Groom on the Loose (Mills & Boon Vintage Cherish) by Christine Scott

Author:Christine Scott [Scott, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Women, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, General, Historical
ISBN: 9781472069023
Google: fUnKAQAAQBAJ
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2013-11-27T18:30:00+00:00

Guiltily Cassie stared after him long after he’d left. His stride had quickened as he’d disappeared around the corner to the staircase.

She didn’t blame him for being in a hurry to leave.

Nothing she did seemed to be right, at least as far as Greg was concerned. He’d merely offered a helping hand with Jessica. Yet, the way she’d reacted, he might as well have been offering to take on a lifetime of dependency…hers and Jessica’s.

“Jessica, what’s the matter with me?” She sighed, sinking into the chair beside her. “Greg’s been so nice to us. Why can’t I show just a little bit of appreciation?”

She already knew the answer to the question. Acknowledging her gratitude meant having to let down her guard, to trust him, to allow him into her life. And that was something she could not do.

Becoming close to someone, trusting someone led only to disappointment. She’d learned that lesson the hard way…with her own parents.

Cassie stared at the food-stained floor, as bittersweet memories flooded her mind. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, her parents had scored a minus five. They weren’t abusive, not in the physical sense of the word. No, theirs had been a more subtle form of rejection.

They had ignored her.

Business was her father’s excuse. Travel and socializing was her mother’s. Time after time they’d broken one promise or another. When she was five she’d been given a part in the Thanksgiving play. Despite their assurances to the contrary, she was the only pilgrim whose nanny had attended the performance, not her parents. On her thirteenth birthday, the year that had officially marked her passage from childhood to teens, her parents’ gift to her was an announcement of their impending divorce.

After that momentous occasion, she’d seen even less of them.

Jessica kicked her feet, demanding her attention. Cassie looked at the baby and felt a tremor of doubt spread through her body, nearly overwhelming her with its intensity. She’d taken on the responsibility of raising her friend’s child. What if she screwed up? What if, like her own parents, she just wasn’t able to handle the job?

Tears blurred her vision. If that were the case, then she’d doomed Jessica to repeating her own fate…a lifetime filled with disappointment.

“No,” Cassie said, the force of the words startling herself as well as the baby.

Blinking back the tears, unmindful of the sticky fingers and the dirty face, Cassie lifted Jessica from her carrier and held her tight, soothing her fretful cries. Eventually Jessica relaxed in her arms, rubbing a grubby cheek against Cassie’s face.

For the first time that evening, Cassie laughed. She kissed one chubby cheek, which tasted of carrots and plums, then the other.

“I swear, Jessica, I’ll never disappoint you,” she whispered. “You’ll never know what it’s like to be unwanted, or neglected…I promise.”

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