In The Stranger's Arms. Pamela Toth

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СКАЧАТЬ long will they be here?” he asked with a longing glance at the cabin he’d leased over the Internet and where he’d planned on sleeping tonight. A kid’s tricycle was parked in the driveway next to a pair of tiny sneakers.

      Jeez, maybe he could rent a motel room for a few days.

      “Until my sister gets on her feet or that no-good husband of hers sweet-talks her into going back to him.” Wallingford lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I’m betting on the latter. Carol’s too damned lazy to support herself.”

      His dry chuckle made Wade want to haul him up by his greasy collar and shake him. It was probably a good thing Wade didn’t have the energy left for anything that strenuous.

      “Good luck finding a room anywhere around here, what with the Arts Festival this weekend.” Wallingford hitched up his sagging pants. “Busiest damn time of year, and I’m not collecting a dime in rent,” he added morosely.

      Wade couldn’t scare up a lick of sympathy for the little toad’s plight. All he wanted was to shower off the travel dust, fall into bed and sleep for fifteen hours. “Life isn’t fair,” he drawled.

      Suddenly he remembered the folded paper in his shirt pocket and his mood brightened. “Well, I’m sorry about your sister,” he said, fishing it out, “but you faxed me a signed copy of the lease. I sent back a deposit.”

      Wallingford’s smile turned crafty. “Read the fine print,” he replied around the toothpick as he jabbed a finger at the form. “Like I already said, it’s a family emergency.”

      Wade skimmed the lease. When he reached the cancellation clause at the bottom, he swore under his breath.

      It was uncharacteristic for him to ignore such important details, but he wasn’t used to dealing with such an annihilating defeat as he’d recently experienced. All he had wanted when he’d left California was to put the ruins of everything for which he had worked so hard behind him. Apparently he was paying the price for his haste.

      “Look, I’m not fussy.” The desperation and the resignation he could hear in his own voice made him wince. “Can’t you find me somewhere to bunk, at least for tonight?”

      Maybe Wallingford had a couch that pulled out or a damned lounge cushion on his back porch that Wade could borrow. At six-two, he was too damned tall to sleep in his car.

      “You can deduct it from what you owe me,” he added. Had Wallingford hoped Wade might forget about the healthy deposit he’d paid? Not a chance.

      The other man spread his hands in a gesture of helpless regret. “I’d put you up in the spare room for nothing, I swear, but my daughter’s home from Wazoo, over in Pullman.” He cleared his throat nervously. “Concerning the refund of your deposit—”

      “I know,” Wade cut in, smothering a yawn. “Read the fine print. Now you read my fine print and hand it over.”

      As soon as Wallingford pulled out his wallet and handed over a stack of bills, Wade jammed them and the useless rental agreement back into his pocket. He stalked back to his car, wondering if he should buy a sleeping bag and camp on the beach.

      He was about to open his car door when Wallingford called out to him. “There’s a garage apartment behind one of those old Victorians on Cedar, a couple of blocks over. I didn’t hear of it being rented out.” He pointed in the direction of a stand of tall firs. “The house is blue with purple trim and a big weeping willow tree in the front yard. You can’t miss it.”

      Wade felt a twinge of hope. “Have you got the address?”

      By the time Pauline had closed up her needlework shop on Harbor Avenue and driven back up the bluff to her house, her earlier anxiety had turned to dull resignation. She had no choice but to have the damage repaired as soon as Steve was available, no matter what the ultimate hit on her precious nest egg.

      Mayfield Manor had been in her family for three generations before she and her younger sister had inherited it. Even though Lily had obviously abandoned the family home as well as her only living relative, Pauline felt a deep obligation to maintain it. In addition to her strong affection for the old house, she still clung to her dream of someday replacing her female boarders with a family of her own.

      When she came around the corner of her street, she saw the bright-blue tarp covering the corner of the garage roof. Except for some sawdust and a few drag marks in the gravel of her driveway, all signs of the fallen limb were gone.

      As soon as she emerged from her Honda with her purse and her laptop, a dusty black car with out-of-state plates pulled into the driveway behind her. Her elderly boarder, Dolly Langley, was perched in the passenger seat next to an unfamiliar man wearing sunglasses.

      As Pauline waited, he got out from behind the wheel, moving with surprising stiffness for someone with such an athletic build. Nodding to Pauline, he circled the car and opened Dolly’s door. As spry as a little white-headed bird, she hopped out, holding on to his hand.

      “Pauline, wait till I tell you what happened,” she chirped in the British accent that all her years on this side of the pond had failed to eradicate. “I found this nice young man on my way home from the market.”

      Her satisfied smile stopped Pauline cold. Widowed a decade before, Dolly insisted that a woman of Pauline’s age could be neither happy nor complete without a man to share her life. Had Dolly brought him home for her, in the same way a cat might offer a dead mouse?

      “I appreciate the endorsement,” the stranger said in a husky voice as he bowed over Dolly’s hand, “especially from a lady as lovely as you.”

      Dolly’s wrinkled cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink, and she patted her tightly permed hair with her free hand while Pauline studied him with mixed wariness and curiosity. His black hair was cut short above his lean face. Even dressed as he was in a blue chambray shirt and jeans, stubble darkening his angular jaw, he would certainly be called a prize catch by most women.

      Still clinging to his hand, Dolly tugged him forward, her eyes twinkling behind her trifocals. “Come and meet my landlady. She’s the one I told you about.”

      Oh, Lord. Pauline’s mind reeled at the possibilities her chatty boarder could have disclosed.

      Maintaining an air of quiet dignity might have been easier if Pauline’s blouse hadn’t been streaked with dust from digging through freight, if her makeup hadn’t completely worn off and her hair hadn’t been restyled by the breeze blowing through her open car windows on her drive home.

      As the man slipped off his sunglasses and tucked them into his pocket, she met his gaze squarely. Without the tinted lenses, his eyes were a startling shade of silver that contrasted sharply with his dark lashes. The intensity of his expression sent a shiver of awareness through Pauline as unwelcome as it was startling.

      “This is Wade Garrett, fresh from San Francisco,” Dolly said, releasing his hand. “Wade, Pauline Mayfield, my landlady.”

      Despite the polite smile that transformed his expression from intimidating to innocuous, Pauline hesitated before offering her hand.

      She was being silly. As a member of the Waterfront Business Association and a candidate for the Crescent Cove city council, she had learned to cloak her shyness. Even so, his firm grip sent a jolt of reaction up her arm. СКАЧАТЬ