This Very Moment Read Online Free PDF

half-dozen speakers. On the middle of another wall was a full-size fireplace, set for a fire, but unlit. Not a single snapshot or knickknack stood out on the dark mahogany mantle. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished with a brown leather couch, a matching chair, and a coffee table stacked with books and magazines.
    The only picture in the room was an amateurish charcoal drawing of a young couple. The portrait hung in a dark frame next to a shelf of books that reached from the floor to the ceiling. There were no other furnishings or pictures of any kind. If she hadn’t known him before, she would never have believed that this was a man whose apartment in France had been covered with drawings of nature scenes and portraits he had sketched himself on the many hikes he had taken with Nicole. Bill had obviously eradicated his former life from his present, which meant he likely resented Kylee’s appearance.
    Kylee clutched the handkerchief in her hand and wished she hadn’t come.
    Standing, she crossed the room to study the charcoal portrait more closely, and it was then she noticed that all the books on the shelves were written in French. Maybe Bill hadn’t erased the past as thoroughly as she had thought.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Bill was glad to escape from Kylee and gather his thoughts. He wasn’t prepared to talk with anyone tonight—especially to someone who knew the truth about his life. At the same time he found himself glad it had been Kylee at the door instead of one of the former patients or colleagues he had dated over the past couple years. They had a way of turning up at his house at moments when they were least expected. He had soon learned that each was searching for something he couldn’t give—the vital part of his heart that had died with Nicole. He couldn’t love them with any degree of true emotion, and after experiencing real love, he found he couldn’t settle for cheap imitation. Still, he’d been trying to get out more, and rumor had it he was becoming a ladies’ man. Only he and the women he dated knew the truth—that he was a perfect gentleman. A bit cold and remote, perhaps, but always a gentleman.
    He put milk on to simmer and went upstairs to his master suit. It filled the entire top floor and had been equipped with every luxury—a deluxe bathroom with a dual shower and jetted tub, an exercise room, a spacious balcony, a window seat, and even a mini-bar. But it was studiously uncrowded with furniture or accessories. He had once planned to make the empty exercise room his studio, but recently his artistic side had been focused not on drawing, but on fixing the flaws people found in their bodies. He saw it as using the same skills in a different medium. He was good at what he did and satisfied with his life. He didn’t need his drawings to be complete.
    Discarding his silk robe, he pulled on a pair of khaki pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt before hurrying back to the kitchen. He placed the pot of hot milk, cups, and containers of different chocolate powders onto a battered wood serving tray. Not bad for a bachelor, he thought.
    A sudden, unpleasant thought forced its way into his brain. Had Kylee come to ask him to perform surgery for Children’s Hope? He remembered the pleading faces of the deformed children, and his stomach tightened. Their innocence reminded him too deeply of Nicole, of her screams that day and his utter helplessness. Those children would be like Nicole, trusting and believing in a God that did not exist and could not save them. No, he couldn’t perform any miracles for them. He’d given them money, but beyond that he didn’t want any part of it.
    Shaking off the feeling of dread, he walked into the sitting room to see Kylee studying the charcoal portrait on the wall next to his books. She started as he entered, and the blanket around her shoulders dropped to the floor, leaving her silver sequined dress to reflect the light. There was