Read At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) for Free Online Page B

“That’s over,” she said.
    Brad let his hands fall to his sides, his eyes serious now. “Right,” he replied. “Which room?”
    Ashley told him, and he left the kitchen, the inside door swinging behind him long after he’d passed through it.
    She kept herself busy by taking mugs down from the cupboard, filling Mrs. Wiggins’s dish with kibble the size of barley grains, switching on the radio and then switching it off again.
    The kitten crunched away at the kibble, thenclimbed onto its newly purchased bed in the corner near the fireplace, turned in circles for a few moments, kneaded the fabric, and dropped like the proverbial rock.
    After several minutes had passed, Ashley heard Brad’s boot heels on the staircase, and poured coffee for her brother; she was drinking herbal tea.
    As if there were a hope in hell she’d sleep a wink that night by avoiding caffeine.
    Brad reached for his mug, took a thoughtful sip.
    â€œWell?” Ashley prompted.
    â€œI’m not a doctor, Ash,” he said. “All I can tell you for sure is, he’s breathing.”
    â€œ That’s helpful,” Ashley said.
    He chuckled, and the sound, though rueful, consoled her a little. He turned one of the chairs around backward, and straddled it, setting his mug on the table.
    â€œWhy do men like to sit like that?” Ashley wondered aloud.
    He grinned. “You’ve been alone too long,” he answered.
    Ashley blushed, brought her tea to the table and sat down. “What am I going to do?” she asked.
    Brad inclined his head toward the ceiling. “About McCall? That’s up to you, sis. If you want him out of here, I can have him airlifted to Flagstaff within a couple hours.”
    This was no idle boast. Even though he’d retired from the country-music scene several years before, at least as far as concert tours went, Brad still wrote and recorded songs, and he could have stacked his royalty checks like so much cordwood. On top of that, Meg was a McKettrick, a multimillionaire in her own right. One phone call from either one of them, and a sleek jetwould be landing outside of town in no time at all, fully equipped and staffed with doctors and nurses.
    Ashley bit her lower lip. God knew why, but Jack wanted to stay at her place, and he’d gone through a lot to get there. As impractical as it was, given his condition, she didn’t think she could turn him out.
    Brad must have read her face. He reached out, took her hand. “You still love the bastard,” he said. “Don’t you?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she answered miserably. She’d definitely loved the man she’d known before, but this was a new Jack, a different Jack. The real one, she supposed. It shook her to realize she’d given her heart to an illusion.
    â€œIt’s okay, Ashley.”
    She shook her head, started to cry again. “Nothing is okay,” she argued.
    â€œWe can make it that way,” Brad offered quietly. “All we have to do is talk.”
    She dried her eyes on the sleeve of Jack’s old shirt. It seemed ironic, given all the things hanging in her closet, that she’d chosen to wear that particular garment when she’d gotten dressed that morning. Had some part of her known, somehow, that Jack was coming home?
    Brad was waiting for an answer, and he wouldn’t break eye contact until he got one.
    Ashley swallowed hard. “Our mother died,” she said, cornered. “Our mother . And you and Olivia and Melissa all seemed—relieved.”
    A muscle in Brad’s jaw tightened, relaxed again. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “I guess I was relieved,” he admitted. “They said she didn’t suffer, but I always wondered—” He paused, cleared his throat. “I wondered if she was in there somewhere, hurting, with no way to ask for help.”
    Ashley’s heart gave one hard beat,