Unforgivable Read Online Free PDF Page B

answered too quickly. “I mean, I wanted to…I felt bad. I felt responsible for the sheriff finding out about your dad. If you hadn’t taken me to see him about pressing charges, he probably wouldn’t have found out.”
    This time he did touch her face, trailing a finger along her jawline before dropping his hand. His touch raised a trail of goose bumps on her arms. “It wasn’t your fault. It was my decision to go in with you. My choice.”
    “But you did it for me.”
    “My choice.”
    You never helped anyone else. Why me ? “What happened to you?”
    He leaned back against the column. A gold cross, two simple bars he wore on a chain, caught the light. She wondered if it was the same cross he’d worn before. “They sent me away to a foster family in Adgateville. I figured all they wanted was someone to tend the garden and fix up the house. I took off, went to Atlanta.”
    She leaned against the column across from him. “I tried to find out where you were. No one would tell me.”
    He took a drink of water and set the bottle down. “It’s hard to be resourceful at nine. Were the Emersons good to you? I was afraid they were going to work you to death, too.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “How’d you know where I went?”
    “Fifteen-year-olds are more resourceful. I checked on you once in a while. Came back a few times.”
    “Came here? To Flatlands?”
    The lines of his face had sharpened over the years. With his shaggy hair and easy posture, he still reminded her of a wolf. He nodded. “When I ran away from Adgateville, I came here first. I wanted to make sure you were all right. The Emersons wouldn’t let me see you. I knew Ben wouldn’t help me. When I came back later, you were about to marry him.”
    For a moment, she felt a prick of guilt, as though she’d let Silas down by marrying Ben. Ridiculous, since Silas hadn’t come to propose to her. She shivered at the thought of meeting him when she’d been eighteen. He probably would have been somewhere between the lanky teen and the man he was now. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She’d been promised to Ben, had belonged to him since she was nine in one way or another. She owed him so much.
    Followed by the guilt was a melancholy sense of something missed. Of opportunity lost.
    “You could have come to see me then,” she said.
    He stretched, touching high up on the column. His fingers were long, but not terribly work worn. “No, I couldn’t.”
    She had the most perverse urge to touch him, to press her hand against the planes of his stomach and up to the ridge of his rib cage. With his body stretched long, there was a gap between his skin and the waistband of his jeans. She stopped her thoughts and promised to never read another Cosmo magazine again.
    “Where are you staying?” she asked.
    “Here.”
     She pushed away from the column and walked toward the open doorway. It looked cleaner now, devoid of the disintegrating carpet and draperies. Two wall sconces and three lamps filled the parlor with light. Odd that the electricity was on. Three boxes of hardware supplies lined the wall. The once-elegant room with its high ceilings adorned with intricate molding now looked sadly empty. She couldn’t tell where he slept.
    What she thought was a pile of brown carpet struggled to its feet and ambled over to inspect her. The big dog was a hound mix of some sort, old and cumbersome. His nose twitched as he covered her hand with dog moisture. His face was sprinkled liberally in white hair, as were his big feet.
    “That’s The Boss. He’s named after Bruce Springstein.”
    “You a fan?” she said, scratching the dog’s head.
    “He came with the name. I’ve only had him a couple of years. His owner died, and there wasn’t anyone else who could take him.”
    Finished with his inspection, The Boss settled down at Silas’s feet with a sigh.
    “He might have arthritis,” she said, taking in the way he couldn’t seem to get comfortable. “You