The Second Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

woman and hear Dawn’s voice for himself. Anger tightened himthat she could still generate that kind of reaction in him.
    “Find out what she wants.” Slater denied himself the sound of her voice, not totally trusting himself at that moment.
    For the last four days, he’d been wondering if he’d see her or hear from her, if she’d have the nerve to contact him after all this time. Now that it had happened, he realized it had been like watching a burning fuse on a stick of dynamite and waiting for the explosion, not knowing when it would come. It finally had. Now there were the reverberations.
    “What did you wish to speak to him about?” Helen asked. “Perhaps I can help you.” There was another pause during which she glanced at Slater. “The Van de Veere house? Yes, it’s for sale.”
    A shaft of anger plunged hotly through him at the thought of her calling him about a house!
    “I’m certain I can arrange an appointment with Mr. MacBride to show you the house,” his secretary stated and opened his appointment book, tapping a finger on the one o’clock slot to see if that met with his approval. He nodded curtly. “Mr. MacBride is free after lunch. Would one o’clock be convenient for you, Mrs. Lord—at the Van de Veere house?” She smiled at the receiver. “Thank you. Good day.” She hung up the phone and jotted the meeting on his calendar for the day. “I’ll bring you some coffee,” she said and started to leave.
    “No.” It was a brisk refusal, which Slaterquickly followed with an ambiguous explanation. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want any.”
    He focused his gaze on the legal contract he was studying as if it had all his attention. When the door closed behind his secretary, it strayed to the name written on the sheet in his appointment book. Slater stared at it for a long time.
    Dawn was slow to replace the telephone receiver on its cradle. Her nerves were so raw she wanted to scream and release some of the tension that was building up inside her. There was a keen sense of hurt, too, because she hadn’t expected to be fobbed off onto his secretary. Once she’d identified herself, she had thought she’d be put right through to Slater. Instead, she’d been forced to carry through the charade of looking at the house.
    “Who were you talking to just now, Mom?”
    Startled, Dawn swung around to stare at her son. She thought he was outside. Had he been listening? Was it merely the gleam of curiosity in his eyes, or the sharpness of foreknowledge? She reached out to smooth the cowlick on his forehead.
    “I was making an appointment to see the man about the house you and I looked at yesterday,” she admitted, smiling stiffly and excluding the information that the man was his father. A change of subject was needed. “It won’t be long and you’ll be as tall as I am.”
    “My dad is tall, isn’t he?” The quietly asked question nearly undermined her.
    “Yes,” Dawn replied with an attempt at smoothness that didn’t completely succeed. “Six foot. So you have a few more inches to grow yet.”
    “When are you going to talk to him about the house?” This time he changed the subject. Or so Dawn hoped.
    “One o’clock this afternoon.”
    “Can I come with you?” he asked.
    “No.” She smiled to make her refusal seem less important than it was.
    There was a flicker of disappointment, but it was soon replaced by a resigned acceptance. “I might go looking around the shops in Old Town after lunch. Is that all right?”
    “Sure.” Her smile widened with his failure to pursue coming with her.
    At lunch, Dawn was too nervous to eat, her stomach churning in anticipation of the meeting with Slater. Pleading a lack of appetite she excused herself from the table and went to her old room to get ready.
    It wasn’t easy choosing what to wear. The near-tropical summer climate dictated lightweight clothing, but there was still the choice of casual, sporty, sophisticated. Thanks to