For Jessie's Sake. Kate Welsh

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СКАЧАТЬ sexy abs. And passion had exploded between them…

      Abby sprang up in bed. The storm raged outside her snug tower lair, but she was soaked to the skin. Soaked in sweat. She’d gone back to where she’d sworn she’d never go.

      And all because Colin McCarthy was under her roof.

      Colin sat in the chair by the window watching Jessie sleep. He didn’t have that luxury. Seeing Abby again had brought back memories of the painful series of incidents that had been a huge turning point in his life.

      And what about her life?

      She seemed so very different. Yet with Jessie, she was as sweet and kind as he remembered her being with his younger sisters. Abby had always worn a smile. Her eyes had always shone with joy. She’d been a little impish, with a verve for life that had always made him pause and see the enjoyment in the simplest things when she was around the McCarthy house— which was often.

      It was the new coolness in her eyes that shocked him, almost as much as her presence at the B and B. The last time he’d seen those eyes they’d been filled with hurt and tears. He closed his own now, trying to forget what had caused the tears, and the price he’d been forced to pay for them the next day.

      When that didn’t work, he realized he needed to do something he’d been avoiding since his decision to return to Hopetown. He needed to reexamine his part in the mess that had followed those stolen moments with Abby in his bed. Colin forced himself to examine how he’d handled his mistake.

      The moment his mind had cleared of the effect of maybe one too many beers and Abby’s scent, the consequences of what they’d done had crashed in on him like a ten-ton weight.

      Colin had felt panic rise just as he had the out-of-control desire not long before. She was still a kid who didn’t seem to see the mess they could have caused. First, he hadn’t used protection and she’d clearly been a virgin. They both had years of school left. And he’d also belatedly remembered he’d been lying with her naked in his arms and his room had barely been more than a converted porch off his parent’s kitchen!

      When Harley Bryant walked into the kitchen, he’d jumped up and tossed his clothes on, ordering Abby to do the same. Harley Bryant had had the biggest mouth in two counties. Colin had stepped into the kitchen pulling the door shut behind him, assuming Abby would stay hidden, but she hadn’t. Harley had figured out what had happened, so Colin denied it. But he’d done it clumsily. If Abby had so much as touched him, she would have confirmed Harley’s suspicions and the whole town would’ve known. So the best he could do was to sneer that she was so young that her having made a pass at him was a joke. Then he’d coldly sent her off to bed.

      God, he’d been such a damned clod. He should have found a better way to disarm the situation than being so cruel to her. And he had been cruel. In trying to protect her, he’d hurt her more than gossip ever could have.

      Lightning lit the sky outside the tall window in the front room at Cliff Walk at the same moment thunder cracked and literally rattled the windowpanes. Jessie sat up and screamed before Colin could make it to the bed. “It’s okay, honey. Daddy’s here.”

      He settled on the bed facing her and Jessie covered her ears as another clap rolled overhead. “It’s so loud. I don’t like it.”

      Colin scooped her up into his lap and snuggled her head under his chin. “It always helps me to remember that thunder can’t hurt anyone. It’s just the clouds banging together.”

      Jessie yawned expansively. “Well, I wish they’d stop it.”

      “Me, too,” he admitted. He turned so his back was against the headboard, still cuddling Jessie to his chest. He rubbed her back, trying to soothe her fears. “Try to sleep. Daddy’ll hold you till the storm passes, and tomorrow we’ll get started on our house. Once the repairs are done, you can help me pick the colors of the rooms.” He smiled in the dark. “You’re going to like it here. I promise.”

      Jessie yawned. “Brown like my magic rock. I want the house to match my rock,” she told him then dropped off to sleep. He smiled a little sadly remembering when, like Jessie, he’d thought a daddy could fix anything. But he knew that, like his father before him, there were a lot of things he and Jessie’s “magic rock” couldn’t fix.

      He’d picked up the rock she treasured on the morning he’d left Torthúil—all but run out of town on a rail by James Hopewell. He’d kept it to remind him of the home he’d lost so he’d never stop fighting to be as rich and powerful as the man who’d forced him to leave. That day he hadn’t been sure he’d ever see Torthúil again. He’d given the rock to Jessie when he’d known they would be returning because the closer the move to Pennsylvania got, the more anxious she’d grown of the changes to come.

      And it was the things neither he nor the “magic rock” could fix—his own guilt and his anger at Abby—that were keeping him awake.

      As he sat there nine years later, holding Jessie in his arms, revisiting what had happened that morning so long ago, things looked different. James Hopewell’s anger toward Colin looked different. Wouldn’t Colin go to nearly any length to protect Jessie? So, okay, maybe Hopewell showing up at Torthúil the next day was understandable. He’d still been shepherding two of his daughters through their teenage years, so having expected Colin’s parents to be involved in the meeting made sense. As was telling Colin to get out of town, to stay out so he and Abby had no further contact. That, too, fell in the forgivable range.

      But the rest of what Hopewell had done was still simply unforgivable and inexcusable. He had threatened to see to it that the local bank foreclosed on the McCarthy’s farm if Colin didn’t agree to all his demands. Because their loan had been slightly delinquent and because Hopewell was powerful enough to make good on the threat, Colin had known it was a real possibility. And if Abby had turned up pregnant, nothing would have saved his family from her father’s wrath.

      Then later that summer Hopewell had crossed the line into cruelty by refusing to allow Colin to return to Hopetown for his younger sister’s funeral.

      Some would say Hopewell had done him a favor, and Colin acknowledged that it was probably true. He’d made Colin so angry that he’d worked like a Trojan to achieve the success he’d desired. But Abby had betrayed him by telling her father what had happened.

      He hadn’t believed she’d gone to her father, had nearly denied the truth until Hopewell went on to explain that he’d met Abby when she’d come in that morning. She’d been crying, he said, so he’d comforted her, then pressed her for the truth until she confessed everything. Nothing would have convinced Colin to betray Abby but, he sighed, she had been young. Immature. Now that he’d seen her all grown- up, that fact was pretty hard to ignore, and harder to hold against her.

      But there was still Tracy’s death and the belief he’d long harbored in his heart, that Abby had somehow played a part in his sister’s death. How else would Tracy have met the rich kid who’d been drunk behind the wheel of the boat the day she was killed? He’d no doubt been a member of the privileged crowd the Hopewells hung around with.

      Well, James Hopewell was dead now. And that left Colin with a problem. What did he do with not just his anger toward Hopewell for his ill treatment but with this powerful attraction to the man’s daughter?

      Chapter Three

      Abby peeked around the kitchen door into Cliff Walk’s dining room. Her ace chef, Genevieve Richards, had prepared the meals each guest had requested СКАЧАТЬ