With Family In Mind (Saddle Falls Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

the intruder, not me.” Deliberately, he bumped her toes right back, wanting to shake up that icy coolness.
    “I am not an intruder,” Rebecca insisted, refusing to back down from him. “And stop looking at me like I just slithered out from under a rock.” Absently, she rubbed her arm again, wondering why his touch had caused such an unusual response in her. It had caused an ache of almost…yearning inside.
    Another foreign feeling, something she’d never encountered before. Because of her past, she’d lived in a deliberately self-imposed exile, never letting anyone near, never trusting anyone enough to let them get close. Especially men. So it was only natural for her to be flustered by this man’s touch.
    Other men had touched her, of course, in a nonsexual way, but something about this man’s touch was purely, blatantly sexual.
    And it totally unnerved her.
    But she didn’t have time to try to figure out why right now. She’d dissect and analyze all of these foreign feelings later, when she was calm and alone and able to see things with a clearer eye.
    She continued to glare at him, anger coloring her words. “You’re the one who made ridiculous assumptions. If you would just let me explain—”
    “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.” He crossed his arms across his formidable chest. “Now, you’ve got exactly five seconds to get your butt off my property before I bounce you out on it.”
    “You wouldn’t dare!” From the look that crossed his face, he would indeed dare, she realized. Rebecca shivered at the cold fury radiating from him. She’d gotten this far, managed a reasonable cover story to get Edmund Barker to hire her. Now she had to find a way around the rather formidable and cantankerous Jake Ryan.
    If she was forced to leave now, she might not get another chance to return, to learn the truth. And she wasn’t about to let that happen. She had way too much at stake.
    She glared at him. “You not only invited me in, Mr. Ryan,” she said coldly, “but may I remind you you also invited me to lunch!” He’d also asked her to make lunch, but that minor detail didn’t seem important at the moment.
    “Yeah, well, consider that invitation rescinded.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “It came before I knew you were a reporter, the lowest form of life known to man.” He felt amomentary stab of guilt when she paled even further. She looked as if someone had whitewashed her face, leaving only the deep blue of those huge, gorgeous eyes to haunt him. He wasn’t going to let that sad, haunting gaze get to him, he decided firmly. He simply wasn’t.
    Annoyed at himself as well as with her, he felt emotions he’d held in far too long bubble over. Losing the tight grip he always kept on his control, Jake stepped even closer. He knew he was crowding her, probably scaring her as well, judging by the look in her eyes, but he didn’t care. Her presence, her occupation, who she was, not to mention his own strong physical reaction to her, seemed to unleash something powerful inside of him: guilt. A reminder of what he’d lost, what they’d all lost. And anger—an anger he’d been too young and frightened to express or deal with at the time, so he’d buried it deep inside of him. It threatened to come spewing out now, raining down all over her. And him.
    After Jesse’s disappearance, the press had come out like vultures, hovering around, following every Ryan, asking question after question, pointing fingers, assessing blame.
    The reporters were merciless, each one competing for the juiciest tidbit, the meatiest headline or sound bite.
    Jake’s family had been all but hunted.
    He glanced at Rebecca.
    And she, and others like her, were the hunters.
    He’d grown to hate them, the reporters who had compounded their grief, minimized their loss and publicly splashed their private pain in newspapers across the state.
    To have to deal with their personal shock,