Read To Love and Cherish for Free Online Page A

spins until her head ached, and her neck felt as if it was going to break. But it was delicious, every minute of it.
    â€œOh, I wish I was up there with them!” she breathed, her eyes bright with challenge and sheer joy.
    King looked down at her from his superior height with narrowed eyes. “You’re full of surprises,” he said absently. “Not the tame little lamb you appear to be, are you, Shelby? That part of you’s an act, and Danny doesn’t even realize it.”
    â€œAn act?” she echoed blankly, looking up at him.
    â€œYou’re a passionate woman,” he said flatly. “Your eyes are full of it. Your mouth…” His eyes dropped to it, tracing its softness. “You keep the passion well hidden, but it’s there, all the same.”
    She blushed, turning away. She didn’t even answer him.
    â€œEmbarrassed?” he asked, moving closer to where they stood at the fence around the airport apron. “Why?”
    â€œI…I wish you wouldn’t….”
    â€œYou run every time I mention intimate relationships,” he said quietly. “The last time, you ran away in the middle of the night and had the whole household in an uproar worrying about you.”
    She blushed even more, and her fingers clenched inward until the knuckles turned white. “What yousaid about me that night…it wasn’t true!” she whispered.
    â€œI don’t remember saying anything about you,” he replied frankly. “I invited you into my bed, you said ‘no’, and I left you standing on the stairs.”
    Her eyes closed on the memory. He’d looked at her that night as if she’d been a slave girl on auction, his eyes insolent and calculating. She hadn’t dared tell Danny what happened. After all, King was the brother he worshipped. She couldn’t tear down that image. But it was what King had said that hurt the most—“Your mother wouldn’t have said no,” he’d taunted sarcastically. “You won’t fool me with that virginal act, either, Shelby. I’ll bet you’ve given out a dozen times before tonight, so why not me?”
    But she’d refused him, and he’d never know how it had cut her, thatcold-blooded proposition he’d made without even touching her. She could still almost hate him for it.
    There was a long, tight silence between them. “Anything could have happened to you that night, alone on the highway after midnight,” he said in a voice she didn’t recognize. “My God, how could you have been so stupid, Shelby?”
    â€œI only wanted to get away from you,” she said in a low voice. “I’d have walked through hell to get away from you that night.”
    A shadow passed across his face, but he didn’t answer her. He threw his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the heel of his dress boot. “I’ve had enough. Let’s go.”
    She followed him back to the car and got in beside him. The sense of comradeship that had lasted between them for such a short time was gone again; this time, perhaps for good.

Four
    S helby sat with Danny at lunch, eating barbecue under the Spanish moss beards of the towering live oaks. Across the way, at the table with Jim and Kate Brannt, Mary Kate Culhane was shooting poisonous glances in Shelby’s direction.
    â€œYou’re not enjoying yourself,” Danny said gently. “Did King start on you again?”
    â€œDid King ever stop?” she asked with soft laughter. “I don’t know what possessed me to go with him to the air show, or why he asked me. We’re like soda and vinegar….”
    â€œOr fire and wind,” Danny teased. His green eyes probed hers. “Give it a chance, Shelby.”
    She frowned. “Give what a chance?”
    He looked vaguely uncomfortable and quickly changed the subject. “Did you enjoy the air