Read A Bride For Abel Greene for Free Online Page B

talk.”
    His voice sounded smoky and rough as he opened his eyes and looked not at her but over the top of her head.
    Slowly she nodded. Carefully she agreed. “You’re right. We do. But is there a chance I could shower first? I need to work a little stiffness out of my bones, and a shower might just do the trick.”
    A glazed look came over his eyes, and in the moment they met hers she swore he was picturing her in the shower and considering joining her there.
    An instant later his hard scowl was firmly back in place.
    He backed away. “Fine. Shower. Towels are in the cabinet by the sink.”
    Then he turned on his heel and hotfooted it out of the room.
     
    He’d been in tight spots in his life, both before and after he’d opted out of the marines ten years ago. He’d missed the Gulf War, but not the drug war, first as an undercover cop and then later as he’d scrambled for his life for the “Company.” Later still, his belly full of being used, and knowing he, too, was dispensable to the CIA, he’d freelanced for any country who’d had need of his services and the cash to pay for them. It had still been his neck on the line, but calling his own shots ensured he had a fighting chance.
    But never, in all those dark, ugly experiences, had he felt as defenseless as he had two minutes ago facing one small green-eyed woman.
    He jabbed at the fire with a poker, thinking that war, whether fought on a battlefield or on back streets, seedy bars or jungle undergrowth, was never personal. War was a job. Someone tried to kill you. You tried not to let them. What he’d felt when he’d held Mackenzie Kincaid in his arms with those soulful eyes trained on his was as personal as it got.
    Last night he’d had one hell of a personal struggle. After the boy had settled down in the loft, he’d sat by the fire, gauging the strength of the wind and the force of the front as ice-laced snow peppered the window panes. He’d watched, not entirely surprised, when Nashata rose from her nest by the fire, tiptoed with a soft click of her toenails up the loft stairs and settled with a whisper of goose down on the sleeping bag by the boy.
    Nashata, too, had sensed the need in the troubled kid. Her reaction had been instinctive, as elemental as that of a kindred soul and less removed from human emotion than most humans would feel comfortable admitting.
    The boy had stirred in surprise, then in his state of fatigue, had let down his guard and welcomed Nashata’s warmth and company. Abel understood the boy. That knowledge ate at him. He didn’t know the reason for his anger, but he recognized the intensity of it. He’d had the same rage at Mark’s age—didn’t feel that distanced from it even now. Was close enough to it, in fact, that he felt a keen and unwelcome sense of empathy for both the boy and the woman.
    The woman . When he’d finally gone to bed he’d tried to convince himself he didn’t like having his privacy invaded. Told himself it was a curse not a blessing, knowing that somewhere in this cabin, a human heartbeat other than his own pulsed softly. A body other than his own shared space and warmth and silence.
    The problem was that her presence in his home had intensified his feelings of loss—and of how alone he’d felt the night he’d broken down and let J.D. place that ad.
    He set the poker in the stand, his thoughts returning against his will to Mackenzie Kincaid. To her softness, her slim curves, to the puzzle that had sent her to him. As he had last night, he found himself stacking common sense against uncommon need and wondering if, despite her troubled kid brother and the threat hanging over his business, he’d have the sense to send her back to L.A.
    He considered his life to date: a past littered with regrets, a future promising more of the same. He was thirty-five years old. He’d either been alone or felt alone for every one of them. That he’d always been and would always be an outsider was a truth