The Welcoming Read Online Free PDF Page A

heat, the press of fingers, brought her back. “No.” She started to back away, found herself held still, and fought her rising panic. Before she could speak again, he had released her. Disappointment. That was an odd reaction, she thought, when you’d just missed getting burned.
    â€œI was—” She took a deep breath and waited for her scattered nerves to settle. “I was going to ask if you’d found everything you needed.”
    His eyes never left hers. “It looks like it.”
    She pressed her lips together to moisten them. “Good. I’ve got a lot to do, so I’ll let you get back.”
    He took her arm before she could step away. Maybe it wasn’t smart, but he wanted to touch her again. “Thanks for the towels.”
    â€œSure.”
    He watched her hurry out, knowing her nerves were as jangled as his own. Thoughtfully he pulled out a cigarette. He couldn’t remember ever having been thrown off balance so easily. Certainly not by a woman who’d done nothing more than look at him. Still, he made a habit of landing on his feet.
    It might be to his advantage to get close to her, to play on the response he’d felt from her. Ignoring a wave of self-disgust, he struck a match.
    He had a job to do. He couldn’t afford to think about Charity Ford as anything more than a means to an end.
    He drew smoke in, cursing the dull ache in his belly.

Chapter 2
    It was barely dawn, and the sky to the east was fantastic. Roman stood near the edge of the narrow road, his hands tucked in his back pockets. Though he rarely had time for them, he enjoyed mornings such as this, when the air was cool and sparkling clear. A man could breathe here, and if he could afford the luxury he could empty his mind and simply experience.
    He’d promised himself thirty minutes, thirty solitary, soothing minutes. The blooming sunlight pushed through the cloud formations, turning them into wild, vivid colors and shapes. Dream shapes. He considered lighting a cigarette, then rejected it. For the moment he wanted only the taste of morning air flavored by the sea.
    There was a dog barking in the distance, a faint yap, yap, yap that only added to the ambience. Gulls, out for an early feeding, swooped low over the water, slicing the silence with their lonely cries. The fragrance of flowers, a celebration of spring, carried delicately on the quiet breeze.
    He wondered why he’d been so certain he preferred the rush and noise of cities.
    As he stood there he saw a deer come out of the trees and raise her head to scent the air. That was freedom, he thought abruptly. To know your place and to be content with it. The doe cleared the trees, picking her way delicately toward the high grass. Behind her came a gangly fawn. Staying upwind, Roman watched them graze.
    He was restless. Even as he tried to absorb and accept the peace around him he felt the impatience struggling through. This wasn’t his place. He had no place. That was one of the things that made him so perfect for his job. No roots, no family, no woman waiting for his return. That was the way he wanted it.
    But he’d felt enormous satisfaction in doing the carpentry the day before, in leaving his mark on something that would last. All the better for his cover, he told himself. If he showed some skill and some care in the work he would be accepted more easily.
    He was already accepted.
    She trusted him. She’d given him a roof and a meal and a job, thinking he needed all three. She seemed to have no guile in her. Something had simmered between them the evening before, yet she had done nothing to provoke or prolong it. She hadn’t—though he knew all females were capable of it from birth—issued a silent invitation that she might or might not have intended to keep.
    She’d simply looked at him, and everything she felt had been almost ridiculously clear in her eyes.
    He couldn’t think of her as a woman. He