Tidings of Joy and Heart of the Family by Margaret Daley

Author:Margaret Daley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tanya, the time spent with you and Crystal has been wonderful. I have left you this month’s rent as my notice. May you find a man who one day deserves your goodness. Love, Chance.

Love, Chance. Did that mean he loved her? Was that just a casual closing to his note that really meant nothing? Frustration at no answers churned in her stomach.

She crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it across the room. Anger consumed her. How dare he leave without saying goodbye in person! How dare— Then she remembered the last time she had seen him, yesterday when confusion reigned in her. She couldn’t blame him. She had basically kicked him out of her house.

She collapsed onto a chair and buried her face in her palms. She’d made a mess of the situation. And now Chance was gone. She had no idea where he was, at least not until the trial started next week.

* * *

Chance stood at the window of his hotel room, glimpsing the Ohio River in the distance. The gray day reflected his mood. The first day of the trial had gone smoothly with the selection of the jurors in the morning and the opening remarks in the afternoon. He’d held up, even through the attorneys’ remarks to the jury, mostly by shutting down his emotions totally and staring a hole in the back of the chair in front of him. He’d barely gotten out of there before all his feelings had inundated him.

Gripping the window ledge, he leaned his forehead against the cold pane. Icy fingers spread through him, cooling the heat of his anger. The man who had destroyed his life had sat next to his lawyer, smug, unaffected by the trial.

Lord, I can’t do this!

Even though the trial wasn’t expected to last long, he didn’t know how he was going to make it through all the testimony day in and day out. Flashes of his past blinked in and out of his mind—finding his family murdered, being charged with those murders, the years spent in prison knowing he was innocent and the real killer was walking free, something he never thought he would do again.

God, help me! I have to do this much for Ruth and Haley, see this trial through to the end. I owe them that.

A knock sounded at the door. He spun around and stared at it as though he hadn’t really heard anything.

Another rap filled the silence.

As though his legs had a will of their own, they carried him across the room. He reached for the handle in slow motion and pulled the door open. When he saw Tanya before him, he nearly fell apart. Her inner beauty shone from her eyes, her smile of greeting melting the icy shroud that blanketed him.

Time faded away as he stared at her here in the hallway outside his hotel room, not in Sweetwater where she belonged.

Finally one of her delicate brows rose. “Can I come in?”

“How did you find me?”

“Nick helped me.

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