Beverly Barton by Emily; The Stranger

Author:Emily; The Stranger
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-17T20:56:47+00:00

* * *

"He's coming this way," Nikki said, shading her eyes with her hand. "I'm going inside to fix some iced tea."

"No, Nikki, don't go. Don't leave me alone with him." Emily clutched the charcoal pencil in her hand.

"It's taken him a week to build up enough courage to come over and talk to you. You've been waiting for this. You want to hear what he has to say, and neither of you need me around when he says it."

"Yes, I know. It's just that I don't know if I have the courage to see him." Emily laid down her sketch pad and pencil on the wicker table, placed her hands in her lap and waited for Mitch. Nikki hurried along the porch toward the back of the house.

She sat quietly, listening to the waves roll into shore, listening to the soft wind blowing and to the sound of her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. What would he say to her? How would she respond? She had long since made her peace with the hatred she'd felt for the unknown man, M. R. Hayden, but there was no peace between her and Mitch. There never could be as long as they didn't talk to each other.

Mitch put his foot on the bottom step, looked up at Emily and waited for some sign from her. She stared at him, her brown eyes filled with sadness.

"May I—"

"Yes," she said.

He couldn't remember a time in his life when he'd been so nervous, so damned scared he'd say or do the wrong thing. This was his one and possibly only chance to make things right with Emily, to plead his case and beg her forgiveness.

Mitch took the steps two at a time, then halted abruptly at the edge of the porch. "How have you been?

Zed told me that the letters and phone calls have stopped."

"For now," Emily said.

"I'm glad Nikki is staying with you."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"I know you've been keeping an eye on us, and that Mr. Banning is doing what he can to help, as a favor to you. He—he even offered to hire a bodyguard for me, but I think that's going a bit too far, don't you?"

She couldn't bring herself to look directly at Mitch; instead she stared at his feet.

Mitch couldn't stop staring at Emily, at her downcast eyes, at her soft, pink lips, at the fall of dark hair curling out from underneath the straw hat. "If things escalate … if this guy becomes violent again … a bodyguard might not be a bad idea."

"If things worsen, I'll probably move back toMobile." Emily wrung her hands. "I was always safe when I lived with Uncle Fowler. He protected me from the world. But I wanted to start living again, to get out on my own." She laughed, the sound a mockery of the real thing. "Just look what's happened to me."

Mitch hadn't been overly impressed with Fowler Jordan upon his brief meeting with him, but he didn't doubt the man's devotion to Emily.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.