Montana Creeds: Dylan. Linda Miller Lael

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Kristy’?” Dylan asked, knowing he shouldn’t, but too worried to resist. When Cassie worried about people, they tended to meet with severe and immediate problems.

      “She could use a friend, that’s all,” Cassie mused.

      It wasn’t all, of course.

      Dylan set the soda can aside with a thump. He’d have tossed it, but Cassie recycled. “What’s going on?” he demanded quietly. “You didn’t have one of your dreams.?”

      “No,” Cassie said. “I just know these things.” She brightened. “Call it an old Indian trick.”

      “Cassie,” Dylan pressed. “Tell me.”

      “Go see her,” Cassie replied, looking up into his face. “She’s alone, at her place. I’ll look after Bonnie, give her a bath and supper and put her to bed.”

      “I can’t just show up on her doorstep, Cassie. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, my foster grandmother sent me’?”

      “You’ll think of something.”

      “I was planning on taking Bonnie out to the ranch.”

      “That can wait, Dylan. I’m not sure Kristy can.”

      “She’ll probably slam the door in my face.”

      “You’re a big boy. Deal.”

      Dylan sighed. He’d never taken Cassie’s so-called psychic abilities very seriously—she’d as much as admitted that she told her Tarot clients whatever she thought they wanted to hear—but there were times when her instincts struck too close to the bone for comfort.

      He bent, kissed the top of Bonnie’s head and left.

      Ten minutes later, he was knocking at Kristy’s door, still wondering what the hell he was going to say to explain being there in the first place.

      She was wearing old pants, a man’s shirt and a lot of yellow paint when she opened the door.

      And she’d been crying. Her eyes were puffy and her nostrils were red around the edges. Seeing Kristy in tears was devastating, but at least he wasn’t the cause of them this time—as far as he knew.

      “Everything okay?” Dylan asked, stricken. Just call him the Wordmeister, he thought glumly. He’d always been able to talk his way into—or out of—any situation—unless that situation involved Kristy Madison.

      “No,” she said. Her voice shook a little. Then she launched herself at him, wrapped both arms around his neck. “No!”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      DEAR GOD.

      It should have been against the law to smell the way Kristy did—a tantalizing combination of rich grass after a heavy spring rain, leaves burning in autumn, talcum powder of some kind and paint thinner. For a precious moment, Dylan simply held her against him, breathed her in, closing his eyes tightly against the rush of emotion he felt.

      Like most precious moments, that one was brief.

      Kristy quickly bristled in his arms, pulled back, raised her chin and sniffled. The vulnerability in her cornflower-blue eyes turned to defiance.

      “I apologize,” she said stiffly, as though he were a stranger she’d collided with in a crowded airport, not the first man who had ever made love to her. “I’ve just been under a little stress lately and—”

      Dylan drew a long breath, let it out in a sigh as he closed Kristy’s front door behind him and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Kristy,” he said. “This is me. Dylan. Something’s up with you, or you wouldn’t have practically tackled me on the threshold.”

      Kristy gave an answering sigh, and her usually straight shoulders sagged in a way that tugged at a tender place in Dylan’s heart. “Come in,” she said, with about the same level of enthusiasm she might have shown a visiting terrorist wearing a suit of dynamite.

      Dylan saw no reason to point out that he was already in—he simply followed Kristy through the house, expecting to wind up in the kitchen. When folks around the Springs had something to discuss, or just wanted to jaw awhile, they tended to congregate at the table, with the coffeepot and the refrigerator close at hand.

      He’d visited the huge Victorian once or twice, with his dad, when Jake stopped by to collect an overdue paycheck from old man Turlow. The place had seemed dark and oppressive to him then, but Kristy had brightened it up considerably, with lace curtains and lots of pale yellow walls. The floors were gleaming oak, probably sanded to bare wood and then refinished.

      That, too, would be Kristy’s doing.

      She liked a lot of light and space—used to dream of living in the Turlow house one day.

      It only went to show that some dreams came true, anyway.

      A giant folding ladder stood just inside the kitchen doorway—Kristy ducked around it, Dylan walked between its runged legs.

      “Coffee?” she asked. He saw the struggle in her face, but eventually, she couldn’t keep herself from adding, “You shouldn’t walk under ladders.”

      “That’s a stupid superstition,” Dylan countered, with a twinkle. “And, yes, please, ma’am, I would like some coffee.”

      “I wasn’t referring to the superstition,” Kristy insisted loftily, standing on her toes to fetch two mismatched mugs down from a cupboard. “Things could fall on your head, like a bucket of paint.”

      “Still waiting for the sky to come crashing down, I see.” Dylan grinned, but tension twisted inside him like a screw turned too tight. He regretted those flippant words as soon as he saw them register in Kristy’s face. Behind that flimsy facade of bravery, she was crumbling.

      Perhaps the sky was falling.

      “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong,” he persisted, “or do I have to look it up on the Internet?”

      A flush rose in her face. She poured coffee, carried the two cups to the table, and pulled back a chair with a practiced motion of one foot. “For Pete’s sake,” she said irritably, “sit down.”

      “Not until you do,” Dylan replied. “I’m a gentleman.”

      Kristy snorted at that, dropped into her chair. Added insult to injury by rolling her eyes once, for good measure.

      Dylan took the chair next to hers, idly stroked the big white cat that immediately jumped into his lap.

      “Sheriff Book was here a while ago,” Kristy said, elbow propped on the tabletop, her chin resting forlornly in her hand.

      “Go on,” Dylan said.

      Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “He thinks my father may have—may have killed someone.”

      Stunned, Dylan set down the mug he’d just picked up and stared at Kristy, waiting for the punch line. СКАЧАТЬ