
    His eyebrows lifted. “You don’t remember?”
    She shook her head. “You never said, not really. You mentioned a promise, actually two promises, that you’d made, but not why you’d made them.”
    He took a moment to wrap his hand around his coffee mug and take a deep drink. “Ryan was a not-so-distant relative of mine. We became close during the last few months of his life. When he asked me to do something for him—which meant promising to help you —I couldn’t say no.”
    She frowned. There was more, she was sure of it. “Are you from around here?”
    He shrugged. “Not really. I’ve not lived in Texas for a long time. My last permanent address was Sacramento, California. I was assigned to the FBI field office there. But I’ve been on personal leave from the Bureau for the last several months.”
    In her long-ago life, she’d been a government agent herself. It was part of that muzzy past of hers, and another of those jagged-edged pieces that she was trying to integrate into some sort of current identity. But as distant as those memories were, she didn’t think an agent taking personal leave for several months was a usual thing. For some reason, she hesitated to voice the question.
    â€œWhy would Ryan choose you to make such a promise?” she asked instead. “And why couldn’t you say no?”
    He waited a beat, staring down into his coffee. Then he looked back up, straight into her eyes. “I don’t know why he chose me, but the reason I couldn’t say no was because of the hell my brother put him through in those last weeks of his life. The man known as Jason Wilkes, the man who has murdered four people and the man who kidnapped