Winter's Edge Read Online Free PDF Page A

receding chin thrust out aggressively. He was middle-aged and flabby, with a few
     
    strands of orangeish hair combed carefully over his shiny pink scalp, and his mouth had a petulant, spoiled look about it. The nurse must have had a decidedly odd sense of humor to consider this man handsome.
    His eyes were small and shrewd and light-colored in his puffy red face, looking as if they could see through all her pretenses. She had no pretenses, she wanted to cry. But she never cried, she thought, staring at him silently.
    “What’s this new act, Molly?” he said, lounging with what he obviously considered a lazy grace in one of the comfortable, overstuffed armchairs. She hoped, perversely, that it was still damp from her sojourn in it.
    “This country girl look isn’t quite your style, is it? You’ve always been more Neiman Marcus than Eddie Bauer. Maybe you’re hoping to appease Patrick with your newfound docility. It won’t wash, my dear, I promise you that.” There was an ill-concealed malice in his slurred voice, combined with an odd wariness on his part, a watchfulness just under the slightly drunken surface.
    She edged closer to the fire, away from him.
    “Patrick?” she questioned innocently. Her name was Molly, then. Not bad. At least it was better than Mary Magdalene.
    “Oh, come off it. You needn’t play games with your old pal Willy.
    Haven’t I always been on your side? “
    From the look of him she doubted it.
    “Who’s Patrick?” Molly questioned again, stubbornly.
    Willy smirked.
    “Why don’t you go into the kitchen and find out?” he suggested amiably.
    “I’m sure he’s dying to see you after five long weeks.” Molly rose, reluctantly, and headed out to the hall, keeping well out of old friend Willy’s reach. He looked like the type who pinches. The dog lumbered after her, obviously preferring her company to Willy’s. Dogs are more discerning than humans, she thought.
    She found the kitchen after only one false foray into a clothes closet. The room was huge and dark, and reaching out, she switched on the light. And then realized that although she hadn’t known where the room was, she’d found the light switch without the slightest hesitation.
    He’d just come in the door. He stood there, staring at her, cold, implacable anger emanating from him.
    The dog sensed something in the air, and he whined and moved closer to Molly, nearly knocking her over in the process. She looked up at the man across the room, and felt those familiar-unfamiliar emotions rushing through her. Longing. And fear.
    He was the man from her dreams, her brief flashes of memory. Now she could see him clearly, without the fog of time, and she wasn’t sure she liked what she saw.
    He was handsome enough, despite his unfriendly expression. He was dressed in faded jeans and an old, torn sweater. His cold blue eyes were bitter, his mouth tight-lipped and angry. He wore his black hair long, tied at the back to get it out of his way, and drops of rain glittered in the dark mane. He looked to be in his about ten older than she
     
    edly was, and he stared at her out of those wintry eyes, an angry, beautiful man. Despite his animosity she felt a stirring inside her, a stirring she knew she hadn’t felt for many men. She knew who he had to be. But she wasn’t ready to accept the disturbing truth.
    “So you’re back,” he said, echoing the words of Willy.
    “I never thought my wife would care to grace this—now what did you call it?—this miserable old pile of stone again.”
    “Your wife?” Molly echoed faintly. The word was spoken—there was no way she could avoid it any longer.
    “My wife,” he said, his voice like ice, cold and hard. He moved closer to her with a totally unconscious grace that was somehow sinuous and unnerving at the same time.
    “I
    gather you didn’t save me the trouble and get a quickie divorce during your. vacation. “
    He was quite close to her by now, towering over her, and she