Read Sunny Chandler's Return for Free Online Page B

participate in enacting the fantasies he whispered about, he had eased her back, smiled, and said, “I’ve stayed too long. I’ve got to go.”
    As she watched, trembling with remnant desire and rage, he had hopped down into his boat. As he unwound the rope from the pile he said, “I’d be careful sitting out here like that if I were you. There’s all kinds of wackos prowling these woods, and your nearest neighbor lives over a mile away.”
    She had followed the direction of his gaze down and, to her further mortification, discovered that their embrace had worked down the top of her bikini. The creamy tops of her breasts were swelling out of it. She viciously tugged it back into place.
    He winked audaciously a second before he replaced his sunglasses. “I’ll be seeing you later, Sunny.”
    Then, with a jaunty wave, he had left.
    Sunny pulled the sheet over her nakedness, rolled to her side, and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d feel better after a nap. Maybe she was in the middle of a nap already and would soon wake up to discover that her visit from Ty Beaumont had been only a bad dream.
    His taste lingered on her lips and tongue. She could still feel him, full and firm, pressing against the cradle of her femininity. His denim shorts had felt so good against her bare thighs. The ragged fringe had tickled. Her breasts flushed with heat and tingled with sensations every time his evocative words echoed in the chambers of her mind.
    She hated him.
    She woke up hours later, disoriented and uncomfortable. She stretched her cramped muscles. Her skin felt tight and was stinging from overexposure to the sun.
    She got out of bed and pulled the nightgown back on. Her growling stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the grapefruit this morning. She padded into the kitchen and cooked herself an omelet. Maybe tomorrow evening she’d eat dinner out. But she didn’t feel like facing people tonight. Not if everything Ty Beaumont had said was true.
    Had people who had known her all her life really thought those terrible things about her? No wonder they had stared at her last night at the party as though she were a freak.
    And by going into town, she ran the risk of seeing Don and Gretchen. She couldn’t bear that.
    She cleaned up her few dishes and switched out the kitchen light. There was nothing to do until she grew sleepy again but read or watch television. She was trying to decide which when she heard the noise outside.

Three

    Old houses settled and made creaking noises, right?
    Right.
    Branches knocked against the eaves when the wind blew, right?
    Right.
    So there was no need to panic, right?
    Wrong. Because the noise was coming from the shed behind the house where her father used to clean fish. It couldn’t have been made by settling timber or by the wind.
    Sunny’s heart was pounding so loudly that she thought she might have imagined the whole thing. But when she heard the noise again, like something or someone stamping through the underbrush behind the shed, she broke out in a cold sweat of fear.
    Thankfully she realized she had already turned off the light in the kitchen. She crept toward the window over the sink, which afforded a view of the back of the property all the way down to the dock and the lake beyond. Her hand was shaking when she moved the curtain aside, creating a crack no wider than an inch, but wide enough for her to peek through.
    Nothing. It was a dark night. There was only a partial moon, and it was obscured by clouds. The wind had picked up. The lake was choppier than it had been earlier in the day. It looked as though the clouds on the horizon might produce a summer storm after all.
    Sunny stood motionless at the window for several minutes. Nothing beyond it stirred, except for the trees that bent gracefully in the wind. What she had heard must have been just blowing branches. She let the curtain fall back into place.
    Shaking her head, amused and irritated with herself for