Read Her Knight in Black Leather for Free Online

her before — and he was pretty sure he knew almost everyone in town — he would’ve guessed she spent her entire life here. She had the small town look about her, like she belonged here, and that thought only made him that much more curious.
    “You’re a surprise at every turn. You’d think growing up that way would’ve warned you against guys like me.”
    “Guys like you?”
    His heart pounded at what he knew he had to tell her next. He didn’t know her from Eve, but he had no desire to be the one to put more disappointment in her beautiful eyes.
    “Yeah. I left town ten years ago, determined never to come back, and I don’t plan on staying long.”
    Her brows rose in disbelief, and she pulled back. “You’re from Crest Point?”
    “Born and raised.” He flashed a half-smile. “Why is that surprising?”
    Her eyes slid slowly over his face then stopped on his mouth. Oh, he knew that’s what she stared at. He felt it through every pore in his body. When she caught him noticing, her gaze skittered away and she turned back to the water. “I don’t know. You seem like a drifter. Like you’re breezing through this town on your way to somewhere bigger.”
    “Actually, you’d almost be right. I really have nothing that roots me here, makes me want to stay.”
    What he couldn’t bear to tell her was he spent the past ten years running from the pain of the memories. This town was the last place he wanted to be. Here the memories were stronger, more vivid. The pain more acute. Every scornful look from the townspeople — from his father — only increased the guilt that sat hard and cold in his gut for too many years now. It had been there so long it had become an old friend, something he was sure he’d take to his grave. He didn’t want to know if she’d ever heard of him, if she’d ever heard the story, what she thought about any of it.
    Cat turned her gaze to him, one delicate brow arched. “What about your family?”
    He chuckled. “You’re a very intuitive woman, you know that?”
    She gave a nonchalant shrug. “You’re easy to read. You’re very open.”
    He shook his head.
    “The funny part is, I’m not this open with anyone else.” He paused, his voice lowering, softening with the emotion that swelled in his chest. “There’s just something about you that keeps pulling things out of my mouth I’m not even sure I ought to be telling you. You’d be right there, too. My father’s in the hospital. He suffers from congestive heart failure, and he’s had a bit of a setback.”
    Maybe it was the quietness of the night. Maybe it was the soft feminine feel of her beside him or the way she seemed to accept him at face value. Whatever it was, the effortlessness that sat between them caught him. It should have warned him to turn and run, and yet the words flowed off the tip of his tongue.
    “My father and I don’t get along. My whole life it’s been war between us. He has high expectations I don’t seem to be able to live up to. Nothing I did ever seemed right, and I had a chip on my shoulder as big as this entire state. If he couldn’t accept me the way I was, then I was determined to be everything he hated.” He released a heavy breath, regret settling like a rock in his gut. “But he’s sick, and I’ve grown up. I’m tired of running from my past. I came back to make peace with him before he dies. The sad part is, I’ve tried this once before. I came back two years ago, but it didn’t end well.”
    It was one of his biggest regrets. He came back to make amends and had instead let old wounds resurface and get in the way.
    “What happened?” A soft curiosity filled her gaze, her face open, no judgment in the depths of her eyes, and once again it called to him like a beacon. While some part of him told him he shouldn’t say it, the words spilled from his mouth anyway.
    “It went the way it always did. We argued, I said things I shouldn’t have, decided my father hadn’t changed a