Read Caught Between a Lie and True Love (Caught Between series Book 1) for Free Online Page B

revered by all.”
    He took a step back and pulled his hand from hers. “You shouldn’t have done that without talking to me first, Mattie. I’m leaving, and nothing is going to change my mind. Why would you do such a thing?”
    Hope and desire shriveled up inside of her. With a frustrated huff, she planted her fists on her hips. “I thought you were different, Harry, but you don’t listen to me any more than Herbert did. I’ve told you repeatedly, after I get custody of Hope, I won’t be able to travel.”
    The Judge shook his head. “You’re too old to be shackled to a teenager.”
    “Too old?” Matilda stared at him. Sometimes men could be idiots and right this very second, Harry was the biggest idiot of them all.
    He captured one of her hands in both of his and pressed it against his heart, the anger in his gaze evaporating, only to be replaced with something softer, more desperate. “You have to choose between Hope and me. You can’t have us both.”
    But the look in his eyes suggested he already knew what her answer would be.
    She tugged her hand free, stuck it behind her back and found the doorknob, giving it a twist, then a shove, and let the fresh evening air cool her off. “We’re done, Harry. Over. Complete. Totally finished. When you come to your senses and accept that one day Hope will be mine, we can resume our Tuesday and Thursday night ritual. But until then, I don’t want you to speak to me.”
    Matilda descended the steps of the gigantic motorhome with as much dignity as she could, despite the four inch heels that didn’t belong anywhere near a vehicle that took its occupants to a campground. No, indeed, not for her, she seethed with a shudder. If there was one thing she disliked, it was spiders and mosquitoes and the heavy smell of a campfire lit in the campground next door.
    She stomped off.
    Part way home, she had to stop and yank off the hellish heels, before she proceeded to storm the rest of the way home in her nylon covered feet. Until a loose rock on the sidewalk stabbed the underside of her foot. She huffed out an angry swear word her mother had never allowed her to use and limped the rest of the way.
    Too old to raise a teenager .
    The damn man wanted to marry her and he didn’t know a damn thing about her.
    Men were pigs. She’d realized that the moment she’d said I do to her first husband which he’d somehow translated into a belief that he owned her. And even though she’d thought Harry would be different, he wasn’t.
    As she slipped in and out of the shadows, finally closing herself inside her dark house, she threw the new shoes into the back of the closet.
    Out of sight, out of mind.
    Now, if only she could forget the thrill of Harry in her arms with the same ease.
    Matilda resisted the urge to grab the chocolate fudge out of the freezer and inhale it, instead taking her frustration out with a forty minute walk on the treadmill.
    No matter how much she might miss that old fool, she could get by without the inconvenience of those Tuesday and Thursday nights. All that prep took up too much of her valuable time anyway—time better spent coming up with new strategies to destroy the evil man who had her granddaughter.
    Harry, the old fool, wasn’t worth another second of her time—time she’d wasted soaking and shaving and lathering her body in an attempt to hide the fact that she wasn’t young and fresh anymore.
    All she had to do was remember that Harry wasn’t the only fish in the sea.
    She could find someone else to run for Mayor.
    She could take care of her Tuesday and Thursday night releases on her own.
    And if not, there were other men who would do the dirty deed.

CHAPTER SIX

    Paige spent the evening getting settled, tip-toeing around Gram, being careful not to step on the elderly woman’s tender sensibilities. Except there was nothing tender about the old woman at all, especially when she turned off the lights at eight-thirty and like a military commander,