Erin's Way. Laura Browning

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the door had already closed. Her guard was up and her chin jutting. “You’re hurt.” Without waiting, he swung her into his arms and carried her back across the pasture. Somehow, he managed to get her up the bank without landing either of them in the mud. After ripping open the back door of the still running truck, he set her in the warm interior. Erin’s face was pale and her eyes big and dark in the dim light.

      “Stay here!” he ordered. His face felt tense, his brows drawn tightly together. “We have to fix the fence, then I’ll run you and Stoner back to his truck.”

      Erin stared at him. As if the life had suddenly drained from her, she closed her eyes. She leaned her head back against the seat, grimacing in pain. “Okay,” she muttered tonelessly.

      “Erin!” Sam grasped her shoulder, thinking of last fall when she’d bolted as soon as he’d left her alone at Richardson Homestead after giving her a ride home. “You will stay, right?”

      For a second he saw something hot and intense in her gaze, but she looked away and the moment was gone. “Yes. I have to. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

      He ignored that remark for now. In his experience, Erin appeared and disappeared wherever and whenever she felt like, as long as it was nowhere near him. He tamped down the ache in his chest that thought brought with it. The more drama she could create with her abrupt arrivals and departures, the better. Sam slammed the door and yanked the spool of wire and the temporary posts out of the pickup bed. He turned as Carter and Stoner reached the road.

      “Let’s get this fence up,” he growled. “We’ll run a couple of strands and use battens between the posts that are still up. That should hold until morning when it will have to come down anyway in order to get the car out.” He looked at Stoner, “I guess you had no idea she was coming?”

      Stoner grunted an affirmation. “When have we ever had any idea what Erin planned? Hell, she came out of the womb feet first just to be different.”

      Carter, who had only been with Richardson Homestead for the last four years asked, “That young woman is your daughter, sir? I thought you had only Evan and Tabby.”

      Stoner sighed, then explained, “Erin is Evan’s younger sister. Tabby is their younger half sister. I’d better call Catherine and prepare her. No. On second thought, I don’t want to break this to her over the phone.”

      Sam turned away with a frown and began anchoring the first strand of barbwire. In his mind, he saw again the brave little nine-year-old he’d met so long ago and the way she’d stood up to her father’s chewing out even with the broken arm that had to have hurt like hell. Almost eighteen years later and nothing seemed to have changed. To Stoner, Erin was still a problem to be handled and hidden.

      Sam’s mouth tightened. He wanted to punch Stoner, or at the very least knock some sense into the man. Erin wasn’t a problem. She was Stoner’s daughter. Sam hammered the wire staple with enough force to anchor it in one swing. He was just as mad at himself as he was at Stoner. He had treated her the same way the last time she’d shown up. For a few minutes last fall, as he took her back to her parents’ house, he’d gotten a glimpse through the attitude and seen the loneliness she so successfully hid. Something inside him had responded immediately, just as he’d always responded to her, but there’d been no chance to explore it before she had once again fled. Now she was back, and he had to wonder why.

      Sam hammered the last fence staple in place, then hefted his wire and fence tools. “Thanks, gentlemen. That should hold everything until morning.”

      “No problem,” Stoner’s foreman replied. “’Night.”

      Carter climbed back into his truck, started the engine, and turned around, saluting Stoner and Sam as he drove back down the road to the caretaker’s house where he and his young wife lived. Sam and Stoner walked side-by-side back to the truck without saying a word. Sam tossed the fence tools and the wire into the bed before opening the back door to check on Erin.

      She was still there. Sam refused to examine why it mattered so much to him. His heart beat in a heavier rhythm as he took stock of her. She was curled into a ball on the back seat, her shapely little jean clad derriere pointed right at him. He pulled his glove off and checked her pulse. Steadier than his, that was for sure. He frowned when she didn’t stir and looked across the seat to Stoner.

      “She’s always been a heavy sleeper,” he said.

      Stoner climbed in the passenger side in back and sat next to his daughter. It surprised Sam, but then Stoner was a changed man, so perhaps things would be different for Erin this time. Sam hoped so. The thought made his gut unknot a hitch.

      “Erin, honey!” Stoner said. “Sit up. Let’s see that head.”

      She struggled to open her eyes, blinking owlishly. Her brow furrowed as her glance went from side to side as though not sure where she was. When she finally focused on him, he saw no recognition in their depths. Sam wasn’t sure if it was from the pot, the injury, or sheer exhaustion. She looked like hell.

      “Think she needs to go to the hospital?” Sam asked.

      Stoner shot him a meaningful look. “Your house is closer. Can we take her there for now? I still have to tell Catherine. It will be enough of a shock for her that Erin’s here, but I hate to show up with her in this shape.” Stoner’s expression pleaded, and that made Sam very uncomfortable. Stoner Richardson didn’t beg for anything.

      Sam frowned as he looked at Erin. No hospital—because she didn’t need it or because Stoner didn’t want the embarrassment? Sam clenched his jaw, trying to leave his personal feelings out of it.

      The cut wasn’t bad. It looked more like a friction burn, probably from the airbag, so chances were she didn’t have a concussion.

      “She’s your daughter, Stoner.”

      “You think I don’t know that? You think this is something new? It’s happened so often before, Sam, all through high school. We tried rehab…shit!” Stoner’s jaw worked as he stared out the window, his fist clenching and unclenching.

      Sam sighed. Stoner’s struggle to handle Erin’s abrupt and unexpected appearance was obvious, and it made Sam’s heart ache. As much as he knew having anything to do with Erin would be like volunteering to step into a snake pit, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d never been able to when it came to anything having to do with her.

      “Yeah. Stay here,” he finally told Stoner. “I’ll see if she has a suitcase.”

      Sprinting back to the car, he found a small purse and a duffel bag in the trunk. Not many clothes if she planned to stay any length of time, but from what he understood, Erin rarely stayed anywhere long. From sporadic e-mails to her parents, they knew she’d bounced from job to job in the islands…even working as a hostess at a topless club for a while. Sam slammed the trunk with unnecessary force.

      Better not to go there. Thinking about her without clothes would only lead to more trouble than he wanted.

      When they reached the farmhouse, Sam carried her in and laid her on the couch in his den. The wood stove still sent out waves of heat. Stoner was right behind him with her purse and her bag. Seeing Erin in his house brought back memories Sam didn’t want to think about…erotic memories he’d worked hard to put behind him with an astounding lack of success and a barn-full of guilt. She could stay for one night. That was it. Then she had to go. Erin in his house was more temptation than Sam could handle.

СКАЧАТЬ