Unspoken Read Online Free PDF

voice harsh.
    “It’s true.” Oh, God. “A ... a girl.”
    For a second there was silence. Deafening, condemning silence. His eyes sought hers, looking for a hint of a lie.
    “And you didn’t tell me?” he finally whispered, the skin over his face stretched taut Thunderclouds gathered behind his eyes.
    “No.”
    “Where is she?” His lips barely moved.
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know?” The peanut and his drink were both forgotten. He looked as if he were about to climb over the table and shake her. “What do you mean?”
    “I ... I thought she was born dead,” she stammered, trying to stay calm.
    “What? You thought? Weren’t you there?” he demanded, stunned, silently accusing her of lying through her teeth.
    Oh, it all sounded so feeble now. “That’s what I was told by everyone, but now ... now I think I was lied to, and that she’s alive, but I don’t know where. She was probably adopted through the black market.”
    “Wait a minute!” One of his hands shot up, palm out, silencing her. He glanced toward the bar, and Shelby realized that Lucy, obviously eavesdropping, was mopping the long, glossy surface of the bar and had inched closer.
    With a silent warning Shelby didn’t mistake, Nevada reached into his pocket, found his wallet and threw a couple of bills onto the table. “Come on,” he ordered, half dragging her from the booth and sweeping up his sunglasses. “Keep the change,” he shot at Lucy while propelling Shelby toward a narrow back hallway wedged between the restrooms and the kitchen. He shouldered the door open.
    The heat was a furnace blast; the sunlight blinding. Flies and bees swarmed around a dumpster pushed against the back of the building. A parade of slow-moving cars and trucks rolled along the alley.
    Strong, determined fingers surrounded the crook of Shelby’s elbow as he propelled her across a pockmarked asphalt parking lot.
    “Where are we going?” She yanked hard on her arm, but his grip only tightened.
    “To my place.”
    “And where’s that?”
    She realized that he was shepherding her toward his truck. “Outside of town a few miles.”
    “No way.”
    “You’d rather talk here?” he asked, stopping short on the sidewalk where two kids rode their bikes past a row of parking meters and half-a-dozen cars and trucks were pulling away from or easing up to the curbs. Several curious glances were cast in their direction.
    One man wearing aviator sunglasses and an Oilers cap pulled low over his eyes stared with undisguised interest from the open window of his flatbed truck.
    Shelby felt suddenly as out-of-place as she looked.
    “People do recognize you, you know,” Nevada warned.
    “Oh, I know.” She hesitated only a second. “Let me take my car, okay?”
    He dropped her elbow. “Follow me.”
    She didn’t need any further incentive. As the guy in the flatbed shot a stream of tobacco juice onto the pavement, Shelby hurried to the rented Caddy and unlocked the door. The interior was blistering. Cranking the air-conditioning to high, she rolled down her window, then pulled a U turn. As Nevada’s old truck eased away from the curb, she tucked in behind him.
    Right on his tail and swearing under her breath, she donned her sunglasses again. This is insane, she told herself. What do you think you’re doing, going to Nevada’s place, for crying out loud? Teeth clenched, she followed him through town and west into the open hill country, where the air-conditioning finally kicked in.
    The surrounding ranch land was guarded by barbed wire, and sumac trees vied with the live oaks. Herds of goats, sheep and cattle roamed the dry, dusty acres grazing on sparse grass and weeds. Miles flew by. Past a dry gulch where there had once been a stream, Nevada turned his pickup into a thicket of live oaks, where a lane of gravel and potholes led to the heart of his ranch.
    The Caddy bounced over weeds that grew between the twin ruts and scraped the underside of her