Strawberry Hill by Catherine Anderson

Author:Catherine Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-12-30T16:00:00+00:00

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Slade swallowed back the denial that tried to spring to his lips. He wanted to yell, “I never slept with that girl!” But, hey, she’d already buried that hatchet, and it would be madness for him to try to defend himself again. She hadn’t believed him then, and she wouldn’t now. At the time, he’d believed that Vickie would come to her senses and realize he would never lie to her about something so serious. They’d been painfully honest with each other about everything else. He’d shared his deepest and darkest secrets with her, and she had shared hers with him. He’d confessed to her his wrongdoings of the past, and she had confessed hers. They’d laughed together and cried together. The night that his beloved old dog died, he’d wept in her arms like a child, and she’d held him as spasms of grief rocked his whole body. There had been no pretense between them. No holding back parts of themselves. She’d been his everything, and until she’d thrown her engagement ring at his feet, he’d believed he was her everything, too.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “Some things never change. After all this time, she’s still pissed because she thinks I screwed April Pierce.” He shifted the cans in his arms to get a better hold before he followed Vickie from the tent. Then he nearly did a face-plant because he tripped over Pistol, who had decided to lie just outside the tent flap. As he staggered around in the dark to catch his balance, he grumbled, “I didn’t even like April. She was a twit then, she’s still a twit now, and she’ll always be a twit. The least Vickie could do is give me credit for having halfway decent taste.”

Slade headed toward the area where they normally built the central fire. He found Rex and Dale repairing the rock ring that they’d left intact last autumn when they broke camp. John and another man were hauling over armloads of firewood, which Wyatt had cut, split, and stacked when he’d been on the mountain alone a few days back.

“Glad you boys are on top of this.” Slade deposited the cans of chili on the ground near the rocks. “It’s going to get nippy tonight, and we don’t have the tin-can stoves set up in any of the tents yet. We can warm ourselves toasty by the fire before we head for our bedrolls.”

Using his fingers, Rex dug a shallow depression in the dirt to seat a rock. Apparently Pistol thought that looked like fun, because he began to dig nearby, making the men chuckle. “We might should get a tin-can stove set up in the lady’s tent, though, boss,” Rex mused aloud. “Along about midnight, it’ll be cold enough to frost our whiskers. We can handle it, but she’s not as tough as we are.”

Slade could have argued that point. Vickie looked delicate, but she could rough it with the best of them.

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