The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies and Loves. Marie Ferrarella
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Название: The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies and Loves
Автор: Marie Ferrarella
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon Spotlight
isbn: 9781408913963
isbn:
“There was,” he concluded. “Or you think there was. Who was it?”
Sara’s heart pounded like a runaway train. She pressed her lips tightly together as if the answer might escape before she could stop it. She had her own questions about the past and its strange connections.
Why hadn’t Marla brought her brother forward all those years ago and had Walter convicted for his crime?
Even though Marla had expressed her fears of the man, obviously for good reason, her silence was something Sara would never understand. Of course, there had been the pregnancy and the twins that belonged to the murderer. That added to the tangle.
“You’re afraid to tell me. Do you think I’ll tell my father and that he’ll murder him, too?” Cade asked with more than a tinge of sardonic amusement in his voice.
“No,” she denied, but her voice quivered, betraying her doubts. “It’s so complicated, so unbelievably complicated,” she murmured, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms and the afghan over her legs as if to hold the tide of misery at bay. She sighed despondently.
He observed her huddled form before speaking. “We’ll sort one thread out at a time.”
“And then?”
“And then we’ll see.”
“I hate it when children are involved,” she told him.
He hesitated. “I heard Stacy tell you she didn’t like visiting her grandfather. She said he didn’t like people.”
“I didn’t encourage her to talk about him,” Sara quickly said.
Cade waved aside her remark. “I don’t think she’ll be surprised or particularly upset by anything that happens to him. He hasn’t earned her affection.”
That struck Sara as the saddest thing of all. Children should have loving grandparents that thought they hung the moon. Her own had died before she was born or before she’d been old enough to remember them. She’d always felt she and Kathleen and the twins had been cheated out of something important because of that.
“I think you should stay out of it,” she said to Cade.
“I can’t. We’re too deeply involved.”
She lifted her head and stared at him. He returned it, his face grim and determined.
“Will you set up a meeting with your brother?” he asked. “And Mark Banning and his brother. Is there anyone else in on this?”
“Rachel knows some of it,” Sara admitted. “She helped me get the town house…” Realizing she might have said too much, Sara let the words trail off.
“Yes, I’d already figured a bit of collusion there.”
“I didn’t plan the rest,” she said in a low voice. “What happened between us, the visit to the ranch and…and everything.”
He stood and paced the deck like a caged beast. “That’s good to know. For a while, I thought maybe you’d faked your response, then I decided you hadn’t. It was too compelling for either of us to pretend.”
“I didn’t expect it. The passion, the terrible need, like lightning inside me.” With an effort, she stopped the futile confession. “It was unwise.”
“But good,” he murmured, so quietly she could hardly hear. “So very, very good.”
They observed each other without speaking for a full minute. Torrents of hunger surged between them like a storm tide caused by an angry god, bent on vengeance.
Sara stood it as long as she could, then she fled inside and locked the door behind her, not to keep him out but to remind herself that she must stay in. His arms were not the safe haven she sought.
There was no safe place, she realized, until the past could be exposed, then decently buried for all time.
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