Harlequin Love Inspired July 2017 Box Set 1 of 2 by Rebecca Kertz Arlene James & Patricia Johns

Author:Rebecca Kertz, Arlene James & Patricia Johns
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488018558
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Published: 2017-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

He actually considered going to church the next day. Sundays were Stark’s one day to sleep in, and he didn’t set an alarm. Yet, he’d woken in plenty of time to make the morning service, had he chosen to do so. What had surprised him most was that he’d kind of wanted to go. He kept imagining how pleased Meri would be if he showed up.

Her whole face would brighten, and she’d smile in that beautiful way that made him want to…

Oh, there he went again, thinking of things he had no business thinking. She would not welcome such thoughts, not from any man, especially him. Besides, he had no intention of following through. The very last thing either of them needed in their lives was romance. That’s what made this arrangement work.

Wasn’t it?

So why had she taken his hand in the diner yesterday? Come to think of it, why had she never shied away from him except for the one time he’d surprised her? Was he wrong about what had happened to her? He thought back, recalling all she’d said on the subject. Several things stood out.

If it hadn’t been me that night, it would have been some other woman… He told me to be quiet and let him do what he wanted and he wouldn’t hurt me, but I screamed and struggled, so he stabbed me… I wasn’t going to let him take anything more than I had to.

A chill shivered through Stark. How easily she could have been killed! If not for that necklace she’d been wearing she could so easily have died. It was bad enough that she had been assaulted, very likely raped.

He closed his eyes, hurting for her. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve to live with fear and distrust now or the kind of loneliness that he sometimes sensed in her. He wanted less trauma and more well-being for her, for every woman. But every woman did not fall into his orbit. This one did. It was natural that he should feel a tendency to take care of her.

Wasn’t it?

Recalling that a short time ago he’d considered her trauma a good reason to hire her, he felt a curling shame, which gave him more reason for prayer. As if a dam had burst, he found himself suddenly in conversation with the God he had ignored—if not railed against—for four long years now. At the end of it, he felt he could stand a little straighter, perhaps taller, than he had since his wife and daughter had died, and for once he didn’t hate Sunday quite so much.

He watched a movie that he’d downloaded onto his computer, napped, ate lunch and dinner out of his own private stash of groceries there in the clinic, caught up on his reading and packed his kit for the next day’s appointments. When Meredith came in the next morning, he surprised them both by greeting her with a brief hug.

She’d brought that delicious oatmeal for breakfast again.

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