An Order of Protection by Kathleen Creighton

Author:Kathleen Creighton [Creighton, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2004-09-21T05:00:00+00:00

The next thing he knew, he was waking up to a strange rattling sound. A second or two later, having identified the sound as his cell phone jumping around on the tabletop beside the bed, he groped for it, found the “on” button and mashed it, then brought it to his ear as he rolled onto his back and muttered a groggy, “Yeah…”

“Scotty? I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, Beth, that’s okay, I’ve been up,” he lied, eyes closed and breathing deeply and silently through his nose. There was an indentation in the pillow next to his head that still smelled, faintly, of old roses. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

“Well, I’m sorry if I did, but I don’t like to bother you at work, and I needed to ask you…”

“I said, it’s okay. What is it?”

“Ryan being grounded…you know Little League practice starts today. Does that include—”

“No, Beth, he can go to practice.” Not wanting to hurt her feelings, he didn’t tell her Ryan would likely consider skipping baseball practice more of a reward than a punishment.

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and got them open just in time to see Joy coming through the door with a coffee mug in each hand. Her hair was wet and she was wearing a man’s bathrobe eight sizes too big for her, and at the sight of her, pleasure squirted through him like adrenaline, so that he was instantly awake, every nerve and sense humming in high gear. The smile on her face alone was ten times more effective than caffeine.

“Well, you’re gonna have to tell him that, then, because he won’t listen to me. Scotty, I really wish you’d talked to me before you went and grounded him for a whole month. You know, I do have some things comin’ up I just can’t postpone, and I was countin’ on Ryan sleepin’ over at—”

“Well, I’m sure we can work something out. Listen, I’m kind of in the middle of something—”

Joy, in the process of setting the coffee down on the bedside table, threw him a frown and a quick head-shake, forming the word No, with her mouth.

“Well, Scotty, I’m sorry to be a bother, but I really need to talk to you about something. Remember Sybil, my friend from school? Well, I saw her at the reunion, and she’s—”

“Beth, I’m gonna have to call you back in a little bit, okay?” He disconnected the phone and caught hold of Joy’s hand just as she was turning to leave. “Hey, where you off to?”

“I thought you might want some privacy.”

“Nah, that was just my ex-wife. She usually calls about this time. It’s never anything important. I’ll call her back later.”

“You don’t need to do that on my account.” She disengaged her hand from his and folded her arms across the overlapping halves of the giant robe.

“Well, I do on mine,” he said, swinging his legs around and remembering to pull the blankets across his lap as he sat up. All the

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