Wild Innocence Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sioux.”
    â€œBut there’s more,” Rupert said perceptively.
    Anger burned at the back of Jack’s throat as he thought of the cruel man Jane had married. “Oh, yes, there is more, but it’s been a while now, and I’d hoped ...”
    â€œYou’re in love with her.”
    Jack stiffened. “I am not.”
    But Rupert only smiled. “Suit yourself.” He gestured to the counter and the growing pile of supplies they had gathered for his purchase. “Let’s finish up here. I’m kind of tired myself and anxious to sleep on one of those fancy bed mattresses.”
    â€œWell, then you’re in luck, Clark,” Jack said teasingly, “ ’cause Rebb’s little girl Maeve received a new shipment of fancy bedding for that hotel of hers just last week.”

Chapter 3
    The second-story room of the hotel was surprisingly pleasant. Rachel hadn’t expected such cheerful, comfortable accommodations in the back of beyond. A large four-poster feather bed sat against one wall, a cherry washstand with white porcelain ewer and basin against another. There was a large chest of drawers with a mirror near the wall by the door.
    The proprietress of the hotel, Maeve Treehorn, was a pleasant young woman with a welcoming smile. She had her husband bring up Rachel’s things, then arranged for Rachel to have a bath.
    Exhausted, Rachel undressed and slipped into the bathtub. It was large and an unexpected luxury. She enjoyed a long soak in the heated water, then scrubbed herself from head to toe with a delicately scented soap. When she was done, she toweled herself dry, then climbed naked between the quilts covering the feather mattress.
    Her thoughts were in a whirl as she lay, staring up at the ceiling of her hotel room. Amelia is married. She blinked against a mist of tears. If not for Jordan’s vile betrayal, she would have been married, too.
    Oh, Jordan, how could you have done this to me? To us?
    She shouldn’t have come. But where else could I have gone? She had no other known relatives. She didn’t know her mother’s people. Her father and her aunt had been secretive whenever she or her sister had asked any questions about the relatives on her mother’s side.
    â€œIt’s best you know little of them,” Aunt Bess said once after the girls had asked about that branch of the family several times. “They disowned your mother for marrying your father. Are they anyone you’d like to meet?”
    For days after that conversation, Rachel and Amelia had whispered their suspicions to each other late at night while everyone else in the house slept. The sisters had told each other romantic tales of their young physician father being summoned to some rich household, where he’d fallen in love with his female patient, their mother, Marianna Farrell. John Dempsey, they decided, had saved Marianna’s life; then the two young people, smitten with each other, had eloped. They’d known that Marianna’s family wouldn’t approve of Marianna’s marriage to a lowly doctor.
    Rachel sighed and closed her eyes. What would her mother’s family say if she—Marianna’s daughter—sud—denly appeared at their front door? That is, if she knew where her grandparents lived.
    No, she’d been right to come here. She would just have to accept the fact that Amelia had married. Perhaps her father would be glad of Rachel’s assistance ... surely Amelia’s marriage had changed her working relationship with Father.
    It was quiet in the hotel. She was conscious of the absence of forest sounds. It was a warm, late afternoon, and the windows were shut. The only other guests at the hotel, apparently, were her friends, Miranda and Rupert Clark.
    The dinner hour was fast approaching. Rachel thought that a brief nap would be just what she needed to help her face her family. She closed her eyes. She’d rest for only a few